How to Build a Brand Community That Thrives

A strong brand community can be a great asset for companies and business owners today.

Online brand communities are growing in popularity, as many more people are looking to create real connections with peers, even in an online environment.

Community building has many benefits for both the entrepreneur (the person who builds and manages the community) and its members (usually, the customers and audience of that brand).

Other than being a place where members can connect, interact, ask questions and build new relationships, a brand community is a fantastic marketing strategy to promote a business to new customers and keep the most loyal customers engaged.

But what exactly is a brand community, and how can you create one easily for your business?

Keep reading below, because in today's article, you'll learn how to build a thriving brand community to grow and promote your online business.

What is a Brand Community?

A brand community can be defined as an online place where group of people and brand enthusiasts who share the same interestes, loyalty, or enthusiasm for a particular brand or product meet and discuss certain topics.

In this case, the brand offers a private online space for its customers, audience and members to interact, partake in discussions, share their experiences and offer feedback to the brand, and to each other.

Most brand communities exist online, and are built throght dedicated community platforms, social media platforms, forums, or brand-specific apps. But they can also exist offline through events, meet-ups, or in-store experiences.

Members in a brand community often share common values, interests, or lifestyles that are aligned with the brand's identity or the nature of its products/services.

A successful brand community is a valuable asset for companies, as it can lead to increased customer loyalty, enhanced brand equity, valuable insights into customer needs and preferences, and a powerful means of organic marketing.

Brands often invest in nurturing these communities by organizing events, creating exclusive content, offering special promotions, and facilitating platforms for discussion and interaction.

Why You Should Build Your Own Brand Community?

Building an online community around your brand can be extremely beneficial for both you and your customers. Let's explore why.

Gain Valuable Feedback From Loyal Customers

Firstly, having a brand community centered around your business will enable you to receive feedback from your customers.

As your community members are either existing customers or interested in your product or service, interacting with them will give you insights into their likes and dislikes about your business.

This interaction will benefit both you and your community members as you'll be able to optimize your brand from the feedback received and ultimately deliver an enhanced experience to your customers.

Reduce Customer Support

Your online community can help reduce support requests. By addressing the pain points of your product through the community, you'll see a decrease in support requests over time.

However, you shouldn't use your online community solely to solve support issues. Instead, it can provide insights into recurring customer problems, and you'll be able to address them and avoid negative reviews.

Raise Social Proof

Consumers trust their peers more than brands. When potential customers join your brand community, they'll immediately get all the social proof they need to shut down their skepticism about your product or service.

They'll witness positive comments from fellow members, and they'll be reassured by knowing that they can use the online community to express any feedback they might have.

Provide Value To Your Customers

Successful brand communities provide a platform for members to share tips, advice, and support.

This peer-to-peer interaction can enhance the user experience, offering solutions and ideas that might not be available through official brand channels.

Plus, brands often offer exclusive perks to community members, such as early access to new products, special discounts, or members-only events, adding tangible value to the customer experience.

Increase Brand Awareness and Website Traffic

Lastly, building an engaged online community around your brand will increase website traffic and brand awareness.

If your community members are excited about your business, they'll become the marketing voice you need.

By leveraging word-of-mouth marketing, you'll be able to spread the word about your product and generate more sales. A thriving online community will most definitely help increase website traffic and sales for your brand.

How to Build a Brand Community

Now that you’ve learned all about the benefits of building a brand community around your business, let’s see how to do it in three main steps.

Step 1: Identify Your Target Audience

Understanding your customer base is a vital step in ensuring that your brand community is composed of the right people.

Your ideal community members should also be your target customers, as one of the goals of building a community is to grow your business.

So it is important to understand your audience persona, including their age group, location, hobbies, and most importantly, whether they will benefit from your community.

Once you have identified your customer persona, you should have a better understanding of your community's objective.

Your community's goal should be tailored to the needs of your target audience and clearly communicated to new members.

People are more likely to join a community if they can anticipate the results they will receive in return.

