Building Community 101

Patricia Menegoto is the Director of Community at Startup CPG and an independent branding, social media, and Brand Experience Consultant based in San Francisco.

Building a community from scratch can be difficult. We invited our own Director of Community, Patricia Menegoto, to share insights into the value and practice of community building.

WHY DO BRANDS NEED TO CARE ABOUT COMMUNITY BUILDING?

Community is an extension of your team and an impact accelerator. What other tool can differentiate your brand from competitors, aid in consumer-driven decision-making, and drive brand awareness?

Your community isn’t just people who buy your brand, or who are aware of your brand. Your community is emotionally involved in your brand’s journey. They are following your brand across social media platforms, telling friends and family about your brand, enjoying your behind-the-scenes content, and sharing their feedback with you. To keep them engaged, it is critical that you find ways to help them and give them opportunities for feedback.

Community building for a brand must include real, two-way relationships. By asking for feedback and demonstrating appreciation for your consumers, you will: foster brand loyalty; reduce customer support cost; increase brand credibility; better customer retention; create a great channel to launch new products; own a valuable source of data and feedback.

HOW DO YOU START TO BUILD COMMUNITY?

To get started, think about where you’ll host your community. Is your brand active on social media and are you able to foster open dialogue there? What about Clubhouse? Messaging platforms like Slack and Discord? While these platforms are often considered an internal resource, utilizing them for external relations will demonstrate your brand’s interest in fostering non-transactional relationships with customers. At Startup CPG, we use Slack to provide value to all members of our community. We’ve structured our Slack with several channels for different needs, so members can choose the way they engage with the community and what would provide the most value to them. Next, you’ll have to assess how much time you’ll have to dedicate to community engagement. Are you a one-person business? If so, you might consider leveraging social media, where immediate interaction is less expected than a Slack-based community. You need to commit yourself to being consistent in engaging with your community — at least daily! Poll the community to find out what content would be most valuable for them (ex. sharing your founder journey, recipes, interviews with thought leaders in your space) and post valuable content regularly, or create ambassador or reward programs that motivate them to get directly involved. The community you build for your brand can also help you build a successful launch. Try sending your most engaged community members early product samples for feedback. Can they help you improve it? Ask them how they would talk about the new product if they were responsible for the marketing strategy. You might get great ideas that you hadn’t considered! You can also think about ways to leverage your community to drive additional awareness to your new product launch. An example may be sending them new products with a handwritten note asking them to unbox it on their social channels.

This engagement will help your community feel like they’re a part of the team, deepening their fandom for your brand. You can also feature members of your community in email campaigns, your blog, or social posts. These are easy ways to share the love with your highest-value fans, and will strengthen the bond they feel to your brand.

HOW DO YOU SCALE COMMUNITY?

Community building may seem overwhelming, but empowering the most motivated and capable members of your community can help you grow.

For example, Duolingo, a language learning software, has more than 300 million active users, 80+ courses and 2,500+ events per month. Sounds like a lot to manage — but they have only two Community Managers. They make it work by empowering their community members to spread the word about the power of Duolingo, turning the community into community managers themselves.

Find local leaders. This is where a mission-forward approach will serve you best. While it may be difficult to get consumers to gather around your product, you can easily tap into existing communities that are affiliated with your mission or story. Are you an AAPI-founded team? Find local AAPI entrepreneurial groups! Are you focused on sustainability? Tap into different chapters of Students for Environmental Action at local universities. Once you find one or two passionate people who are excited about your mission, they’ll help fill out the local community and bring your mission to their area. You can give them the autonomy to plan and organize local events sponsored by your team. You (or your community managers) will be available for guidance and support to ensure the local communities are serving the overall mission of your brand.

If you’re building an ambassador program, you’ll need similar tools. A document outlining guardrails and the brand mission will help them maximize the benefit they can be to the brand, while ensuring they have the space they need to be true to themselves, their own brand, and their regional culture. They’ll be a great resource as you look to learn how you can grow faster.

HOW DO YOU SET GOALS FOR COMMUNITY?

Community should be just one part of your overall marketing plan, so the goals for community should align with your larger brand goals. What are your company goals for the month, quarter, or year? How can the community support your overall goals? Here are some examples:

If you are focused on improving your product, you could leverage your community by collecting feedback and insights via qualitative interviews or a quantitative survey.

If you are trying to improve acquisition, you could develop ideas to leverage your community to expose more consumers to your brand. For example, Lululemon store owners are the community organizers who are responsible for selecting local ambassadors. The ambassadors in turn create local fitness experiences to drive awareness of the brand, create off-premise sales, and deepen the relationship of the brand within the broader community.

If you’re trying to drive LTV, try to understand how consumers who attend events or engage in your community behave vs those who don’t. I have a client who learned that consumers who attended events purchased from the brand 3x longer than those that didn’t — which helped prove the ROI of the events, and give the organization a reason to maximize attendance at events.

Whatever stage of community building you’re in, stay engaged, listen to the community, and have fun!