Using your blog to start a conversation with your SoyLuscious® customers is a great idea. But even better is when that community takes on a life of its own. When your community thrives and shares information and ideas among themselves, then you have an incredible opportunity to keep your finger on the pulse of your market.

Now, you have two options: you can scour the net looking for such communities and work to establish trust with this already-established group. Or, you can create the forum and invite the community meet right on your doorstep, where you have inherent trust for simply providing the place and then getting out of the way.

And you can do this right now, absolutely free, at Ning.com.

How Does it Work
You simply set up a group, and invite a few people to join you. Ning offers a central location for people with a common interest to meet and a forum for conversations, as well as giving each member of your group their own free blogging platform within the group. Sign up (there are paid levels, but I haven’t found a need to move beyond the free service yet).

If there is an interest in the subject of your community, then your seed members will spread the word and your community will grow.

A Few Pointers
Don’t simply create a community about Candles of Eden, or SoyLuscious® candles (although you are free to do that). Instead, pick areas that you customers get passionate about, and create groups about those. Look at each of the Niches you identified within your market, and ask (yourself, or even better, ask them!) what they are going to be interested in talking with each other about. Are the people who buy your products because they are all-natural going to get excited about healthy eating? Organic gardening? Homeopathic remedies? Remember, you’re not going to have to know a whole lot about these areas. It’s enough just to start the conversation and give them a place to chime in. Pretty soon, they’ll take care of the conversation themselves.

Right there on your doorstep.

Get Started
With Candles of Eden’s permission, I’ve set up a Ning community I’ve named the Candles of Eden SEO Workshop. Stop by, see how it works on the user end, and then try to come up with a few ideas for how your customers might benefit from such a group. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them here or there, and we’ll help you get going.