How to Turn Your Audience into a Community That Converts

While building an audience is more effective with the rise of social media platforms and tools for creators, cultivating a strong community remains elusive. But, if you can harness the power of your audience and create opportunities for them to connect with one another directly, you have the potential to unlock new sales opportunities and revenue streams previously unavailable to your business. 

Launch an online course

Once you have a few sites under your belt, merchandise your expertise through an online course. Courses provide natural opportunities for community building, as students can simultaneously benefit from connecting with one another while learning. 

Launch registration for your course in cohorts and invite students to participate in live sessions to share what they’ve learned, or create a community forum where they can discuss each lesson. If you decide to go with a cohort model, consider whether you’ll run multiple cohorts  concurrently or one at a time. You’ll also want to decide how many members to invite to each cohort so it doesn’t become a burden to support so many students at once.

Connect your social media followers to each other

If you’ve already invested in building a social media following, you have an audience primed to connect with one another and share what they’ve learned from you. Many social media platforms have group chat features that you can use and seed conversation prompts. You can periodically invite new members to join the group chat, or start a new chat for your followers to connect on certain topics. Consider asking your group questions such as, “What’s one project everyone is tackling this week?” or “What’s something you want to learn more about?” These questions spark discussion, create opportunities for you to potentially spot leads, open up opportunities for members of your new community to support one another, and give you ideas for future content.

Invite your subscribers to exclusive events

If you have launched a newsletter or collected emails through your website, you have the opportunity to turn these subscribers into community members through fireside chats or mastermind groups. Set up a monthly fireside chat or mastermind group exclusively available for those on your email list. 

Fireside chats are informal conversations between you and your community. They give you the opportunity to introduce a particular topic and open the floor to discussion between members. This format breaks down the barrier between the presenter and audience members, opening the room for relationship-building and creative conversations. 

Masterminds are groups in which attendees each share a problem they are working through and then invite others in the group to share their insight on how to solve it. This format is a great way for members of your new community to feel connected while bonding over a shared issue and finding resolutions together. They have the opportunity to offer advice, troubleshoot problems, and interact with one another.

We have worked with every type of business, building platforms for solo entrepreneurs through to multi-million dollar corporations. If you want to discuss a potential project, you can email on services@ahdconsultingsolution.com or get in touch with us here. Alternatively, you can book in a free 15-minute consultation call here.

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