Building an engaged online community can have a domino effect on your brand and service offerings. As an instructor, building and nurturing your customers can positively impact a wide range of business outcomes: from driving more leads to improving brand loyalty to increasing user retention. As a student, being a part of a community feels empowering. In fact, 57% of people involved in an online community report feeling seen frequently or all of the time.
“Community engagement supports every member’s success by giving them access to the knowledge and value of the entire community. By supporting them in their work, it inspires their loyalty. It exposes people to new ideas, prompts product and service use, and rapidly surfaces shifting needs.” – The State of Community Management Report 2020
Balance provides fitness and wellness instructors the opportunity and tools to build a strong online community. This post outlines 7 steps to grow a community of engaged members or students.
- Identify Key Stakeholders:
If you are a fitness or wellness instructor, your key stakeholders will be anyone who takes your classes. It goes without saying that as students spend more time with you, the more they will feel connected and a part of your community.
Bonus Tip: Show your students you value their interaction and engagement by finding ways to reward and celebrate them, like shoutouts or progress badges.
- Define the Purpose and a Goal
If your community doesn’t have a purpose, people may not understand why they should join. Maybe your goal is to provide a safe space for students to practice or improve their skills.
You provide your community value, so remember that value is key.
- Build A Member Avatar Profile
The big question to ask yourself is, “Who do I want my community to serve?”.
Once you have your ideal member pinpointed, ask yourself:
- What can my community give them that they didn’t have before?
- How do I want them to feel before and after joining?
- What do these members gain by choosing me (instead of competition)?
Understanding your ideal member will help you create content that connects.
- Develop Rules and Norms For Your Members
Just because you are building a community to serve your students doesn’t mean it’s their community. If you have rules or norms, make them known, so members know what they have to abide by to be in your community.
Some communities don’t have rules or norms, but if there are things that you know you are not willing to tolerate, that is perfectly acceptable. For example, rules and norms can include not allowing members to speak negatively to each other or use profanity.
- Set Up Your Community
Now that you have established the purpose of your community, member persona, and rules, it is time to bring your community to life! The next step is to set up on your platform of choice.
- Utilize Balance to Engage Your Community
Balance provides instructors an all-in-one workflow management platform to manage their wellness offerings to serve students anywhere, any time! Balance allows instructors to communicate and stay in touch with their clients, followers and leads from one convenient place. To learn more about utilizing Balance to manage your community, please visit: https://www.balance-withus.com/
