The Importance of Building a Community to Earn Loyal Followers

Have you ever wondered why some people seem to have die-hard followers? How they manage to have high engagement rates on their content or how they seem to sell a lot of whatever it is they are offering to their audience?

It’s usually because they have worked hard to build a community of loyal followers on their social platforms.

This is an interesting topic that I seem to always circle back to when people ask me how to attract a loyal and supportive fan base/audience or clients.

So, how do you build a Community in your Niche?

It’s all about the way you communicate.

If you shift some of your focus towards communicating in a positive and supportive way, it will assist you in Building a Community of Loyal and Supportive people.

And I’m not talking about long a$$ motivational posts or hyper-positive/toxic positive descriptions under each image you post. I’m talking about being honest in the way you communicate and shifting your focus to your audience to build a genuine connection with them.

I have come up with three letters for you to remember when Communicating on Social Media, whether it’s through imagery/videos, descriptions or through DMs to assist you with building up a sense of community across your Socials so you too can earn yourself a loyal fanbase:

The three letters are AAA: Acknowledgement, Acceptance & Appreciation

Acknowledgment

Acknowledgment is defined as “the act of recognizing the existence of someone/something.” The way you respond to new followers on your Socials, the way you interact with existing fans and followers, and the way you present yourself in order to attract more followers all come to play here.

It’s really important to acknowledge the people who support you as well as acknowledging the people who are yet to be fans or clients.

The best way to show acknowledgment is to always ensure you reply back to all comments and messages in a timely manner across your socials.

If you’re posting a new piece of content on Instagram, you should be ready to respond to comments the moment they are posted. I usually dedicate up to an hour after posting on IG so I can respond to comments instantly, this helps boost your post to a wider audience organically.

Send voice notes to your followers that DM you on Instagram, this method is as authentic and personal as it gets, and is usually much appreciated by your followers.

Make an effort to ensure your replies are genuine and complementary whenever possible, rather than just reply back with a couple of emojis across your socials, take a moment to quickly check out your follower’s page/account and notice something about them that you can compliment or refer to in your response.

Eg; “Hey John, thanks for the love on my new post… P.S You have some really decent gear in your studio!” or “Hi Kate, thanks for the compliment… By the way, your latest track “insert their latest release name here” sounds beautiful!”

The idea is to be genuine, personal, and make your followers smile. This is a hugely rewarding process, and if you can dedicate some time to connecting with your audience instead of scrolling on social media, I promise it will make a huge difference!

Acceptance

In social psychology, the need to belong is an intrinsic motivation to affiliate with others and be socially accepted. Now is always the perfect time to learn Acceptance no matter the race, religion, socio-economic status of your fans or audience. There is no room for racism or prejudice ever! Help make the world a better place by being more accepting of others.

Being accepting of others should be self-explanatory, but unfortunately, it’s something a lot of humans still choose not to be.

In a perfect world, we would all accept one another and get along, but a perfect world may never exist, which is why it’s even more important to be kind and supportive to your audience. To make a big difference in the world, we need each individual to make a small change.

If every person who reads this chooses to accept others for who they are, that’s going to be potentially thousands of people making a difference.

Understand that your audience is going to be a mixture of different races, different cultures, different sexual preferences and different genders, the sooner you embrace and accept individuals for who they are, the sooner the world will become a better place for everyone.

Appreciation

The easiest and most effective way to Recognise/Acknowledge fans and followers is to be Appreciative! When we show appreciation, we instill loyalty, which helps to develop a genuine relationship with the people we interact with. It will increase your value to the market. When you show your appreciation to others, their respect for you will grow, and so will your influence as a leader in your Niche.

Do you remember the last time you really felt appreciated? Do you remember the last time your boss or business partner told you how valuable you are to them or their business and showed gratitude and appreciation for your hard work?

A lot of people don’t get the appreciation and recognition they deserve. A small gesture of appreciation can go a long way, and we all know how nice it feels to feel appreciated.

How did it make you feel the last time a random Producer on Instagram sent you a DM with no context and just a link to their latest track? I know for a fact it annoys the hell out of me, and they wonder why they can’t grow their fan/client base…

How did it make you feel the last time someone hit you up with a “Hey, how have you been?” only to ask for a favour after you tell them how you feel. This happens to me often, and it’s not a nice feeling.

This is why it’s really important to be a person who shows gratitude and appreciation towards the people who support you, follow you, watch your videos, comment on your posts and take the time out of their day to send you a message.

A simple way to show appreciation is to be genuine in your responses to your followers and supporters.

Out of these two responses that I’m directing at you (yes YOU the person who’s reading this blog right now), Which one makes you feel more appreciated??

“Thanks for reading my latest article” or “Thanks for taking the time to read my latest article. I appreciate you!”

I know everyone will have a different opinion on those two responses, and both are fine in the grand scheme of things, however, if you would really like to focus on building a loyal fanbase and going that extra mile to build a genuine connection between you and your audience, it’s beneficial to put in a little extra effort to be more appreciative.

In today’s world, people have many choices of who they get to work with and why. They absolutely prefer to work with people they like and trust and who show an interest in them.

Using the three A’s, you will become a much better communicator, and your audience will appreciate you.

About the Author

Noella Nix is a Music Producer, Songwriter & Artist from Australia. She teaches Sound Production, Music Business & Social Media Marketing at University and has written 4 Music Industry eBooks. Connect on Instagram