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Community-based marketing began decades ago through traditional marketing techniques like setting up stalls in local events or advertising in college fests. Cut to 2020 and marketing is now infused with technology where all behaviour can be monitored in clicks and swipes. 

Thanks to people staying at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, community marketing has turned over a digital leaf. What used to be the strategy of a few marketing heroes is now being used by large and hyperlocal brands alike. Today, one can build an online community on any digital networking platform of their choice. It doesn’t matter if you’re an entrepreneur, a customer, or just an influencer. 

Be Where Your Customers Are

Platform-based communities have members with different job profiles, demographics, and locations. The key is to choose a preferred platform. So, if an artist wants to showcase their paintings/ sketches, they should create a page/ group on Instagram, Facebook, or Pinterest to build an online community that engages with their posts. Here, other members can also post for more engagement. In this way, if any announcements or updates need to be sent, a member can directly broadcast a message on the group for all members to see it at one place and engage on the same post. 

Brands, too, can choose one primary platform for their followers/ customers to engage with and take their community along with them on other platforms if need be and build it. It is imperative for any brand to develop a community base in order to thrive. Mega brands like Nike, Apple, and Starbucks all target their ever-growing community base for marketing. Having a place where a community can form online forums or message boards, enables them to drop in questions and receive real-time feedback. 

Empower Your Customers, Who’ll Also Empower Your Brand

Community-based marketing, an organic system, functions mainly in the form of word-of-mouth from consumer-to-consumer. By being active in your community through acknowledgement, interaction, and quicker responses, you gain their loyalty online. In web terms, word-of-mouth is basically re-posts, shares, tagging, and DMs on social media. Receiving positive online reviews develops a larger internet presence for your brand’s community base. 

Empower your customers to make them feel like an integrated part of your business’s community. Through this, you are also empowering the growth of your business through community-based marketing. By keeping your current customers pleased, you spend virtually nothing and still receive more impressions and build your follower base.

Who to Hire to Help You with Community Branding?

Choose a team that will be in charge of developing your brand image on social platforms. Establishing a  trustworthy identity on social media is essential for customers to choose your services. If you cannot have your own team, hire an external digital marketing agency to be your social media team. They have the bandwidth of marketing managers to create community-based marketing strategies, social media marketing managers to schedule and manage your accounts and respond proactively to customers online, and also share some insightful analytics to give you monthly overviews of how your social media marketing strategy is working. 

An effective initial strategy ensures better long-term results in terms of converting new clients and building consistent revenue streams. Whether you’re building an in-house marketing team or hiring a digital marketing agency, set this tone right from the start. One way to maximize your profit is by minimizing the costs. And community brand marketing is one of the best methods for brands to do this.