Abhinay Kumar Singh is the founder and managing director of Adgcraft, a new generation PR and media agency. He is also a media and communication professional and a growing leader. He has been involved in the field of public relations for the past ten years and has extensive expertise in engaging with the media as a result of his work. His interactions with professionals in the fields of lifestyle, start-ups, education, hospitality, technology, law, infrastructure, and so on have only supported the development of his knowledge and, as a result, his personality. He is a passionate professional, a creative enthusiast, a team player, and an essential component of what a communicator represents.
Consumers have unprecedented access to information about companies due to multiple social media outlets and a vast online marketplace, allowing them to make informed decisions about who to do business with. Consumers have a strong tendency to trust—and hence seek out—the opinions of other consumers. Customers are increasingly making decisions based on how well a product or service aligns with their values and culture.
Building a community around a brand has always been important, but seems to have become more so over the past years.
Let’s take a look at how you can create a strong community for and around your brand.
Building a community around your brand is a long game, but it results in a true, long-lasting relationship between your business and your customers. The community revolves around your brand. In order to offer a rock-solid basis for a brand community, its mission, values, and general ethos must be well established. Invest the time necessary to ensure that your company’s personality and values are successfully expressed across the consumer journey before forming a brand community. The finest companies bridge the gaps in their consumers’ lifestyles, becoming friends and trusted resources as a result. It takes time and effort to build a community of people. Sometimes, growing slowly helps in the long run. First and foremost, create an internal brand community. Give staff the systems they need to deliver on the brand promise by uniting your team around a clear vision and a well-crafted brand purpose. It is critical to be on the same page in terms of objectives and goals, as well as to have a clear understanding of the brand. Use your time to discuss various case studies and business requirements. Create observations, hypotheses, and solutions. Know your brand inside and out. Then they’ll be able to provide fantastic brand experiences to customers on a daily basis.
Additionally, brands with a prosocial impact that helps the entire community are very powerful. Support and be a part of a social cause that has a long-term impact on customers. The public respects and values organisations that prioritise work that fulfils or attempts to meet a local or global community need in an intentional, methodical, and long-term manner. If your customers purchase a product and your firm provides a portion of the proceeds to people in need, this is a terrific way to help the broader community while also fostering a sense of community around your brand. Through effective corporate social responsibility, a brand’s ability to stand out and connect with customers at a level that ensures long-term loyalty is enhanced.
Furthermore, to communicate more effectively, creating videos that are customised by the staff and long-term regular customers contributes to the brand’s positive image. Using social media to promote these videos can help them reach a wider audience. This can be accomplished by resharing and quoting customer-made videos. This encourages sharing, which helps to foster a sense of community. New consumers can tag the brand in the future to be featured on the page. Instagram Stories, for example, provide a real-time view of what’s going on within a company. The only rule for making a video is to be authentic and genuine. With digitalisation, more and more people follow the brand’s online presence. Develop a value-driven presence on social media. Make use of customer research to develop content that your audience would love. Create useful tutorials, intriguing articles, live digital events, and co-create content with the influencers that are popular in your community. Invite members of the community to join by inviting them to contribute their opinions and experiences. Customers will return again and again if you provide an area where they can find useful, engaging, and highly relevant content that emotionally appeals to them. When it comes to social media, the objective is to share information that benefits customers while also fostering a sense of community around your business.
Last but not the least, creating educational blogs and email content adds an advantage. Providing more information to clients via email and blog postings can be a terrific step towards creating community. Include some incentives and promotions along the route, and hold giveaways, such as sponsored trips, on a regular basis to maintain your open and click rates high. This free value is critical since buyers will not believe your products are as expensive if they receive useful information from you on a regular basis.
Use all of your channels to get visitors to visit your community sites. Ensure that all marketing channels—whether onsite forums or social media platforms—drive audience members to community spaces in order to reach as many people as possible and grow the community.
Building a community begins with establishing a brand worth standing up for—one that knows why it exists rather than just what it sells. A brand that values its customers more than the money they spend, acknowledging that these customers help to realise the greater vision. This brand trait rings true when done well, and the business’s growing community readily reciprocates.