For example, if you are offering a cooking course and you want to build a community around it, you could state that the community's objective is to share cooking tips and ideas for beginners.

Step 2: Choose the Right Community Platform

When creating an online brand community, finding the right community platform is crucial.

You might be tempted to use a social media platform to host your brand community. These type of platforms (such as a Facebook Group and LinkedIn) have the advtangae of being popular tools, which makes your community easy to discover through a simple search.

However, these platforms offer very little control over your community and limit your branding options.

They can also be too easily accessible and too distracting when part of a social network, which may not be ideal for private communities that aim to create a sense of exclusivity and privacy.

To generate more interest in your online community, it is important to create a feeling of exclusivity that will make your community more desirable.

Community platforms (like Heights Platform) are the best solution if you want to retain control of your content, members and earnings.

Heights Platform offers an easy way to build a branded community around your business, with unlimited community channels and moderation features.

Here are some advantages of choosing a community platform for your branded community:

1. More control and ownership: If you create a brand community with Heights Platform, you can customize the space to reflect your brand, set community rules, and decide who can join.
2. Exclusivity: Not just anyone can join your brand community. Other than free access, you can set a entrace fee for new members, or only allow in the community customers who purchase your product or fulfill other requirements you set. This creates a sense of exclusivity and makes people more eager to join the community.
3. Higher engagement: Brand communities tend to have higher engagement levels than social media platforms. This is because they offer multiple reasons for members to stick around, and because members who joined after purchasing your product are more likely to engage with the community and become brand advocates.

Step 3: Promote Your Online Community

To create a thriving online community, you need to get people to join.

If you already have some customers, start by inviting them to join your new online community for free.

You can update your online presence to inform people about the new community, such as adding a section to your website and social media platforms.

You can also send an email to all your newsletter subscribers or organize a live event to invite all your contacts. In other words, you should promote your online community as you would promote your business.

Once you get a few people to join, you can leverage word-of-mouth marketing, brand loyalty and referrals. Ask your members to invite their friends or anyone interested in the same niche.

Get more promotion and marketing ideas from this article in our blog: A Complete Guide on How to Promote Your Online Course and Boost Sales.

Step 4: Engage Your Community Members

Engaging your brand community members is essential for a thriving online space. Without engaging content, members may lose interest and leave.

Here are key strategies for boosting engagement in your brand community:

• Plan Content Carefully: Prepare engaging content in line with both your goals and member interests. Use a content calendar for organization and structure.
• Celebrate Members: Treat your community like a valued relationship. Acknowledge achievements, set up challenges, and personalize interactions to make members feel appreciated.
• Encourage Participation and User-Generated Content: Foster a participative environment by asking open-ended questions and organizing events like "Share-Your-Achievement Friday" to encourage regular engagement.
• Provide Valuable Information: Share content that is relevant and valuable to your audience’s interests and needs to keep them engaged and informed.
• Respond Promptly: Being responsive makes members feel valued. If managing responses is challenging, consider hiring a community manager to maintain presence and set clear response time expectations.
• Build a Lifestyle Around Your Brand: Beyond selling a product or service, promote a lifestyle that resonates with your target audience’s interests and aspirations, enhancing community engagement.

These strategies require time and dedication but are crucial for creating a dynamic and engaging brand community.

Create Your Brand Community With Heights Platform Today

If you're an entrepreneur or digital creator looking for a comprehensive platform to build your online community space, sell digital products, online courses, and host your site, Heights Platform is the ideal solution for you.

With Heights, you can monetize your knowledge and grow your business.

Creating a community, whether it's free or paid, is a powerful tool for a successful and immersive online course business that offers value to its students.

Heights Platform offers a built-in community feature that is available on every pricing plan.

The community in Heights is a place where students can share their thoughts about your online course, ask questions, provide feedback and interact with you and each other.

Build unlimited community channels, access moderation tools and enjoy gamification features with your own brand community built inside Heights Platform. Create your free account today, no credit card needed.