Community building is about building genuine relationships with your audience and making them your fans. In other words, the power of an online community is in the ability for many people to rally around a shared bond and feel empowered to contribute. So, how does one achieve this robust community? Although it can be difficult, many brands have successfully built a community with their customers using different engagement strategies that you can observe and learn from. By taking advantage of these insights today, you will be one step closer to building your band’s engagement strategy.
Glossier
Glossier is a beauty company that has built a community of superfans because of its outstanding engagement strategy. The brand had the genius idea of creating a blog called “Into the Gloss Beauty Blog,” used for crowdsourcing and product co-creation. This blog has helped the brand so much that they have grown into a 1.2-billion-dollar company. The brand constantly engages with its consumers to listen and learn using the blog. Not only are they showing that their customers’ satisfaction is their priority, but they are also taking these testimonials and enhancing their products to accommodate their consumers’ needs. This is how you can turn your audience into your community. Your consumers will appreciate that you are willing to listen to their problems and improve your product.
Glossier’s best-selling moisturizer was originally in a jar for the packaging. After getting feedback from their consumers that the jars were less hygienic, the brand switched their packaging to a container with a pump. This made their customers respect the brand more because they felt heard and appreciative of their willingness to accommodate.
Patagonia
Patagonia is an environmentally conscious brand. They take pride in that value, and they use this value to connect with consumers who share this same value. Their engagement strategy is using influencers that also share their values and engage in conversations about topics their consumers care about, to build a community of like-minded individuals.
If your brand has a value that consumers can relate to, take advantage of that. They have built their community because of their efforts to communicate with their consumers about environmental and social causes. Their brand takes advantage of the fact their consumers care about these issues, and they engage in these conversations to show the brand genuinely cares about these issues as well.
Nike Run Club
Nike has built a solid online community through its Nike Run Club, where its consumers can share their achievements, participate in challenges, and track their running activity. How does this build community? This app creates an integrated digital ecosystem that engages users in a game-like experience. By integrating a reward system and a leaderboard feature, the brand has found a way to motivate consumers, engaging them in a way that doesn’t feel like a complex sale but more like a game they can enjoy. The app builds community engagement because, like the other brands I have mentioned, it evokes an emotional response from its consumers, which in turn evokes brand loyalty and community.
Take this example as an encouragement to create a community where members can share their achievements, access unique content, and have fun with your brand. Instead of sharing with your consumers what your brand can offer them, focus on gaining that more profound connection with them.
Observe and Integrate
I chose to share these examples because they are great successful engagement strategies that worked for them, and with the personalization of your brand, you can use a similar approach. These inspirational brands’ success stories create an excellent image of what it is to create a strong community. Although there are several ways to build a community, involving the community in content creation, interacting with like-minded consumers, and creating a sense of enjoyment are all impressive strategies that have worked for others and could also work for you.
Author: Taylor Munghia, SMS
Taylor Munghia was an Intern for the National Institute for Social Media, who successfully achieved the Social Media Strategist Certification last year. She has a bachelor’s degree in business with an emphasis in marketing. She is also educated in social media content and strategy.
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