In, The Benefits of Building a Community Around Your Brand, part one of this two-part series, we wrote about the benefits of building a community around your brand, which included the fact that it creates brand advocates, brand awareness and brand synergy. Read on for tips on how to start building community around your brand—so you can enjoy these benefits and grow your business.

Tip 1: Define Your Brand

Know what your brand stands for. If it’s superior craftsmanship, fresh ingredients or rock-bottom prices, it’s the foundation your community will be built upon.

Tip 2: Define Your Target

Consider the type of person you’d like in your brand community. Understand what motivates them and what they like and dislike. The more you know, the better.

Tip 3: Set Goals

Perhaps you’d like to deepen relationships or develop more referrals. Once you know what you’d like to accomplish you can build your community with a set plan in mind.

Tip 4: Start Building

With your target and goals in mind, put your brand community building plans into action. The following insights will help you build with confidence:

— Resist the urge to self promote, and instead keep the focus on the community. The more you make it about them and provide value, the more genuine your efforts.

— Reinforce your brand differentiator. If you stand for superior craftsmanship, carry this through in your messaging and actions, and make sure the community gets this.

— Remember your goal. If it’s to deepen relationships, make sure you’re asking for more business or providing opportunities for the community to better understand you.

As you consider how to go about building your brand community, let your audience and goals guide your efforts, and take a comprehensive view:

— Create content on your website that leverages keywords your audience is likely to use. Doing so will guide more of them to your business.

— Be engaging by considering tools like video, info-graphics and other elements that make your content stand out from your competitors.

— Use social media to encourage your community to show the value your products and services add to their lives, and not just to show off products.

Take advantage of new and existing tools that help your brand stand out in the community:

— Canva is a graphic platform that allows even the most designed-challenged entrepreneurs develop compelling, share-worthy graphics.

— WiseStamp makes it easy to create a polished and professional looking email signature that lets users link back to your content.

— RendrFX allows you to create videos that kill it on social media, your business website, or wherever you wish to share them.

— grammarly is a proofreading, editing wiz that checks your copy and saves you the embarrassment of typos, mistakes and bad grammar.

Of course, don’t forget the tried and true social media tools, like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others. Remember to experiment with these platforms to see what new options they offer to help you nourish and grow your brand community.

Building a community around your brand is an ongoing process that requires a comprehensive effort. By using the insights shared here, you can build with confidence.