Your brand has an online community ..... now what?

I’m pretty lucky to have the opportunity to meet with lots of different types of company’s and learn about their brand from the inside out. Creating a plan for the online community requires an intimate knowledge of how the business is setup. It could be likened to a nutritionist providing a client with a meal plan- there’s no use in prescribing food options that are hard to find at the local grocery store or tasty to the person who has to eat it.

A common mistake is to create a community strategy that doesn’t fit within the business framework. An online community needs to be an extension of existing systems and values. As much as I’d love to fit into a size 6 I know that I will never have the willpower or drive to work hard enough to achieve that goal. I could eat a raw food diet and workout for a few hours every day, but that isn’t realistic. Your community strategy needs to follow the same logic.

The first thing you need to think about is why you want an online community. What purpose is it serving your customers and your business?

Just like a diet, make choices based on the needs and not lofty ambitions that aren’t true to your natural way of doing things. Many businesses need ideas being generated by passionate brand advocates. Other businesses need to discuss pitfalls and challenges to improve their customer service. Some communities are open and public, but others are limited to private members. But regardless of the type of community they should be providing the business with insights and information.

Having an online community is not a one size fits all exercise. Every brand has unique requirements. And each social media platform has its own rules of engagement. Spend time thinking about the messages you need to communicate and where the right audience is located in order to positively receive these messages. Individual motivations are commonly dictated by where a person spends the majority of their time online. Although we’re speaking the same language we don’t all share the same vocabulary.

The way to attack your brand’s strategy for cultivating an online community is to break down barriers and provide the flexibility for users to define their own terms of use. A great example is Polyvore, a fashion portal that invites users to create their own ‘sets’. The barriers are broken down, in that, users can mix and match brands and products. Technically, the products within the sets are sold through different websites and if someone is inspired by a set they can’t buy it via Polyvore.

The genius is that users are able to merchandise products on their own terms. Most shopping portals try to be a print magazine defining the use and purpose of products using out-dated advertising methodology. The community doesn’t want to be sold to. The community wants to create, share, explore, build, compose and once they’re exhausted of mixing and matching they’re ready to make informed purchase choices.

Polyvore doesn’t need to worry about advertising because the entire platform is advertising. The community provide critical data informing brands about popularity and trends. Engagement is a metric that affects your bottom line because it provides a glimpse of your brands longevity. A community isn’t a gimmick – it’s a product. Analytics is information and information is power.