Community building – ConversionXL, Carrie Melissa Jones

“Community” is the hottest word in marketing since “social”, and for good reason. Strong communities help brands unlock unprecedented wins across innovation, customer retention, marketing, and employee engagement. And in our increasingly isolated era, we need communities in our lives more than ever.

In this course, you’ll learn how to create communities that inspire meaningful brand engagement. Discover research techniques and growth strategies to help you shape and build a powerful community experience.

Calling something a “community” doesn’t make it one

Many brands think they’re building a community. But they’re feeding transactional relationships. Or calling their audience-building efforts “communities” in the hopes that one will magically appear. The only way to build a true brand community is with a solid foundation and tactical plan from the start.

This course will demystify the components of strong communities, giving you the language and tools to gather your first brand community members. Learn how to gather, lead, and grow an engaged brand following. Avoiding common pitfalls and costly mistakes along the way.

After taking this course you’ll…

• Know how to distinguish between a real community and a mirage community, and identify the necessary conditions for a community to take shape
• Craft a compelling purpose statement to set your community apart and help you focus on who and what really matters
• Be able to use community research techniques to define and build a solid community of fans
• Have a set of realistic goals and projections for engagement, leadership and growth
• Develop a complete set of founding member requirements to inspire high-touch member engagement
• Gain the confidence to gather the people important to your success in a meaningful community experience that inspires trust, advocacy, and loyalty.

This course is essential for you if…

• You’ve tried creating Facebook groups, Slack teams, forums, or Discord/Whatsapp channels, but the results feel random, lackluster, time-consuming, or all of the above.
• You want to build an authentic and exciting brand community that creates value for your organization and your community members
• You know that community building is powerful but you don’t know where to begin. You want a clear step-by-step approach to erase the overwhelm and get you unstuck.

This course is NOT for you if…

• You expect immediate results and won’t invest in building relationships with your members, experimenting, and iterating over 6-18 months.
• You want to create a community that manages itself. There is no such thing as a self-managing community. It requires an ongoing commitment, even if you have brought on volunteer community leaders.
• You want growth hacks, quick tips and tricks. Authentic community building is not extractive. It focuses on generating value for all involved using durable principles.