There is no need repeating the obvious. Humans thrive when there is interaction, bonding and not when in isolation. Humans are not wired to live in isolation. To be successful human/brand needs solid relationships, engagement with others. since the world has become a global village, building engagement withy locals only deprive brands the benefits that are available to all.

 As many professionals know, productive, profitable engagement in the midst of noise level today is not a child’s play. It is real work. What I have noticed is that many give up so soon when their efforts are not yielding immediate result. The pressure from management that has invested much in online branding is not helping matter. Community manager must educate the management on the time lag it will take to make meaningful impact. There is no overnight success.

Whether there is instant success or not, we must be able to see clearly like DNA13 suggests ‘joining conversation and shaping public opinion holds promise of reducing cost of communication’. Strong community engagement thrives where there is strong collaboration among the major actors which includes the community manager, the community members and other stakeholders. Conscious effort must also be made to recognize, value active promoters of community well being. The community leader, manager must be a bundle of inspiration. He/she must not be lazy or tired of maintaining the conversation so well with relevant content. The community leader must also learn to build quality relationship with the community stakeholder and be willing promptly attend to community concerns.

Any brand that wants to maintain solo, one man squad approach to managing, promoting, positioning itself will end with lots of regret.

Every great enterprise that has succeeded is not a product of overnight action. It is birthed with sweat of hardwork, persistence and a high level of determination. Many have the erroneous believe that since social media offer opportunities for visibility, the result will be instant since they can create an account within minutes.  The truth is like in any dance, one has to repeat the steps. Over and over again. Once the first step is initiated in connecting with people with a purpose of engagement, the brand needs to make sure it stays connected until it bonds strongly with the target audience.

Social media do not guarantee capturing instant sales lead, database, survey research instruments as the case may be, it is only sure when the goals are set. Persistence is used as lubricating oil for the wheel of social media progress. Efforts must be made consistently to touch base with brand’s target audience. This offers greater benefits to increase brand’s chances of stronger bonding. This will increase also the chance of making a success out of the brand’s social media effort. Persistence will teach the brand to realize that continuous effort must be made to connect with target effort no matter the time require to do that. Connecting with influencer takes time, focus , energy among other vital details. Ability to be there for the audience by being ready to answer questions they may ask even when it is not that convenient require patience and persistent as well as strong will. Social media do not encourage lack of focus too. Never be in the habit of shifting position of your offerings in terms of contents, comments. Anything that will not get you decent attention should be omitted as fast as possible.

Always be willing to do a review or what we call audit to find the effectiveness of your brand’s efforts.

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