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July 12, 2021 Content Chat Recap: How To Grow A Brand Community in 2021

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Many brands and individuals strive to build flourishing online communities, hoping to expand their reach, bolster connections, and drive engagement all year. However, many brands and professionals approach their communities as an audience—a self-serving approach that can quickly alienate your community members and significantly limit your ability to achieve the many benefits of an engaged brand community.

In this #ContentChat, we’re joined by Monina Wagner (@MoninaW), who has had an integral role in building the Content Marketing Institute and #CMworld community, to discuss how to grow a brand community in 2021. Read the full recap below, where we explain how to grow a new online brand community, ways to keep your community engaged throughout the year, how to co-create content with your community, and more.

Q1: How do you define a community? What makes a group of people a community instead of an audience?

Your online following is simply an audience until you build relationships with and actively engage the individuals who follow you. You talk to an audience. You interact and engage with a community.

An audience and a community are groups of like-minded people who have a common interest or goal. One difference is that a community stays together after their immediate needs have been solved.

A community needs to be a safe place for its members. A place where they can openly share ideas, provide support, and celebrate together without judgment.

A community manager plays a critical role in nurturing the community and fostering a culture of inclusivity.

But your community should be able to sustain itself regardless of any individual person and the role they play.

Q2: Communities can take any range of shapes and sizes. What are some of the most common types of communities you’ve seen in terms of brand or content marketing industry communities?

Brand communities can gather in any range of spaces, including social media channels, third-party community platforms, or in person.

Most of our community members have been part of communities that predominately engage on social media, including Facebook and LinkedIn, or other channels like Slack and Discord.

When creating a community, meet your members where they are. Do not force your members to join a standalone community platform or a new social media channel if they already prefer a different channel that offers similar capabilities.

The point is to find a space where everyone can engage, promote work, and help each other.

Your community moderator should act as a connector to spark conversations and match community members based on interests, regardless of where your community gathers.

Q3: What tips do you have for growing a community that’s just starting out?

Monina notes that more brands have focused on growing their communities since the pandemic, which is a sign that people view communities as vital to a brand’s health.

Actively solicit for ways your community can improve. Ask your members what challenges they face in their work. What topics are they interested in? What is working in the community? How can you improve their experience?

Start small and stay focused. Your member growth rate will likely be low for a few weeks or months. That’s OK. Focus on the quality of the interactions and the active relationships you’ve built with your members. Your community size should not be your focus.

Treat your community members as unique individuals, not a collection of potential sales prospects or business stepping stones.

Ensure all members of your team understand how they can best contribute to the community.

Create a community manifesto to showcase the purpose of your community, and arm your members with materials that help them promote your community in their networks.

Remember to give back to your community. Make connections between members. Provide valuable resources, templates, and tips. Genuinely thank people for being a part of your community.

Your community success will largely depend on if you can stay consistent with your activities.

And your community manager should regularly track their own successes to demonstrate the value they have driven.

Q4: How can you keep a community engaged, especially between any major community events or conferences?

Host weekly Twitter chats or similar social media conversations to keep your community engaged year-round.

Connect members for 1:1 meetups.

Host regular presentations, panels, or open networking discussions about topics of interest to the community.

Consistently spark conversations on relevant news or trends.

Q5: How can community leaders partner with community members for content creation?

Invite your community members to contribute to articles, join as an official guest for a social media conversation, and invite them to share content ideas that you can partner with them on.

Post a weekly question that can be turned into a blog post.

Solicit for opinions and insights for roundup posts.

Ask members to share their examples of a specific type of content or template.

Conduct survey and polls that can inform new content ideas (including visuals).

Rachel recommends sharing your content ideas with your community and invite submissions from anyone.

Q6: Social justice movements continue to be an important issue for people across the world. How can community managers best approach these topics with their communities?

At a minimum, marketing leads and community managers should assess whether key social justice movements align with the interests of your brand community. Does the movement directly impact your community members? Is it a topic that your community members are actively discussing on their channels, outside of your community? Is it a potentially sensitive topic that could cause a rift in your community (and, if so, how will you intervene in conversations that may get heated in your community)?

If your brand is traditionally reserved in commentary about social issues, it is likely best to avoid social justice conversations (or pivot your brand identity).

Consider using your community platform to help amplify voices.

Q7: What are some of your favorite communities that you are a part of?

The community shares their favorite communities below. What are your favorite communities, and who are they a fit for? Let us know in the comments.

About Alek Irvin

Alek Irvin is a content marketing professional with a rich history in social media management, executive thought leadership development, and media relations. As a consultant at Erika Heald Marketing Consulting, he creates human-focused content and thought leadership platforms that help brand leaders connect and engage with their communities. Alek has worked with a range of startups and Fortune 500 companies across the B2B technology and consumer spaces, including IBM, Dell Technologies, Hitch Works, Emtrain, Integrate, and Frameable. Connect with him on Twitter @AlekIrvin.

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