The typical marketing budget is stretched pretty thin!

But if you have an online community platform, you have a pretty powerful way to engage and connect with your customers/fans/audience who have opted in and joined the site.

This blog post will help you deliver more relevant and useful information to your community members, which makes them happy, which is always a good thing!

First, Ask Them Their Interests

Sounds crazy, but why not just ask?

Set up a custom profile field to collect the community member's area(s) of interest. You can supply a handy menu to choose from, or just give them room to write something.

Then, Make Some Magical Connections

Based on what the new community member shares about their interests, you can do a lot of "interesting" things. (See what I did there?)

1. Connect them with Other Members who Share their Interests

If the custom profile field is publicly visible, it becomes a filter in the Member Directory. Your member who is interested in Underwater Archaeology can find others who share that same passion.

The more member-to-member connections you can facilitate, the more vibrant and useful your community will be!

2. Send them other Resources that are Relevant

Set up an Automation Rule that adds the new member to an Underwater Archaeologist Role in the community. Then, as the community administrator, you can filter your member list according to Role, and send an email or message to just those members.

Your marketing partner who sells SCUBA gear might want to invite those folks to a special event, or have a live Q&A with them.

3. Join them to a Subgroup

If you have a critical mass of members in one particular area of interest, you might want to set up an entire Subgroup for them. They could have their own forums, events, and other resources within your larger community.

Automation Rules could simply auto-join them to the Subgroup when they register, based on their response to the custom profile field.

What Else Could you Offer?

Use your imagination and you can come up with lots of great ways to personalize based on member interests. Perhaps you'll notice trends within your new members' interests, or use that information to guide your content marketing, or set up custom welcome committees for different interest groups.

Feel free to share your own creative ideas here as well!

Title photo by Roman Mager on Unsplash