Humans crave connection. We want to feel seen, heard, and valued — and build meaningful emotional connections. As a brand, this means that creating a sense of community is critical in creating deeper connections with your customers. In fact, 64% of consumers want brands to connect with them.
By building a brand community, you are creating a home for your most passionate customers. These are customers that are more than interested in your brand — they’re invested.
Read more below to learn how to build a brand community and create more meaningful connections with your top customers.
What is a brand community?
To define it simply, a brand community is a group of engaged customers that have a strong emotional connection to your brand. These are customers that feel connected not just to your brand, but to other people who love it too. Through your brand’s connection to its community, you can drive awareness, build a greater sense of loyalty, and make more customer-driven decisions.
Why is connecting with my community important?
In learning how to build a brand community, it’s important to understand the value that your community provides your customers and your brand.
It allows your brand to harness the power of word of mouth
People love to talk about things they’re passionate about. If one of those things is your brand, then you have an advocate who is ready to preach positive messages about you to their inner circle — increasing the size of yours. When you connect with those who are advocating for your brand and making word of mouth referrals, you can help steer that conversation from the inside to align with your marketing goals to drive awareness and growth organically.
Connection causes loyalty
53% of Americans who are part of a social brand community are more loyal to the brand. By connecting and engaging your community, you’re building and strengthening relationships with your most passionate customers. Building loyalty with your community will help you better understand your customers and make them feel valued by your brand, deepening that emotional connection.
It makes your customers feel like a priority
Not only does feeling valued by your brand help increase loyalty, but your customers will feel like a priority to your brand. When you ask your community for their opinion, they feel like they have a direct line of communication with your brand. It’s important for your customers to know that you have them in mind when making decisions.
How do I connect with my community?
Connecting with your community isn’t about the size of your community, it’s about the engagement. In order to best engage your customers, you need to meet them where they are. For most consumers, this means online. Not only can an online community help a brand increase engagement by 21%, but people are spending more time on digital and social platforms than ever before. Here are a few ways to connect with your brand community:
- Make your marketing feel more human — focus on empathy and authenticity in your messaging
- Create a dedicated home for your brand fans, like a Facebook group or dedicated ambassador program
- Use social media, email, and other digital touchpoints to educate your community and create value
- Invite your community to contribute to causes that are important to your brand’s values
Building a brand community isn’t just a way to connect with your customers, it’s a way to provide value and make more customer-driven decisions that will strengthen your brand as a whole.
