Building Online Communities

The remote world we are living in has opened companies eyes to the importance of creating a strong community around the product they are building

At Contra, we have grown a community of almost 10,000 Independents located all over the world! It has been so rewarding to see a community of people come together and connect over the wins, challenges, learnings and experiences that each independent has uniquely experienced on their journey to work for themselves.

What value does a community bring to a company?

👥 Access to our target users - the most important people are just a Slack away.

🧪 The ability to test product initiatives before building them from scratch.

🎯 Collect feedback from the people that know best.

💅 Develop brand recognition and loyalty.

How does a community benefit your users?

🤝 A place to connect with likeminded individuals

👀 The chance to hear things first! Tip: Give early access to members of your community. They'll be more willing to share feedback and bugs with you!

🏆 Access to resources and instant support.

How to get started?

1. Figure out where your users are already spending time. Independents/freelancer tend to join lots of Slack groups so we knew starting our community on Slack would be familiar to them. Tip: You do not need a paid plan on Slack to grow your community!
2. Make the community feel exclusive by reaching out to your target users and inviting them directly to join. This is especially important at first to ensure you are curating the community.
3. Share resources that adds value to the members of the community. The only way people will come back to your community is it they are gaining value from the community.
4. Do not sell your company or product. This will not be exciting to current or potential community members. Instead find ways of subtly sharing how your company or product can add value or solve a problem for the community members.
5. Facilitate connections between community members. This is the secret sauce to retaining community members.
6. Interested in learning more about building digital communities? Check out my community consultation service.