"To build communities, brand managers should plan activities that engage each consumer personally, recognize his/her contributions to the community, and allow to take all the privileges being part of that community"
We all know how important it is to have communities as part of any online initiative. During the early days of internet, the centre was traffic into the site. It is still an important consideration. Yet more important than traffic is how the traffic flock together. Communities gained importance because they allow users to discuss, review and suggest and even to influence the buying decisions. Inside a community, each user feels that he is part of a larger whole and hence more powerful than an individual. Peer to peer recommendations are gaining more ground than direct advertisements.
In December 2009, an average user spent more than 51/2 hours on social networking sites, up 82% compared to the same period in a year ago. With that kind of numbers, we better believe that we are more influenced by our friends' opinions on social media than the popups or the banner that intrudes our browsing experience while making a purchase decision. Therefore we all are very sure why communities and conversations have more business value than the paid adverts. With the emergence of social media, brands are seriously considering ways to influence the influencers of the community. Marketing gurus are experimenting new ways to influence conversations that is happening around a brand or product and convert them into sales leads. When our buying decisions are getting influenced inside a community, the only way for brands is to build communities that influence each consumer inside the community to believe what the brand wants him to believe and do what the brand wants him or her to do.
It brings us to the question - How to build communities ?
" To build a communities, brand managers should plan activities that engage each consumer personally, recognize his/her contributions to the community, and allow to take all the privileges being part of that community ". The most important tool would be informal yet well directed discussions and conversations that the brand can initiate which would allow interested users and potential buyers to discuss among themselves. To make things clear, brand would initiate a discussion, and user A would discuss with user B and so on. The brand pitches in only to summarize and to direct the conversation and to answer the question directly posted towards it or to correct a wrong notion.
Activities like these would give each user a feeling that he or she is connected to another, lets say 1000 users, under the umbrella of the same brand, yet he or she gets directly connected to the brand.
A brand should engage each customer in isolation while acknowledging publicly that he or she is previleged as part of brand community.
This article is the result of the linkedin discussion available at http://linkd.in/gVjFaO. Comments posted by social media experts, evangelists and practitioners.
What are your ways to build a great community. I would would love to hear your thoughts. Thank you.
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