A guide to cultivating an online community in Asia

It doesn’t take a genius to know that your business can’t survive or thrive without a passionate fanbase. This is especially true in the social media era. If the initial base of innovators and early adopters are interested, their excitement will catch the attention of their friends who will eventually jump on the bandwagon. To gain a strong following you have to first be patient. Such intense loyalty must be strategically planned and cultivated, especially in the Asian market.

Asia’s diverse, yet active market makes it an ideal place to develop a presence. This is even more true if you are in the ecommerce field. According to McKinsey, Asian consumers account for the majority of sales of all household items worldwide. However, in order to penetrate this market and build community, international companies need to localize and build trust within the continent’s various diverse segments.

So take the first step and start getting the ball rolling with these strategic methods.

Dedicate places for conversation

Conversations build relationships–and the more relationships are built, the greater your online community. So dedicate places for people to converse. Whether it’s through a commenting system, chat tools, or other means, people who contribute ideas together are able to create the bonds necessary to develop a flourishing community.

As a brand, you need to also get involved in the conversation. Make sure you are answering questions as well as asking them so you can find the topics your users actually care about. By building conversation around a need instead of just around your offerings, you will be viewed as a more user-oriented brand, ultimately resulting in a more engaged userbase.

Empower influencers

There are specific individuals that can be classified as thought leaders. These people are especially active on social media and as a result, have an incredibly loyal following. Your goal is to get these people to be as active on your site as they are on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin. This way, they can serve as an ambassador of your brand and get more people involved.

The trick of influencer marketing is first to identify your influencers. When I began using the strategy, I looked at who was posting, how many followers they had, and most importantly, how many “likes” and comments they achieved. These were great indicators of their level of influence and how much effect they have on the actions and opinions of others.

By reaching out, encouraging their activity, engaging them in conversation, and rewarding them for their loyalty they became more eager to give back and strengthen their engagement. As a result, more and more people got involved, causing growth in numbers as well as community bonds.

Write content that matters

We all know content is an incredibly important part of grabbing people’s attention and getting them to your site, especially given the fact that in order to achieve online community status, you need to be developing and cultivating conversation and actions. Yet, these conversations cannot easily develop organically if they are not being pushed by content.

Content serves as a catalyst for developing conversations. Whether it’s through blog posts, infographics, videos, or other types of content–having thought provoking pieces that give your users advice about the topics they care about gives them a sense of loyalty to your brand.

Now that we have established the importance of content, let’s talk methodology. While I’m still an avid  fan of traditional blog content as well as videos, interactive content is quickly becoming my new favorite. Interactive content is a creative and user-friendly way of producing engaging content and promoting activity onsite. Examples of interactive content include quizzes, contests, infographics, and more.This enriches the original blog content by making it more action-packed and original, ultimately encouraging more followers to get involved.

Generating a loyal and genuinely passionate fanbase throughout Asia is not for the weak hearted. But if you take the time and dedication necessary to cultivate relationships, build trust, and make your users interested in being a part of your community, I promise the rewards are definitely worth the hard work.