Turn your passion into a community

Social networks are a revolution, not only as a tool to connect with family and friends but also with communities of common interests that form.

With the advent of social networks, there has been a great opportunity for businesses to form communities with people of common interests who freely interact with each other through digital means, and they can be an ideal option to get to know your customers. What's interesting about creating a community, as opposed to simply paying for advertising on platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google, or traditional media, is that creating a community requires a special talent. Salvador Alarcón, Jorge Herrera, Alejandro Blanco, and Ignacio Rivera are a group of friends who, over a meal with a beer in hand, decided to create a community on Facebook called "Beer Lovers." Interestingly, in just five months, they already have a community of 375,000 followers on Facebook, being the sixth largest beer social network in Mexico and number one in interactions, due to having very fun and irreverent content. Whether it's the interesting idea of creating this community, the social media experience of its founders, a great community manager, or a stroke of luck, it's interesting to learn the five secrets they have shared to turn your passion into a successful community:

• 1.- Identify your passion. "We discovered during that meal that we all enjoy talking about beers, their flavors, history, cracking jokes," says Salvador. Doing something you really enjoy doesn't feel like work, and therefore, it's much easier to put a lot of energy into that idea.
• 2.- Identify your audience. "It's very important to be clear about who you're talking to and what the language of that group of people is like. Being irreverent and using humor helps a lot," says Jorge Herrera. Remember that there are people who enjoy hot coffee or cold coffee, but nobody orders lukewarm coffee. The same goes for communicating with your customers; you really want to speak like them and encourage interaction, right?
• 3.- Content is king. "When you release content and see people start to share it massively and comment among themselves, it's very fun. I think it helps a lot that we interact a lot with them, with the community," says Ignacio, the community manager. Creating sections is something very interesting to know what content to generate, maintaining what works and changing what doesn't.
• 4.- Choose the right channel. "Define which social network you want to focus on, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, or a blog. Each social network has its advantages and disadvantages, but focusing and gradually adding more options helps a lot," says Jorge.
• 5.- Measure, adjust, and improve. "One of the enormous advantages that social networks offer today is the huge access to free data with which you can know what is working and what is not," says Alejandro. In the Information Age, knowing what works and what doesn't, and adjusting quickly, makes all the difference.

Social networks are a revolution, not only as a free tool to connect with family, friends, and colleagues but also as a means of communication for brands with their customers and the communities of common interests that form.