Formulating a community-building strategy

Having a strong sense of purpose and instilling that sense of purpose in others are two very different things. To build a community around your brand, you need to figure out how to bridge that gap — how you’re going to motivate people to rally around your brand’s purpose. You need a community-building strategy.

Take the following steps to begin formulating a strategy for building community around your brand’s purpose:

1. Describe the impact you want your brand to have on the community your brand will serve.

   How do you want your brand to influence people’s thoughts and behaviors? I envision a community, for example, in which women support one another and collaborate in ways that empower them to achieve ever-increasing levels of self-fulfillment and joy.

2. Identify the characteristics of your brand that make it uniquely qualified to fulfill its mission.

   Characteristics may include your brand’s name, identity/personality, mission, and core values (see Chapter 3); the products/services you offer; your brand’s points of differentiation (what makes your brand different and better); the education, experience, and interests of the people in your organization; and so on. What you’re looking for is anything you can use to demonstrate your brand’s alignment with and commitment to its higher purpose.

3. Start a list of what you can do to start building a community around your brand’s purpose.

   Here are a few examples:

   • Start with your inner circle — your team (if you have one), family members, and friends. Every community starts small.
   • Increase your presence on social media with an emphasis on making your brand’s higher purpose a bigger part of what you do.
   • Get people actively involved. Recruit others to participate and contribute to the cause. Encourage them to share their stories about how they promoted the cause. When people have some skin in the game, they begin to feel a greater sense of belonging and purpose.
   • Spend time with community members, especially leaders in the community, to demonstrate that you value them.

Nurturing shared values

Diversity is great, but people tend to gravitate toward others who share their values and away from people who don’t. Even people who value diversity tend to shun those who don’t, which is kind of weird. How can you convince people that you’re right when you don’t interact with them? Be that as it may, when you’re building community, acknowledge the fact that people generally hang out with others who share their values. So to build a community, you must recognize the values of the people who will ultimately form the community and nurture those values, whatever they may be.

Have you ever seen commercials or visited the websites of real estate investment gurus who sell books and host seminars on getting rich by investing in real estate? They’re usually trying to cater to people who are driven by the promise of money and possessions. They wear a lot of bling and show off their cars, boats, and private airplanes — all presumably made possible by the profits they earned investing in real estate. When they build communities of real estate investors, one of the shared values they nurture is materialism.

To build your community, you must answer these questions:

• What are the shared values of community members that I want to nurture?
• How am I going to nurture those values?

To answer those questions, follow these steps:

1. Deepen your relationship with your customers so that they’ll be more willing to open up to you about what they value most.

   Engage them in conversations about their lives, their personal and professional goals, and how they define success. Most important, listen to them.

2. Review your brand’s values (see Chapter 3), and identify areas where your brand’s values align with those of your customers.

   Throughout this process, be prepared to adjust your brand’s values to bring them more in line with the shared values of the community.

3. Start a list of ways you can demonstrate your brand’s commitment to those values.

   Here are a few ideas:

   • Think, act, and express yourself in ways that are consistent with those values. Don’t just talk the talk; also walk the walk. People will pick up on any hint of hypocrisy.
   • Share stories of community members demonstrating their commitment to the community’s values.
   • Publish blog posts and social media content that highlight and promote the community’s values.
   • If you have employees, allocate some time for them to engage in activities that support what the community values.
   • Support a common cause (see the next section).

Support a common cause

One of the best ways to reinforce your brand’s mission — its purpose — while strengthening and growing the community around it is to support a common cause and possibly even rally community members around it. Choose a cause that aligns with what your brand and the community value. Here are a few examples:

• Clothing brand Ivory Ella donates 10 percent of its annual profits to saving elephants.
• Home Depot helps military veterans secure housing, provides natural-disaster relief to communities in need, and helps people become skilled tradespeople.
• During the COVID-19 pandemic, online pet-supplies retailer Chewy partnered with The Humane Society of the United States, donating and distributing $1 million in pet food and supplies to help families keep their pets.
• American fashion designer Tory Burch launched the Tory Burch Foundation to help women entrepreneurs by providing access to capital, entrepreneurial education, and mentoring and networking opportunities.
• Norwegian Cruise Line partnered with the Ocean Conservancy to work toward cleaning up and protecting the oceans.
• My brand, Girl Gang, has a community on social media dedicated to supporting female-owned businesses and female artisans.

Increasingly, people are choosing brands that are committed to a cause. Several sports organizations are committed to ending racism. Numerous organizations are working to reduce the effects of pollution and global warming. Many groups help military veterans and the homeless. Some brands are even built on a cause. The eco-conscious clothing company Everlane (https://www.everlane.com), for example, is in the forefront of the movement to reduce the use of plastics in the fashion industry by creating products made mostly from recycled plastic.

Welcoming newbies

When people join a community, they’re at their most vulnerable stage of participation. Any uncomfortable encounter or experience could send them running in the opposite direction, so try to make them feel welcome.

