The social media community canvas that grew HeyOrca’s social media community by 75%+ in 13 months

As social media managers, we’re in the business of building communities.

At HeyOrca, we’ve been focused on building community since late 2022. Since spring 2023, we’ve seen a 300% increase in impressions, a 5900% increase in post clicks, and an 80% decrease in cost per acquisition.

How did we do it? Truthfully, a lot of trial and error and learning along the way. But after a year of experimentation, as well as guidance from community-building expert Christina Garnett, we now have a tried-and-true canvas that we’re sharing with social media managers and agencies.

(Psst! We also cover community-building basics in HeyOrca Academy! You can take Social Media Community Foundations to get certified for FREE.)

Before we dig into the canvas, here are some quick FAQs on social media community.

What is a community on social media?

A community is a group of people on social media who share common interests, values, or goals. Members of social media communities interact with each other regularly, often forming bonds and supporting one another. 

Social media communities can be found in any niche: fitness and wellness, gaming, parenting, travel, fandoms, and more. I’m personally part of a few social media communities, including Daily Carnage, Social Media Geek Out, Church Social Media Managers, and of course, HeyOrca’s Community.

Who can build a community on social media?

Anyone can build a community on social media, whether you’re an individual, business, brand, or content creator. All you need is a common theme, someone willing to do the work, and a space (in this case, social media). 

Why should a brand build a social media community?

The top answer is that community is the only thing your competitors can’t copy. 

But there’s more to it. Social media communities build brand awareness, trust, and advocacy. People no longer want brands to treat them as transactions. They want to engage with other users, connect with your team, influence product development, provide feedback, and more.

The 7-question social media community canvas that will build your brand or client’s community

Now for the juicy part. We took inspiration from Steve Blank's Business Model Canvas, the expertise of community expert Christina Garnett, and an analysis of our own social media community work to create a foolproof template for building your social media community.  

Before you continue with the questions, make a copy of our template. You can jot down notes for your own community as you work through the prompts. We’ve also provided HeyOrca’s filled-out canvas to help with the brainstorming process.

1. Purpose

Why do you want to build community with your current social media following? 

At HeyOrca, our community’s bottom-line purpose is related to customer acquisition, engagement, and retention. We’re building brand trust and awareness. And we’re turning our community members into brand advocates by building a space where social media managers feel a sense of belonging and empowerment.

We recommend using the SPACES model by David Spinks to help you define your community’s business purpose. Don’t try to make your community fit every letter, or it will become unfocused. 

• Support: for communities that are focused on improving customer satisfaction and saving costs on support.
• Product: for communities designed to gather community feedback on products and offerings.
• Acquisition: for communities meant to drive awareness, increase customer acquisition, and build brand advocates.
• Contribution: for communities that are focused on content collaborations, whether that be templates, code, resources, or more.
• Engagement: for communities designed to improve brand loyalty and retention.
• Success: for communities meant to drive production adoption and customer expansion.

Once you have a purpose, it’s time to look at . . .

2. Shared identity

What experiences or passions do you and your community share?

The HeyOrca Community is filled with social media and community managers. Their daily to-dos tend to include creating and scheduling content, managing several social media channels, working with clients, analyzing results, and more. Many of our community members are HeyOrca users.

3. Value

Why would someone follow you on social and engage? What value are you adding to their lives?

At HeyOrca, we provide our community with resources around social media tactics, news, and resources with, of course, a good dose of relatable memes. Basically, we want to make the lives of social media managers easier and provide delightful experiences.

Here’s one of my favourites from our social media and community manager, Qetsiyah Jacobson:

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4. Success

In the next 12 months, what are 3 milestones that will define success for you and your community? What KPIs will you look at to determine success?

At HeyOrca, we determine social media success through number of mentions, engagement rate, and community growth. It’s easy for us to do this directly in the HeyOrca app.

Outside of social, we look at organic sign-ups to our app (which were previously heavily fuelled by paid ads), Google brand search, and cost per acquisition.

