Why your online community matters more than ever

Because we feel we can do it all alone doesn’t mean we should? Our brand belongs to our community as much as it does to us.

We live in an age of digital communities where crowdsourcing and user-generated content are common practice. The moment you put your brand out there you can’t help let it belong to the community. 

Anyone and everyone that has an interest in your business makes up your community. These could be your brand advocates, partners, clients, staff members, customers etc. And at any point they can choose to talk about you...or not.

A successful online community includes active brand advocates, relevant content with crowdsourced ideas, a strong reputation process and performance tracking.

We can activate those brand advocates by engaging, recognising and partnering with them, enabling some to become co-authors. And it is through their authentic voices you will start to see real business value.

The authenticity of their experience can bring tremendous value to your marketing efforts such as user-generated content...almost naturally doing the marketing for you (!) - because they care.

The authenticity of their feedback can create transparency that helps you improve your products and customer experiences instantaneously, to help your business stay ahead of the curve.

The authenticity of their external perspective can lead to supporting, growing and prospering together through potential partnerships, or making them feel involved in the product's development.

One active community is MADE unboxed by the furniture retailer, a platform that connects undecided buyers with previous customers so shoppers can see what MADE products look like in real life for ideas and inspiration.

Also, Beauty Insider, a community of lifestyle fans who share tips, advice and reviews built by Sephora in response to their thousands of online reviews and customer queries.

Never before have online communities been so important.

Move away from brands and look at our creative interactions during the global pandemic or the powerful responses to #BlackLivesMatter.

As they say, ‘Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.’

‘Your Community’ is part of Content Kitchen’s strategy that focuses on six essential ingredients every business needs to communicate - learn more.