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Community building agency vs community builder: what's the best choice?
Community Building
Tooling
Community has been a hot topic for years now. But are you sure you really know how to launch yours?
- Building an online community: what are your options?
- Community management agency: why should you use it
- Community builder: why you should hire one
- To sum up
Community building is a part of B2B and B2C strategies and works in coordination with social media management and community management approaches. Organizations know the importance of community building but need an experienced individual or team to build a community and nurture it to ensure business growth.
Building an online community: what are your options?
Now there are two options for organizations that want to build an online community and use it with their social media management. First, they can hire a professional and experienced community builder who can work on it as an employee in the organization. Another option is to outsource the community building contract to a community management agency or freelance and let them handle everything required to build and manage a community.
Community building agency: the external choice
To establish a community, you must strengthen trust, credibility and relationships. With the internet, people can connect anywhere at any time. A community building agency is a company offering community building services to organizations to help them grow. If an organization prefers not hiring an in-house community builder, they have the option to outsource the project to an external agency.
More expensive, but less work for your collaborators
Outsourcing the community building project to an external agency is far more expensive than getting it done by an in-house employee. However, outsourcing the community building project has many benefits, as your collaborators can focus on their core tasks and do them more productively.
You have less control over the community building strategy
It is important to have control over your community building strategy to align it with your goals. When you hire an external community building agency, it can be difficult to check the process and results whether they align with your goals or not. Working with an in house community builder allows you to monitor every step of community building and monitor the results regularly. Moreover, in a community-led growth strategy, your growth is based on how you manage your community. So you definitely want to have full control over this, since it’s vital for your business.
Community builder: the internal choice
Organizations today understand the role of community builders, and many companies have an in-house community manager who works on various tasks in creating, nurturing and managing a community for the company.
Definition: Community builder: the future of community management?
A community builder handles a variety of responsibilities like creating the community from scratch, creating a strategy for the development/evolution of the latter, inviting people, creating events, communicating with the members, making relationships with people, collaborating with influencers, etc. The role of a community builder is to identify opportunities and build valuable connections between groups. They also create an environment to bring like-minded people together. Consequently, members feel free to ask and share questions. A community builder does not tell others what to do but creates a conducive environment where people can grow, share their views, and evolve together.
You have to find the right person.
Hiring the right professional for the position of community manager is not easy. Many people understand social media and work on that, but community builders are hard to find. Most people don't have the required skills and experience for this position. You must spend time researching professionals with community building/management skills and the right mindset to find the perfect person for your organization.
Organizes the events for community
The major role of a community builder is to reduce the gap between the community members and bring them together. He or she needs to arrange meet-ups and events and having an inhouse builder allows you to easily get involved in their arrangements and check the people you invite in your events. A community builder also acts as an event organizer for your community.
Work on a community led growth approach
Having an in house community builder allows you to have full control over the community building strategy. Moreover, it helps you create an environment for community led growth. When you have full control over your community, you can rely upon the community led growth approach for your business. This is not possible when you hand over the community building and management to an external agency.
Community management agency: why should you use it?
If you have a comfortable marketing budget
Outsourcing the community building project to a community agency is suitable for organizations with a comfortable marketing budget. However, startups and small firms may not have a sufficient budget in the beginning, and hiring a community builder can be the best option for small businesses.
Starting a community and managing it internally in the future.
If you are just starting a community from scratch and want to nurture and manage it internally in the future, you can work with a community management agency. Creating a community is a long-term strategy and not limited to its creation, so you might prefer to manage it internally. However, in the beginning phase, it is best to get it done by an experienced community support agency.
If you're lost and need help from professionals
Some business owners and managers are too busy to work on any new project, whether it's community building or anything else. If you want to focus more on existing projects and want your team to do the same, you should outsource your community-building project. If you are not able to handle the community building, it is better to outsource it to professionals, but it is essential to see it as a priority. Busy business owners should hire community management professionals with relevant expertise to build and nurture a community from the beginning.
Community builder: why you should hire one
If community building is already topical for you, but you want it to be even more important.
You are well versed with community building and its importance at present; hiring a community builder can be the right step towards growth. If you want to work more on community management and nurture it to make healthy relationships with others, hire a professional with years of experience in community building and management.
If you're ready to take community building to the next level
If you want to develop a real community-driven growth strategy, a community builder with relevant experience can help you do so. An in-house professional empowers you to take your community building to the next level and let you reap the results in less time.
To sum up
If you are planning to build a community from scratch for your company, it is best to outsource the project to a social media community management agency. Working with an agency will allow you to dive deeper into community building and understand its stakes. On the other hand, hiring a community builder is the best viable option if you are already familiar with community management and have worked on it and want to work on a community-led growth strategy.
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