By Vickie Sullivan, Contributing Editor
Thanks to social media, everyone's atwitter (excuse the pun) about building a community of engaged and excited prospects. The ROI seems like a given; many of us know we want a community and know communities are important. The problem: many professional service firms are not clear about what exactly they want the community to do. And because of that lack of clarity, campaigns usually fail to meet the nebulous expectation.
Here are the three most common types of communities and how they can grow your business. These models are not necessarily mutually exclusive; there is some overlap. But keep in mind, every community has a primary objective.
Big Group, Big Buzz
Many professional service firms create what I call a Word of Mouth community. (This can happen by accident as a result of outreach campaigns that get a lot of attention but generate few sales.) This is a community that has a smaller percentage of qualified buyers but has a lot of fans. Members are engaged via exchanging ideas and content. The experts have great ideas and a unique brand, and they've done a good job at wide distribution.
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