Whether you are setting up a team, building your company’s social media presence or venturing into becoming an influencer yourself, there is one critical thing tying it all together – community building.
What does it take for people to come together to rally behind you or that one big idea? How do you sustain the momentum and keep the conversations flowing? This book Building Brand Communities by Carrie Melissa Jones and Charles H. Vogl helps you with all of this and more.
The book speaks to a broad spectrum of organisation types – for profit, not-for profits, associations, cause-driven or otherwise – hence becoming a go-to guide for anyone who is planning to build brand communities. The one singular point that the book continues to drive home from the beginning to end is that for a brand community to be successful, it needs to serve both the members’ and the organisation’s goals.
The authors cite multiple examples from community building journeys of Sephora, Airbnb and Yelp to Reddit and Ikea. If you take a closer look at home in India, a few notable communities that come to mind are Team-BHP, Cult, Myntra Insider, and Zomato.
The book provides a blueprint for building authentic brand communities ranging from values, features, guardrails, safety tips, content strategy, rewards and gamification, and lots more. More importantly, it differentiates between recognition, gratitude and appreciation. Being cognizant of the nuances separating the three help in deciding right communication, timing, and more ways to connect with the community.
In the end, building a good product or service is just the first step towards building your brand community. How you reach out to your audience through shared values, content, stories, shared experiences is what helps create loyal fans and help with brand growth. But make sure that your brand community does not become a mirage community? What’s that you ask, read the book and find out!
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She specialises in storytelling, streamlining unstructured thoughts and conversations into content (prose, graphics or videos). She likes to meet new people, forge friendships and have conversations on just about anything.
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