While it is true that in order to compete in the market you need to have a product or service as a solution for your potential customers, it is also true that without a community your business has no future. So start by asking yourself why create a community.
First of all, keep in mind that a community is a group of people who share similar interests. When you make your business part of those similar interests, you can count on this community to buy products or services, and recommend them.
Now, to have a community you need an ecosystem where they can be together and coincide, share content. This ecosystem can be a social network, a group, and even your website as a meeting platform.
It is also necessary to offer them something that keeps them within the ecosystem, attentive and participating.
In this article we will introduce you to one of the most ideal plugins to make a platform for a community on your WordPress site.
With BuddyPress you have important elements for a community
BuddyPress is the plugin that we will recommend today. With this tool you can create a space where users can meet to consume content and share their comments, to interact with each other and with your business.
Another advantage that you can get positive results from is allowing your members to generate content for the community directly from their user area. Sounds interesting right, you can do this using BuddyPress, BuddyForms and BuddyForms BuddyPress Members.
However, in order to make the space work, you will first need to have an audience. What we recommend is to work on attracting users with special characteristics according to the solutions you can offer them.
The idea is that these users integrate a community that finds value on your website, and thus are willing to obtain a membership to access the space where you will deepen the concept of community.
BuddyPress will allow you to create a social network, because a network is a group of people who socialize among themselves and share their points of view, and consume content to grow.
So, suppose that you have an online store, and you sell shoes. You have an attractive product, a brand with positioning potential, good prices and models. But you need a community that is attracted to shoes.
With BuddyPress you can create a space for those who buy your product, where they find information about new releases, or how to better combine their outfits, and topics like those that are of interest.
This will give you an advantage, and that is that the community will identify more with your shoes because they will develop more attachment to the brand.
And it is one of the reasons why creating a community for your business, because you will have people attentive to your launches.
Why not just support yourself on existing social networks?
It is true that there are already social networks where you can form communities, and we recommend that you use them as spaces to also share and interact with your audience, however we recommend that you go further.
We mean that you can direct your audience on social networks to a more exclusive space, and share content in that space.
Keep in mind that the content you publish on social networks may be lost at the time they decide to close your account due to a malicious report or other circumstances.
All the effort you will have invested in content will be lost in a moment. On the other hand, in your own community you can capture user data to manage it and use it in subsequent campaigns.
You can, for example, create a personalized email sequence for your community, and you will have their data because they will have registered to enter the exclusive space.
Within the exclusive community you can offer affiliate programs, ambassador incentives that promote your services or products, you can create exclusive offers for the community and they will respond positively because they are already segmented.
The best thing is that if users are in the exclusive community, created with BuddyPress, it means that they have previously answered a call to action and signed up, so they show interest in what you can share with them.
Now that you know why create a community, take action!
Now that you understand the reasons why creating a community, it’s time to take action. Take advantage of the features of BuddyPress, which, as we have already told you, is presented as a great solution for your business.
You will be able to organize forums, and decide which users will be able to navigate in the area to consume content and interact.
BuddyPress is ideal because:
- It has many extensions that add new functionalities
- It is easy to install and configure
- BuddyPress is flexible
- Groups can be created
- You can combine it with other plugins, like BuddyForms
and more…
With BuddyPress, you can collect data from your users and thus develop good sales campaigns, loyalty programs and continue expanding your business.
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