Building an online community brings with it a whole lot of challenges and responsibilities.
What will the design be?
How will the UI/UX look?
Will there be any customizations?
Will the hosting happen smoothly?
These are some key questions that online community developers have to consider before they embark on the journey to create seamless customer experiences.
Not just this, community developers have a lot on their shoulders. From structuring the community from scratch to making it live, there are numerous roles that a community developer has to play.
Let’s deep-dive into the concept of online community development and take a closer look at the roles and responsibilities of a community developer.
What is Online Community Development?
Online community development can be defined as the process of building an online community from scratch. It involves the selection of a platform for hosting the community that fits best with the niche of the brand.
This involves:
- Strategizing
- Planning
- Analyzing
Apart from this, deciding the look and feel of the community also falls under the spectrum of community development. Developers provide a structure to the community according to the requirements of an organization.
The Roles and Responsibilities of a Community Developer
Now that we’ve touched base on what community development means, let’s take a look at the key roles and responsibilities that a community developer plays.
1. Analyze Business Requirements, Set a Goal, and Plan: The first step in the process of community development is to assess business requirements and set a vision for your community. As a community developer, you will have to set goals and understand the objective of setting up the community. This will enable you to define a roadmap and progress.
2. Select the Right Community Platform: To ensure that your community is serving the right purpose and reaping you ROI, it is crucial to host it on the right platform. A community developer will first understand your niche and suggest the right platform that supports all necessary and relevant features.
3. Understand Your Audience and Build User Profiles: The ultimate goal of your online community is to attract your target audience and convert them into loyal customers. So, before you develop your community, your responsibility as a community developer is to study the target audience and build user profiles. Understand your customer’s preferences, needs, and issues, and develop your community in a way that addresses those issues.
4. UX/UI Setup: As a community developer, you need to ensure that the UI/UX of the community is appealing. Because when it comes to customer engagement and satisfaction, it’s hard to beat well-created UI/UX design that create a lasting impact on the users. Communities with nurturing and engaging content followed by good UI/UX design keep the users hooked and motivates them to keep coming back for more.
Community development can prove to be a complex task. But when done with utmost precision and planning, it can reap the desired results. So, it is a good idea to ensure that you devise a proper plan of action before you start developing your community.
Wish to Build a Vibrant Online Community That Reaps ROI? Talk to Us!
Team Grazitti has extensive experience in building dynamic online communities that take your business to the next level. To know more about our CMaaS expertise, drop us a line at [email protected], and we’ll take it from there.