On a personal note, as a founder, an increase in community efforts also led me to be more in tune with the wider social media manager community and gave me a sense of purpose. 

5. Experience and roles

What is the current follower experience? How do you differentiate between the roles of your community (follower, customer, fan, co-creator) by behaviour or engagement?

At HeyOrca, we have a variety of internal techniques to encourage engagement within the community:

• We try to answer every comment, DM, or shout-out we get on social media. In cases where we don’t know an answer, we bump the conversation to try to reach others.
• We platform our community by reposting their content. 
• We co-create with our community when possible. 
• We don’t just comment on our own stuff – we seek out opportunities to uplift social media managers and add to the conversation.

But my favourite part about HeyOrca’s community is that it’s not limited to our brand account. You can find many of our team members interacting on social media as well.

Next, you'll want to identify the roles of your community members. At HeyOrca, we categorize the members of our community based the level of brand advocacy, the type of relationship we have with them, and whether or not they are a customer. 

• Follower: A social media manager who’s interested in the social media community but isn’t (yet) a customer. 
• Customer: A social media manager who uses HeyOrca for social media management.
• Stans: Social media managers who are vocal super-users of HeyOrca.
• Creator: Social media managers who create content for other social media managers and who collaborate frequently with HeyOrca to spread brand awareness.

Here's a LinkedIn post by HeyOrca Creator, Anna Michalak:

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6. Engagement

What behaviours will result in being praised, reposted, or muted?

At HeyOrca, we love it when our community interacts with our brand. Unprompted user-generated content makes the Pod as happy as a clam. For example, we once had a community member join a webinar and draw us a picture! 

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But we love every type of engagement – from creating conversations, replying to content, or reposting our content. 

There are many ways we praise this behaviour. We share and platform our community’s content, interact at every opportunity, provide resources as they are requested, and send out Orca Coins (to our splashy merch store). There are even times when we send spontaneous presents for extra community delight! 

To make sure we keep HeyOrca’s community a safe space, we will block, mute, or delete content that is harmful or hurtful.

7. Spaces

What exact community spaces do you intend to have for your members?

At HeyOrca, our social media and community manager Qetsiyah strategized that we focus most on LinkedIn, Instagram, and our HeyOrca Community Facebook Group. 

You might be asking, “Joe, how did you and Qetsiyah narrow it down with all the social media channels out there?”

Here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Look at your resources. When done well, community-building and management take a good amount of time. Don’t spread yourself too thin by choosing every platform possible.
• Research which social media channels your community members are already hanging out on.
• Look for channels where your community is already in the mindspace to think about your brand. For example, if you run a swimwear brand, is LinkedIn (where people tend to talk about professional topics) the best place for you? At HeyOrca, LinkedIn is a great spot to talk to our community since we sell software that helps social media managers at work. 
• Don’t be afraid to ask your community directly which platforms they are on most. It’s also a good way to start a communication loop between them and the brand.
• Analyze where your competitors are active and how their communities engage on those platforms. Use these insights to decide if using the same platforms they are is worth it. 
• Look for channels that are easy to join. You want your community to be able to find and access your community easily, not jump through hoops. 

8. Bonus: Community name

Think Beyonce’s “Beyhive” community, Six the Musical’s “Queen’s” community, Strawberry Milk Mob’s “#Mob” community, or the I Think Not! podcast’s “Drama Club” community. 

A name can give your community a distinct identity, make it easier to rally the troops, and build your community’s recognition.

At HeyOrca, we call our community the Pod. Our mascot is an orca whale so it only made sense to incorporate that into the brand.

Summary

It’s never too late to start your brand’s social media community. Follow our social media community-building canvas and you’ll help your brand forge deeper connections with your customers, increase brand awareness, and improve your engagement rates.

We’d love to hear how your community-building is going! Shout us out on LinkedIn to keep us in the loop.