It is never about you, your products, services, goals, etc. It is about your community and what they want. The Internet was designed to be a collaborative social environment; hence social media on the Internet. Therefore, when you establish some type of community around your brand online, whether it is on Twitter or on a Ning community, you must talk about the consumers’ interests, feedback, and build on the relationships.

Consider your community a gift. If people are forming a community online to talk about your product, or joining your already established community, be thankful for that. To show your thanks, ask your community to discuss their thoughts, ideas, feedback, concerns, improvements, etc. This helps to build better relationships and confirms the reason why each consumer is there.

Think of it like this: You walk into a grocery store and are immediately greeted by the store manager who proceeds to tell you who he was, his position, how long he had been there, what he had done to improve the store, and then guided you around and told you about every fabulous feature of the store during your shopping trip. Annoying, right? Instead, wouldn’t you want to be in the store (preferably not even bothered by the store manager unless you want to ask a question, give feedback, or be greeted) and do what YOU needed to do?

The same goes for a community. People come there out of self interest to get something out of it. Whether that is to find out more about your product, ask a question, give a suggestion, or just praise the great job the company is doing. Consumers do not want to enter your community and be bombarded with brand advertisements and features; quite simply they do not care. The only real thing they care about is how their problems can be solved and how you can help them get there.

Your community may look to you for their success, so give them more tools to succeed. For example, a customer of CVS may join the forallthewaysyoucare.com community to share medical stories, gather resources, speak with others for ideas, and join forums on particular topics of interest. They do this because they know that your site serves as a resource to help solve problems and give them tools to succeed. They do not go there to be bombarded with sales pitches or advertisements. This methodology is called “Equip Instead of Sell!”

So whether you are in the biomedical, high tech, toy, or food industries, it is still never about you in social media. Talk about the customers and their thoughts and concerns, and you will realize amazing relationships will start to grow, and in turn ROI (return on influence) and ROI (return on investment) will shortly follow.

Your brand community is a gift. Be thankful for it. In a community, it is never about you, your products, or your goals – it is all about the people in the community. Therefore, you must talk about consumer interests, listen to feedback, and build on the community by developing relationships.

If you are lucky enough to have people build a community around your product or brand, that is so great! Whether it is created on your site or not, you are given something very valuable to work with. This community allows you the space to have two-way conversations with key consumers, build better relationships, give away free information, and LISTEN!

The listening aspect of communities cannot be emphasized enough. Stop talking, talking, talking all day and start listening. Sometimes the best information you will hear is from others when you really stop to listen to their feedback and suggestions. When the community realizes that you truly are there to listen, they will be more apt to participate and talk to you.

The moment that you forget that you are there as a participant and start acting as the owner of the community, you are on a fast ride downhill because you have then lost their trust! This makes people feel used since you entered their turf, started talking to them, they began to trust you, and then you rudely took over.

Acknowledging participation in the community is also key, if not the most important thing. If you tell your audience, “We want to hear your ideas and take action on them” then they will know you care and are listening to their suggestions.

Before you start thinking about each social media community individually and how you will interact on each one, remember that it is not where the community is, it is about the people who gather there. It is not about the specific platform, but about the connections made on them that matters. You must go to where your target audience is on the web, not where you think they should be or where you want to be. This would be counterintuitive to providing value to the consumer.

Empower Your Community

Once your community trusts you, they will begin to look to you for their success. Since you are looking to them to succeed as well, a mutually beneficial relationship has began. To help them with their goals, provide them with tools to succeed such as third party articles, free tools, give-aways, etc. Do not instantly try to sell them your product when they express a need; give them what may be most practical at first, and then eventually tell them how your product or service can solve their problem.

Everyone is looking to solve a problem, but they do not want your blatant sales pitch because of it. In social media, people are looking to develop relationships and feel like their opinions are valued, hence the reason why they do not want to feel used by being sold to by you.

Celebrate Your Community!

Once your community is established in the appropriate platforms, introductions are made, communication and listening has started, and trust is built, it is then time to celebrate! But don’t start giving yourself a pat on the back, praise your community instead! You can do this in many ways, such as by taking pictures with customers at events and posting it to the site. By featuring your audience instead of you when celebrating the success of the community, it will only further entice participants to continue to engage with you.

So Where Does ROI Fit In?

Once you develop good, solid relationships in your communities, you will be able to influence each other much easier. For example, after talking in a friendly manner with a specific customer on a weekly basis on social media and they then express a need, you may be able to tell them how your product can solve their problem. Because they trust you, they will be much more receptive to your sell.

Communities are also a great source for lead generation, post-sale education, support and research and development for future products. Leads can be created by evaluating what purchase stage they are in and nurturing that in the community itself. You can also provide the community with valuable and original content in the form of eBooks, eNewsletters, videos, webinars, blog posts, and much more to educate them further on your product or service industry in general so they will be a more informed consumer. This may in turn speed up their purchase cycle. Feedback strongly helps with R&D since your own users are giving their input and suggestions which is one of the most valuable pieces of information you can gather from your audience.

I hope this three-part series of building effective brand communities will help you leverage your own specialized communities.

Have brand community success stories? Leave them below, I’d love to read them!

Building effective brand communities can help your business start developing loyal support and positive buzz around your brand image.

How to Build Your Community

1. Determine which social media sites your target market is using.
2. Join those important communities and introduce yourself.
3. Start engaging in meaningful conversations in a friendly manner.
4. Always remember that if you are joining the conversation on other sites, you are the guest and must act accordingly. If they join your community on your own hosted site, then welcome each new member.
5. Do not start promoting your product or brand until your community trusts and likes you.
6. Consider setting up a ning community (ning.com) to develop a personalized brand community just for your product, allowing for a specific place for customers to come talk about your brand, and your brand only.
7. Implement channel managers to monitor the comments and feedback from consumers on each platform.
8. Analyze effectiveness of each platform and act on the results accordingly.

Existing Branded Communities

Businesses small and large are taking advantage of the immense opportunities that brand communities can provide to them. Branded websites are becoming more realtime  due to the fact the consumer has the ability to weigh in on products and services.  

Take CVS as an example. They have multiple branded communities including For All the Ways You Care. The more platforms in which you can engage with consumers in a manageable way, the more effective your communications and their loyalty will become.

Kraft Foods also has multiple online communities, including this highly targeted one, Mommy Snacks. I think this is a great way to develop very specific communities so that, for the example of Kraft, moms can go here to get coupons, snack ideas, and learn money saving tips for food.

In addition, Charles Schwab has launched an online community that is exclusive to active traders. Here, traders are able to participate in discussions on short and long-term investing topics, exchange information, ideas, and trading experiences, connect with other traders to share knowledge, and access Schwab themselves.

These three companies are just a snapshot of how brands today are actively engaging with customers online in both broad and specific ways. Online communities are not meant for every type of product or service, but if your targeted leads are online and discussing your brand or industry, it is highly recommended that you start to get involved.

In what ways has your company used online communities to actively engage in conversations with your audience?

What brands do you admire for their effective use of online communities?