Ever wondered how to create an engaging social community for your brand?

Four standard practices represent value-creating dynamics in most brand communities. These include social networking, impression management, community engagement, and brand use, which work collaboratively to create value.

Engagement within the brand’s community is a big part of marketing. While there are many definitions out there, one of the good descriptions is that community engagement seeks to engage the public better to achieve long-term and sustainable outcomes, processes, relationships, discourse, decision-making, or implementation. For it to be successful, strategies and techniques must be incorporated that are sensitive to the setting in which it occurs.

“There is a big gap between what customers expect the experience to be and what it is.” – David Raab, Principal, Raab Associates.

Understanding the importance of social media engagement allows us to work towards achieving that goal better. Tom O’Brien states that social media engagement offers the community social proof of your business, expands your marketing research, cost-effective marketing than traditional advertising, and boosts your brand’s awareness.

How can you achieve an engaged social community for your brand? Below are three examples of brands creating effective social community engagement and why they are successful:

1. GoPro uses different platforms for their specific purpose rather than posting the same content across all platforms.

2. Nike excels by focusing on its athletes and sports teams rather than the product itself and use of consistent filters and their popular hashtag #justdoit

3. National Geographic provides beautiful photographs and informative content and utilises user-generated content through its photo community.

Kristina Heinonen suggests some factors enhance consumer engagement, including peer support, the relevance of the discussions among community members, ease of use of the online community platforms, intensity of the conversations, relevant life situations, routine and habits of the members, brand familiarity, word-of-mouth and friend recommendations, entertaining and provocative, and inspiring.

Final Tips:

• Know your target market and the social platforms they use
• Make it easy for people to communicate with you by using several platforms and live chats
• Recognise what your goals are from each social media platform
• Limit promotions and provide value
• Utilise user-generated content and encourage people to post images about your brand
• Create campaigns that revolve around a cause
• Be consistent with filters and tone in captions
• Use some humour when appropriate, as everybody likes a good laugh

What is an engaging brand community that you are involved in? And why do you enjoy engaging with the people within that community?

Connect with us today to see how we can help you elevate your brand.