Some social media platforms make it easy for administrators to welcome new members. If you have a Facebook group, at the top of the Add Members box is a list of new members. You click the Write Post button next to that list, and a dialog box pops up with a welcome message followed by the entire list of new members. You can edit the welcome message and add photos, videos, or other content. When you’re done editing, click the Post button.

I strongly encourage you to go above and beyond a generic welcome message. Ask new members to introduce themselves to the group; then comment on each introduction. Encourage everyone in the group to welcome the newbies. Offer to answer their questions and address their concerns. Ask them to chime in on an ongoing discussion or share their story of how they first encountered the brand.

Consider welcoming new members with a gift — such as a free sample, a discount, or a branded sticker or pen — or include them in a drawing when your group meets a specified membership goal.

Asking thought-provoking questions

I’m always surprised when I hear from bloggers about the low engagement numbers on their blogs and find out that they never ask what their readers think. They post great content, but they pass up the opportunity to add a simple statement at the end of each post to open the floor to discussion — something along the lines of “Post a comment to let us know what you think” or “We’d like to know what you think. Please share your thoughts by posting a comment.”

On your brand’s blog or social media accounts, you can spark a lively discussion simply by sharing a brief post followed by a thought-provoking question.

What you’re after here is user-generated content — text, images, audio, or video posted to your blog or social media accounts by people other than you. Your brand benefits from having fresh, relevant content that you don’t have to invest time and effort in creating. As fresh content is added, it boosts your brand’s profile in the eyes of search engines, which can increase that content’s search engine ranking, drawing more eyes to your brand.

Sharing user-generated content

Speaking of user-generated content, whenever someone inside or outside your community posts content that’s relevant and interesting, share it with your community. Sharing content demonstrates that you’re listening to what others have to say and are generous in sharing your platform, even with outsiders. When you share content posted by community members, you shine the spotlight on them and provide an opportunity for their content to spread across your platform.

When sharing user-generated content, be sure to include a comment about it (and a link to it, if appropriate), explaining why you think it’s of interest and value to the community and thanking the person who posted it. Suppose that you’re building a community around ocean conservation, and someone named Sheryl Green posts a piece on her blog about a beach cleanup she organized in Galveston, Texas. You could share that post with a comment like this: “Here’s a shout-out to Sheryl Green from Galveston, Texas, who recently organized a beach cleanup and collected more than two tons of plastic! Thanks to Sheryl and her volunteers for doing their part to preserve our beautiful beaches.” If Sheryl finds out that you’re sharing your platform with her, what are the chances that she’ll join your community and share her platform with you?

Responding to questions and comments

One of the easiest and most obvious ways to stimulate engagement is to respond to community members who post questions and comments. Your responses demonstrate that you’re listening and you care.

Before posting a response, be sure that you clearly understand the question or comment. Ask questions to clarify. Then compose a thoughtful response. If you have an emotional reaction to a comment, wait until you’re ready to respond rationally. Far too often, people post knee-jerk responses before they fully understand a person’s intended meaning, which can trigger pointless arguments. See “Remaining Positive At All Times” later in this chapter.

Make your responses personal by signing off with your name, even when the response is coming from the brand. Clarifying who’s talking gives your responses a more personal touch.

Tagging people in posts

One way to engage with community members and possibly extend your brand’s reach into other communities in your industry and related industries is to tag people in your social media posts. Tagging someone links the person to the post and notifies them that they’ve been tagged.

The person you tag in a post, photo, or video must be a member of the social media platform you’re using. Assuming that the person is a member on the platform you’re posting to, simply link their username to the post or photo. On Instagram, for example, post the photo with the person you want to tag, click the three dots above the photo, select Edit and then Tag People, start typing the person’s name or username, and select the name from the list that pops up.

Friend or follow influencers in your community and industry in general, and occasionally tag them in posts that present them in a positive light. Tagging can initiate a conversation between you and the person you tagged, generating interesting content for your community while potentially giving you some exposure to the other person’s community.

Don’t overdo tagging, and don’t tag people in photos or posts unless you’re absolutely sure that they’ll be happy you tagged them. If you have any doubt, contact the person first and ask whether it’s okay.

Taking a poll

Taking a poll is a great way to find out more about the people in your community and engage them in a group activity that brings them together and sparks discussion.

You can create polls on your website or blog by using a polling plug-in, such as Responsive Poll or WPForms for WordPress. Also, most social media platforms (including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) have a feature that makes it easy to conduct polls. Check the platform’s help system for specific guidance.

Recognizing and rewarding community leaders

A community is only as good as its most active and influential members are motivated, so be sure to recognize and reward your community’s leaders. Here are a few options to consider:

• Public appreciation may be the most powerful way to reward leaders, singling them out for going above and beyond to deliver value to the community. You can show public appreciation by posting to your blog or social media accounts or acknowledging leaders at in-person events.
• Free items and discounts are great to reward community members for serving the community and strengthening your brand. They’re also great for motivating other members to play a greater role.
• Exclusive access to products, services, and events is another powerful reward and motivator. Consider reserving this access for community leaders in your inner circle. The more exclusive you make it, the bigger the perceived reward.