Share this content
How to Build a Successful Brand Community
Brand Communities
Community Building
Community has been a hot topic for years now. But are you sure you really know what community building is about?
- Brand Community – Definition
- Examples of Successful Brand Communities
- Creating a Successful Brand Community
- Benefits of a Brand Community
- Create Your Brand Community Now
For any brand to boost its revenue, strengthen its customer base, and build long-lasting relationships with its customers, a brand community is essential. A loyal community will trust and support the brand just like an unofficial spokesperson or advocate.
A community helps a brand to bring together all loyal customers in a single place where they can interact with each other and engage with the brand. It is a fun place composed of like-minded people who feel free to voice their opinion and take part in discussions, surveys, etc.
In this guide, we will take a closer look at what a brand community is, some successful brand communities, and how to build one for your brand.
Brand Community – Definition
A brand community is the best way to showcase brand loyalty. It's a platform composed of like-minded people who take interest in a brand, its products and services, and the brand’s overall values and ethics. Members of a brand community are actively engaged and regularly buy from the brand, interact with shared content, and recommend the brand to their family and friends.
Brand awareness is great, but your brand won't grow without a dedicated community. Members need a platform to share information, gain knowledge, discuss, and collaborate with other members. This is what a brand community provides.
Brand communities are always customer-centric because customers form the soul of a company. Through a community, members get a place to share their problems, listen to others, and speak up when they want to. It's a great way to make loyal customers feel heard and valued. Not only do brands see more success, but they also develop an emotional connection with customers through their community.
Examples of Successful Brand Communities
Some of the most successful brands in the world are in that position because of their ever-growing communities. Here are a few examples:
Gymshark
One of the world’s most popular fitness clothing brands, Gymshark, owes its incredible success to its strong global brand community. Both old and new customers can head over to Gymshark Central and be a part of the community. It offers access to tutorials, tips, exercises, and everything else related to the world of fitness.
Starbucks
Starbucks makes both their customers as well as employees feel like a part of the brand. The company has started various social initiatives and regularly uses user-generated content in its brand community as well as social handles. The Starbucks Rewards Program is a great concept for rewarding loyal customers within the community.
Walt Disney Company
Disney is not merely a company, it is a total entertainment experience in itself. Their beloved characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck help forge strong relationships with people around the world. Disney organizes many gatherings and other events for community members where they can have a fun time and share their experiences with others.
Inkbox
Temporary tattoo-making company inkbox runs its inkfam community with the goal of making members happy and valued. By using the inkbox hashtags, members can upload images of their tattoos and be featured on the brand's website and social media profiles.
Creating a Successful Brand Community
Even though a brand community is an important part of a brand’s marketing strategy, it is not easy to create a community from scratch. Here is how to build one:
Find Your Niche Audience
Members are the most important part of a brand community, and it will not grow without the right group of members. You can find an interested audience through existing brand customers, social accounts, email contacts, etc.
First of all, you should identify the most engaged customers to help you understand more about your niche audience. Add them to your community, introduce these members to each other and establish active communication and interaction among them. Existing community members are also a great source for finding your brand’s niche audience.
Define Brand Goals and Metrics
Your brand must have a clear goal or aim if you want to promote it to a community and make customer-centric decisions. Ask yourself what the purpose behind your brand community is and how it benefits members. The community should help improve the brand's products and services while ensuring customer satisfaction.
Consider how to drive engagement among community members and how to measure the community’s success. Establish the metrics you want to analyze and track. These metrics could be anything from lead generation, content interactions, signups, downloads, etc.
Use a Community Building Platform
Brands need a common platform where all community members can engage, communicate, and take part in activities. We recommend using a dedicated community-building platform with the ideal tools and solutions to create a brand community and grow it into a successful one.
Such platforms have tools to segment the audience, communicate, create and share content, leave feedback and reviews, track key metrics, and much more.
Boost Community Engagement
A brand has to make sure that community members stay active and involved. Create blog posts, share articles, photos, videos, etc., with members. Bring up new topics for members to discuss and collaborate upon.
Brands can also gather feedback from community members through surveys, reviews, and feedback forms to improve their products and services. Launching special promotions, discounts, gift vouchers, etc. is another way to keep community members happy. All this ensures that loyal customers are heard, and their demands are met by the brand.
Track Key Metrics
For business success, a brand should track all the key metrics related to its community. These metrics must include user-generated content effectiveness, growth and engagement metrics, and community contributions.
Based on these metrics, a brand community can figure out which activities are working and which ones aren't. Brands can offer more of what the members want and optimize their activities based on tracking and analysis.
Benefits of a Brand Community
Brand communities provide many benefits:
- Customer loyalty
- Vital customer feedback and recommendations
- New marketing ideas along with improved products and services
- Better customer engagement
- Boost in brands sales and overall revenue
Create Your Brand Community Now
Any newly-established brand or startup will be wise to include building brand communities in their business strategy. An interactive and engaging brand community is much more than just marketing, it's a big part of every department in a modern business. Brands get elite customer retention, better services, and boosted revenue through them.
If you want to build a brand community, go for an effective community-building platform. MeltingSpot is the perfect community-building platform with multiple solutions and features. Brands can find the right audience for their communities, create engaging content, receive feedback, and track vital metrics through MeltingSpot.
It is the ideal platform to build a new brand community and take it to great heights of success.
.svg)