Online communities have become an essential tool for businesses looking to connect with customers, partners, and other stakeholders. For B2B companies, building a strong online community can provide a wealth of benefits, including increased brand visibility, establishing your brand as a thought leader, generating leads, enhanced customer engagement, and valuable connections with industry peers.
However, building and maintaining a successful B2B community is not always easy. It requires careful planning, a clear understanding of your target audience, and a commitment to providing engaging content and opportunities for interaction and collaboration.
On top of that, B2B communities tend to have some additional challenges (compared to many B2C communities) like a limited number of members (your pool is often only as big as the number of B2B customers you have) and many of them can come in with high expectations.
In the sections below, I’ll answer the following questions in detail:
- What is a B2B community (incl. examples)?
- Additional Challenges of Building a B2B Community
- What are the risks of not tending to your B2B community?
- How do you build a B2B community?
By the end of this article, you’ll have a solid understanding of what a B2B community is, the benefits it can bring to your business, and the steps you need to take to build and maintain a successful one. Whether you’re a seasoned B2B marketer or just starting out, this guide will provide you with the knowledge and mindset you need to build a thriving online B2B community.
With the right approach and a clear plan in place, you can create a thriving community that meets your business’s unique needs and goals.
So let’s dive into the world of B2B communities and explore how you can build a successful one today.
1) What is a B2B community?
A B2B community refers to a virtual platform where businesses and individuals from different organizations can connect, collaborate, and exchange information and ideas. The main purpose of B2B communities is to provide a space for customers and industry professionals to network and share best practices, insights, and expertise with one another.
B2B communities can take many different forms (see below) that should provide valuable opportunities for businesses to engage with their peers, build relationships, and stay up-to-date on industry trends and advancements.
By fostering a sense of community and collaboration among industry professionals, B2B communities can provide valuable benefits to both individual members and their organizations as a whole.
1.1) Why do customers join a B2B community?
There are numerous benefits to becoming a member of a (your!) B2B community, including:
- Faster, potentially better answers: Any support team can only do so much, and can have only so much experience. An active (worldwide) community has the potential to provide answers faster, and also from different perspectives and experience levels, greatly improving the chances of members to resolve their issues as fast as possible.
- Networking Opportunities: B2B communities provide a platform for businesses and individuals to connect and network with one another. By participating in these communities, your customers can build relationships with peers, industry professionals and expand their network. This greatly correlates with their retention in using your product or services.
- Knowledge Sharing: B2B communities are a great place to exchange ideas, share best practices, and learn from the experiences of others. By participating in these communities, members can gain valuable insights and stay up-to-date on industry developments.
- Collaboration: B2B communities can facilitate collaboration among businesses and individuals, helping to drive innovation and new ideas. Whether members are looking to partner with others on a project or simply exchange insights and experiences, a B2B community can be a valuable resource.
- Access to Resources: B2B communities often provide access to a wealth of information, including documentation, tools, and experts in the field.
- Increased Visibility: By participating in a B2B community, members can increase their own visibility and establish themselves as a thought leader in your industry or even an ambassador for your product/service.
By joining a B2B community, your customers can tap into a wealth of resources, knowledge, and expertise that can help them and their business succeed. Often much more and much faster than your employees can.
1.2) Why put all the effort in running a B2B community?
As we will establish later in this article: building a B2B community is something that will take up a lot of resources and you’ll need to have patience for it to pay off. But it’s clear that building an online B2B community has numerous benefits for businesses that make it worth the investment.
Some of the key benefits include:
- It’s our natural way of doing things: Humans all search for a place to belong, a place where we can be part of something bigger than ourselves. Building communities on shared values and/or goals gives people another avenue or layer of meaning.
- Establishing thought leadership: A thriving B2B community can help establish your brand as a thought leader in your industry.
- Generating leads: By connecting with potential customers in a B2B community, you have the opportunity to generate leads for your business.
- Building customer loyalty: A B2B community provides a platform for customers to connect with your brand and receive support and feedback, helping to build customer loyalty over time.
- Sharing information and ideas: B2B communities provide a space for individuals to share information, exchange ideas, and collaborate on projects.
- Improve your customer support load and experience: as mentioned in 1.1.1, an active community can be seen as a 1st line support channel for your business, that might even be faster and better than your own support can ever be, freeing up time for your internal support team to focus on the more challenging issues.
- Great channel to get feedback on your product/service: by building a closer, trusted relationship, more feedback will reach you, and probably also sooner.
1.3) What are great examples of B2B communities?
Some general forms of communities include:
- Generic online Forums such as Quora and Reddit and to some degree LinkedIn Groups, provide a space for businesses to engage with others in their industry and discuss common challenges and best practices. Not owned by the company that produces the service or product the community talks about, but it can provide instant access to a huge user base.
