In the past, if you wanted to connect with someone in another country, you had to book a plane ticket and visit them. Today, all you need is a strong wi-fi connection to collaborate with people in any country in the world. Not only can you chat with a friend from France on social media, but you can also hire a contractor in Australia, order raw materials from Thailand, and ship products to Germany all in a single day.
Our world is no longer limited by geographical location, and as such, US-based organizations cannot afford to neglect their international consumers. Businesses must connect with their customers where they are: online. International communities are the key to gathering feedback from customers worldwide, and in this article, we will detail the best way to make your online community successful.
Online Communities Make A Difference
For organizations trying to get to the heart of what makes their international customers tick, online communities make all the difference. Some of the benefits of online communities include faster insights for quick decision making, cost savings from having multiple countries represented in a centralized platform, streamlining of data by using the same lens for all countries, and the illustration of cultural differences.
Keys To Success
Now that we know the benefits of international communities, we can look at some of the ways to make your community successful.
- Proper coordination: Ensure that you have one main point person for each country in your community. Ideally, this person would be a local of the country they represent. The country coordinator will be responsible for sending products to consumers, scheduling meetings, promoting local products or launches, and organizing surveys.
- Efficient recruitment: A community is only as good as the members within it. You need to focus on finding the right members that will be engaged and active in the forum. Recruitment can be done on both an international and local level.
- Moderation: To keep your group focused, you will also need to find an experienced moderator. A moderator is responsible for reviewing comments and maintaining community standards. Moderators should also offer fun activities and prizes for participants.
- Speak local and analyze global: It’s essential to have local moderators who know both language and cultural nuances. Local moderators will play a critical role in coordinating community data analysis quantitively, qualitatively, and on a hybrid basis.
- Support the community internally: To build a thriving online community, it’s imperative that your entire organization is aware of the community and its goals. The community should be visible and valuable for all internal employees.
- Rely on experts: Lastly, you need to rely on the experts when it comes to building a thriving international community. For example, Strategir can help you with your consumer research methods, including qualitative, quantitative, and hybrid. At the same time, Fuel Cycle provides a powerful online platform for all-in-one research and agile customer insights.
If you want to learn more about international communities, watch our webinar, “Making Your International Community a Success”.
