It takes community to build brand. The interaction between the brand and its users needs to be strong for brands to excel. The crunch has considerably reduced the sum total of millions that can be spent on marketing, adverts and public relations. Building an online brand community can impact positively on physical, offline performance of the brand.
Many brands in our environment still do not see the need to build online community. They are of the opinion that we are not there yet. If anything, all they do now is advert on yahoo and other social media platforms. Time is changing. That is the reality. Web is becoming accessible to more people and the impact will become stronger day after day. Those brands that start early will always enjoy early mover advantage. The essence of brand community is in sharing and engagement. It is user-centric, social, open, honesty, discussion and collaboration.
To start a brand’s web community, the first step is to listen. Then find out how does your community like to engage? When this is done, brand must define its strategy and set a goal that it intends to achieve with the creation of web community. This allows measurement of results to become easier. In my research brand can look at the following avenues as a source of inspiration or goal for establishing a brand community.
1. Inform: one of the goals for creating brand’s community is to inform brand’s audience. But I do believe that this is better packaged as brand education and not as information passage, channel. Information passage is the old order.
2. Consult: This may be to get feedback on brand’s performance.
3. Collaboration: This goal may encompass point one and two above. The brand placed value on what the audience is going through and intends to make them a co-creator of the brand
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