- Niche-Specific Platforms: There are many communities that are specifically designed for (B2B) communities catering towards users of a specific product or service, industry professionals or interest groups. These communities are often fully owned by a product/service company, and you’ll often need to start from scratch.
- Industry-Specific Conferences and Trade Shows: Attending (or organizing) industry-specific conferences and trade shows can provide opportunities for businesses to connect with others in their industry, share ideas, and network.
- B2B Marketplaces: B2B marketplaces, such as Sourceability, provide a platform for businesses to connect with other businesses and find potential customers, suppliers, and partners.
Having a strong B2B community can bring many benefits to a business, and these different forms of communities provide a starting point for businesses to explore and find the right community for their needs and goals.
There are many successful B2B communities out there, each with its own unique focus and approach. Here are a few examples to inspire you:
- Salesforce Trailblazers: Learning community for certified SalesForce users.
- B2B Marketing Exchange: An international network of LinkedIn groups for B2B marketers to network and discuss industry trends.
- GrowthHackers: A community of growth professionals dedicated to driving sustainable growth through data-driven decision making.
- Uncommon: Niche community analytics tool CommonRoom that has an active and helpful Slack community for Community Managers/Analysts.
- Docker: Over 200+ meetups around the world, a monthly virtual user group and a great ambassador program (Docker Captains) for this container tool that is used by many developers worldwide.
- Magento: Great example of a fast growing international B2B community in the ecommerce industry (that I was part of) with its heydays around 2010-2018. During these years, many agencies and companies providing 3rd party services were founded and have been extremely successful. (And then Adobe bought it in 2018 and pretty much let it die out…)
These communities have all been successful in bringing together like-minded individuals and providing a platform for them to connect, collaborate, and exchange ideas.
2) Additional Challenges of Building a B2B Community
Building a successful B2B community requires overcoming a number of unique challenges that you see less in other (B2C) communities. Some of the most common challenges include:
- Lower number of community members: B2B communities often have a smaller pool of potential members compared to B2C communities. For B2C, your target audience is often “all consumers”, while a B2B community can be very limited to “All developers on the payroll of our B2B clients that are working on our product”. This can make it more difficult to build a critical mass of active members and can require more effort to keep the community engaged. Also see The 90-9-1 Rule for Participation in Online Communities.
- Limited engagement: B2B communities can be more focused on exchanging information and ideas, rather than socializing and building personal connections. This can lead to limited engagement and lower levels of participation, compared to more social B2C communities.
- High expectations: B2B community members are often highly knowledgeable and experienced, and may have higher expectations for the quality and value of the content and interactions in the community.
- Competition for attention: B2B communities may compete with other professional networks, such as LinkedIn, for the attention of potential members. It’s also more likely that your user are only logging in to your community during business hours.
- Concerns for anonymity: Often B2B communities are not anonymous, and asking questions or participating in discussions might give away what a company is working on, or it might even be seen as a personal failure that you need to ask a support question.
- Complex approval processes: To get started, B2B communities may require approval from multiple stakeholders, such as legal, marketing, and IT departments.
Not saying these apply to each and every B2B community and that these don’t happen in other communities. But B2B communities tend to see more of these challenges and it’s good to be aware of them.
Despite these challenges, the benefits of building a strong B2B community can be substantial. By understanding and addressing these challenges, B2B companies can build successful online communities that drive growth, foster collaboration, and enhance the overall customer experience.
3) What are the risks of not tending to your B2B community?
Neglecting your B2B community can have serious consequences, including a lack of engagement, declining customer base, and a negative impact on your brand.
- Lack of engagement: If your community is not well-tended, members may become disengaged and lose interest. This can lead to a decline in participation and a decrease in the value that your community provides.
- Churn: Neglecting your community can also lead to a decline in customers, as members leave in search of more active and engaging communities.
- Negative impact on brand: A poorly managed or neglected community can also have a negative impact on your brand, as members may associate your brand with a lack of commitment or a lack of attention to their needs.
- Loss of control/visibility: The community might start somewhere else where you have less control and visibility.
To avoid these risks, it is essential to invest in your B2B community and to provide the resources and support it needs to thrive. This includes regularly creating engaging content, fostering interaction and collaboration, and providing opportunities for members to connect and grow. By investing in your B2B community, you can ensure its success and the success of your brand.
4) How do you build a B2B community?
Granted, this very much depends on your audience, the product/service that you sell and your starting point. But below are some points that most of us need to consider:
4.1) Define Your Community’s Purpose and Goals 🎯
Before you start building your B2B community, it’s important to define its purpose and goals. This will help you to focus your efforts, attract the right members, and create a community that truly meets the needs of your business and its members.
When defining your community’s purpose and goals, consider the following questions:
- What do you want to achieve through your B2B community?
- Who are your target members and what do they need from the community?
- What kind of content and activities do you want to offer to your members?
