Have you made your content goals for the year? Where does building and connecting with your community fall on that list? If you’re into casually posting and are just looking for a good time, then maybe you don’t need to worry about community engagement. But if you really want to grow as a creator and make social media a more serious hustle, you have to always be looking for ways to build your community and engage with your audience.
Why? It draws in new viewers, keeps the ones you already have excited, and can help boost your content in the algorithm. But like all things in social media, it can be intimidating. It’s hard to know where to start and even harder to know if you’re doing it well.
In this article, we’ll share 10 ways that you can start engaging with your community and building your following. These are jumping off points, some of which will organically give you new ways to interact with your audience.
Start a Community Groupchat 🗫
With Clapper’s Groupchat feature, you can start a chat thread right in the app and connect with your followers in a whole new way. You’re in complete control of the chat, meaning you and your followers can discuss whatever you’d like. This is a great way to casually check in with them, or can be used strategically as another kind of content. Either way, Groupchats are a great way to break down the barrier between a creator and their audience.
Schedule Your Livestreams 📸
If you haven’t already, we suggest creating a small schedule for your Livestreams and posting it for your audience to see. Even if you only go Live once a week for an hour, your followers will know when they can chat with you or tune in for some additional content. It’ll keep them coming back for more and make it easier for new people to join the fun.
Try Something New 🧶
Test out a new hobby or explore a new area of your niche and document the process. Not only will this spice up your usual content and personality, but dabbling into new topics will catch the attention of new viewers. Plus, stepping outside of your comfort zone can really break down your walls and let followers see a new side of you. Sometimes watching creators struggle through something is endlessly entertaining.
Explore Some Places Around You 🧭
If you feel safe, visit some local haunts and take your audience with you. If you go to a new coffee shop, a store, or a park in your area, take some video and tell us what you thought of it. Again, stepping out of your comfort zone can show a new side of your personality, and people will learn more about you based on what places you explore. Your audience will also love exploring somewhere with (or through) you!
Host a Q&A or an AMA 🙋
If you haven’t yet, let your audience ask you questions and spend some time answering them. You could do this in a Radio, on a Livestream, or even collect their questions to answer in a video. This shows that you’re listening to them, helps them realize you’re a real human and not just a creator, and gives you some easy content to create!
Create a Challenge or Hashtag 🏆
The vast majority of social media trends are started by regular creators. This year, try starting a challenge for your audience. As they participate, their own followers will engage and want to learn more!
Join a Clapper Campaign 🎬
The Clapper team hosts tons of campaigns throughout the year. They target creators all across the platform and help participants create connections and find new audience members. When you’re involved with a Clapper campaign, you reach the app’s entire audience. There’s no better way to connect with followers outside your niche and forge connections with your fellow creators.
Explore Your Community’s Content 👥
Take some time to check out your followers’ profiles! You don’t have to do all of them – just a few. See what their content is like and give them a little engagement back. Not only will this give you a better idea of what your audience likes, but it shows you take an interest in their content and want to support them back. And dropping a few, meaningful comments will help you reach their audience, too. Oh, and it’s an excuse to continue scrolling through social media? It’s a win-win-win-win!
Start Your Clapper Fam Tiers 🔒
If you haven’t yet, we suggest taking advantage of the Clapper Fam Tiers! This feature lets you give special bonuses or rewards to paid supporters. This can include additional videos, merchandise, special hang-outs – whatever you’d like. Your most dedicated followers will flock to your tiers, giving you a deeper level of community engagement and keeping your audience hooked.
Build a Community Engagement Strategy 🗓️
While we’ve given you several quick examples of things to do, all of these can be part of a larger Community Engagement Strategy. This is a social media plan that revolves around creators engaging with their community or the larger ecosystem of the app they’re on. It includes responding to comments on your videos, answering DMs, liking videos in your niche, and interacting with other creators. This can work into your content schedule or be a separate part of your social media routine. Just make sure that your brand or vision anchors this strategy! Don’t feel like you have to do something “professional” or “casual” if that’s not your vibe. So long as you’re interacting with your community in a way that feels authentic to you, you’re doing a great job!
And, above all else, be yourself! Your followers are following you for a reason: they like you, whether or not you understand why. Try to genuinely chat and connect with them, just like you would a friend in real life. Once you get started and begin talking with your audience more, it will be second nature.