Building a successful brand community takes time, but once you do it, you’ll enjoy higher rates of customer loyalty and satisfaction. To build a brand community, you must first identify what it is. Simply put, a brand community is where all of your loyal customers congregate on a specific platform to chat with people like themselves.
If you’re new to all this, don’t worry. We’ve got you covered. Keep reading to find out more about what a brand community is and how you can build one successfully.
What Exactly is a Brand Community?
We briefly answered this above, but let’s look at this in a little more depth. A brand community (sometimes referred to as a business community) gives like-minded, loyal customers a chance to interact with one another through either a social media group, website, or other online forum.
Think about it. Your most loyal customers are invested in your business. This includes your products, services, and, of course, what your company stands for. Because these customers are so loyal to you, they will help promote your company (and goods and services) to their friends and family, as well as on social media platforms. Chances are your brand community already exists and is engaging with people who also consume your products. Your job is to learn how to interact with them.
Building a Brand Community Empire
Creating a successful brand community has a lot of benefits, but to get started, you should follow these helpful tips:
1. Define Your Niche and Your Brand
How can you expect to attract loyal customers if you don’t know who you are as a company? It’s like walking around without a name. If you don’t have one, what are people expected to call you? The same principle’s at work here.
In order to establish your brand’s identity, you have to determine what your company’s vision and mission statement are. Furthermore, ask yourself who you’re trying to help with your goods and services. What’s the end goal? The more questions you ask, the easier it’ll be for you to get to the bottom line of what your brand is and why it should matter to someone else.
2. Define Your Goals
You’ve identified your brand. Now it’s time to figure out your goals. Your goals can’t be as simplistic as “try to make money,” simply because that’s not a long-term strategy. People aren’t just going to support you if that’s your mission. Just like creating a website, your brand should provide value to the consumer.
Defining your goals helps you determine which key steps have to be taken in order to bring your vision to life. In doing so, you gain valuable metrics that inform your future decision-making. This same philosophy can be applied to creating your brand community.
Here are some helpful tips that make defining your company’s brand community a little easier:
- What do you want from your brand community? What purpose do they serve you in the long run?
- What have you done so far to make sure your community feels engaged?
- When members of the brand community ask questions, do you supply valuable answers and/or solutions?
- What does a successful brand community look like to you? What kind of metrics are you using to measure success?
- How will achieving your community goals help you achieve your business goals?
3. Find a Platform for Members to Use
Your customers need a place where they can engage with one another about your company and products. Here are a few platforms you can use:
- Social Media: If you already have a Facebook page, this is easy. You can either create a separate brand community group or simply interact with your customers on your main business page. Answering their questions and thanking them for their comments can go a long way.
- Online Forums: If you want a large brand community, an online forum is probably the way to go because it offers expansion opportunities. Though people in forums may not always be talking about your product directly, it offers enough opportunity for engagement and discussion with people who share a common interest.
- Affiliate/Rewards Programs: An easy way to keep your customers engaged is to build an affiliate or rewards program for your most loyal consumer base.
- Third-Party Community Platforms: This includes platforms like Slack where you can create individualized channels to host discussions.
4. Engage With Your Members…Often
Create discussion posts that ask questions about specific products or upcoming launches. Answer questions. Ask questions. The more you get involved with your brand community, the better results you’ll have.
If You Want Results, Build a Brand Community
Building a brand community is relatively easy, but it does take dedication. These tips can help you simplify this process so you can achieve your desired results, both within the brand community and for your company as well.