Once you have answered these questions, you can use this information to develop a clear vision and mission statement for your community. This statement should succinctly articulate the purpose and goals of your community, and will serve as a guide for all your community-building efforts moving forward.
4.2) Identify Your Target Audience 💁♂️
Identifying your target audience is a critical step in building a successful B2B community. Knowing who your target members are will help you to create content and activities that are relevant and engaging, and to attract the right people to your community.
To identify your target audience, consider the following:
- Industry: What industry does your business operate in and what industries are your target members a part of?
- Demographics: What are the age, gender, and location of your target members?
- Job Roles: What job roles do your target members hold within their organizations?
- Interests and Needs: What are the interests and needs of your target members and how does your community meet those needs?
Once you have a clear understanding of your target audience, you can use this information to create content and activities that are tailored to their needs and interests, and to attract the right people to your community.
It’s also not uncommon to have multiple audiences combined in a single community. Like at Spryker our community exists not only of our direct customers (enterprise merchants), but also solution partners (agencies), technology partners (like AWS and payment providers) and freelancers. And in all of these cases, these members could lean more to the business side, or more on the technology/development side.
4.3) Choose the Right Platform 🚉
The platform you choose to host your B2B community can have a significant impact on its success. With a wide range of options available, it’s important to choose a platform that is both accessible and suitable for your target audience, and that provides the features and functionality you need to meet your community’s goals.
When choosing a platform, consider the following:
- Accessibility: Is the platform easily accessible for your target audience, and does it work well on a range of devices and browsers that your audience might use?
- Features and Functionality: Does the platform offer the features and functionality you need to support your community’s goals, such as group discussions, content sharing, and member profiles? Do you want the platform to be open or closed?
- User Experience: Is the platform user-friendly and does it provide a positive experience for your members? Does it integrate well with the other tools in your ecosystem?
- Cost: 💰 Does the platform offer the level of support and resources you need at a cost that is within your budget?
I’m currently right in the middle of a procurement process for a community platform, so this pain is very tangible for me at this moment 😄
4.4) Create Engaging Content 👍
Creating engaging content is key to building a successful B2B community. By providing valuable information, resources, and opportunities for discussion, you can attract and retain members, and foster a sense of community and connection.
When creating content for your B2B community, consider the following:
- Relevance: Make sure that your content is relevant and valuable to your target audience, and addresses their needs and interests.
- Variety: Offer a range of content, including articles, videos, podcasts, and webinars, to keep your members engaged and interested.
- Interactivity: Encourage interaction and discussion among your members, and provide opportunities for members to contribute their own content and ideas.
- Timeliness: Keep your content up-to-date and timely, and be responsive to the evolving needs and interests of your members.
❗️Do note that although you need engaging content, you need to have (or get) access to a great marketing/content team that can create this content. A community team should bring important topics to light and connect to and facilitate community creators, but creating the actual content should IMHO not be on a community teams todo list.
4.5) Foster Interaction and Collaboration 🤝
Interaction and collaboration are the cornerstone of any successful B2B community. By providing opportunities for members to connect, share ideas, and work together, you can foster a sense of community and create valuable connections.
When fostering interaction and collaboration in your B2B community, consider the following:
- Encourage discussion: Provide opportunities for members to share their thoughts and ideas, and to discuss topics of interest.
- Facilitate networking: Encourage members to connect with one another and build relationships through features like member profiles, private messaging, and virtual events.
- Promote collaboration: Encourage members to work together on projects, and to share resources and information to support common goals.
- Provide support: Make sure that members have access to the resources and support they need to succeed, and that they feel valued and appreciated.
By fostering interaction and collaboration, you can create a dynamic and supportive B2B community that drives value and success for both members and your organization.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, building an online B2B community is a crucial step for businesses looking to enhance their B2B activities and connect with other professionals in their industry. A B2B community provides a space for businesses to exchange information, collaborate, and connect with others, leading to increased business opportunities, enhanced relationships, and improved overall performance.
By considering the importance of a B2B community and following the steps outlined in this article, businesses can build a thriving and engaged community that supports their long-term success. Whether through LinkedIn groups, niche-specific social media networks, online forums, industry events, or B2B marketplaces, there are many ways for businesses to connect with others and grow their business. So why not start building your B2B community today and start reaping the many benefits it has to offer!
Additional resources
If you made it this far down then A) I’m impressed and B) you might be eager to learn even more about this topic. Here are some good resources:
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Blogposts:
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Books:
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Podcasts:
TIP: If your community is catering towards a technical audience with a lot of developers, I can highly recommend the content of Mary Thengvall (website) and Developer Relations by Caroline Lewko , and for you to check out content everywhere marked #DevRel.
By exploring these resources, you can gain a deeper understanding of how to build a successful B2B community, and leverage the power of online communities to drive growth and foster collaboration within your business.
Good luck and let me know your thoughts in the comments!