Community-Based Marketing and Communication
Belonging to a community is a need as old as humanity. In Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Love and Belonging sit right in the middle, just after Safety Needs. As soon as we feel safe and secure, we need community. For some, Love and Belonging can feel even more essential than or run parallel to Safety. Community provides connection, affiliations, and interpersonal relationships with others. It also creates the need for collaborative communication.
Both community and communication begin with the prefix com-, which means “together.” Whenever I see the word, together, I think, “to gather.” We gather in communities in order to support each other and to feel supported by others. People in a community can also be mirrors for us, reflecting what they see through their communication. When our communication is community-based, we are directly addressing a basic human need and employing compassion to consider others’ points of view. But what exactly is community-based communication?
It is communication that is by, about and for the community. Instead of top-down communication, it places an emphasis on all people’s voices as valued and equal. It often is driven by a purpose, mission or objective that the community is working towards.
For example, if you are part of a health and wellness community, you may all communicate in a way that furthers each other’s health and wellness journey. You may all share the mission of helping others live a healthy life. When you communicate within this community, you may speak with a mindset of healing, positivity, and healthy habits. There is a shared sense of, “People like us… X,Y & Z.” This community-centric approach to communication can be extremely effective in marketing to specific groups as well.
In his book, Belonging to the Brand: Why Community is the Last Great Marketing Strategy, Mark Shaefer writes about how using community as a brand marketing strategy is one of the most overlooked ideas by current businesses – and the most effective. He highlights the key points in a Social Media Examiner podcast on YouTube and breaks it down in simple terms. The 3 megatrends he points to that indicate why community-based marketing works now are:
Traditional marketing doesn’t work like it used to due to information density.
People are seeking a new way to belong (take NFTs for example).
We are experiencing a mental health crisis. Gen Z has been labeled “the loneliest generation,” and people of all generations are longing to belong. Being online all the time (which became a new norm during the pandemic) has greatly increased mental health issues.
When people join a community, they feel seen and heard. They know they are not alone with their problems or their dreams. Businesses and organizations can create communities in order to fill that need of emotional connection. Old forms of marketing often struggled with evoking emotion, but in a community, it comes easily. People get invested in each other, the community as a whole, and even the mission of an organization. That emotional investment translates to dollars spent AND a need fulfilled.
Social media is one space where community thrives, yet it can also get divided. In order to use it in the most effective way, perhaps it makes sense to view social media as a connector, not necessarily a community in and of itself.
The opportunities to connect with others through social media are endless, and the real key is what you do with those connections after making them. Do you create a Facebook group people can join? A more private membership through your website? Regular in-person meet ups? It’s important not to get tricked into just posting content into the void of social media without a real intention for building community in mind. If posting valuable content leads people to follow you and join a community you create, that is worthwhile.
Once you’ve started a community, according to Shaefer, the two most important ways to nurture it are:
Create a safe culture
Bestow status and reward people
In order to create a safe culture, it’s essential that you listen to what your customers or community members want from the community and prioritize your efforts based on that. There also must be some basic standards for communication and values. These must be upheld, especially when challenged, in order for members to feel safe.
To bestow status and reward people, you can use a variety of techniques. The most obvious is to gamify everything. Make interactions in the community fun. Award prizes for sharing content or referring new members. Set up competitions or collaborative groups.
Community-based marketing is about building a bond. This is totally different from traditional marketing. The community-based approach promises customers consistency, longevity, connection – without them having to buy anything at all. Paradoxically, this tends to build the trust you need for them to buy – again and again. The marketing is more relational. The sales happen naturally. It is a longer-lasting strategy, but also one that takes more effort, patience and cultivation.
There are over 6 million members of the largest brand community in the world, Sephora. Over time, they’ve learned that the number one goal for their community is engagement. When community members are engaged it shows they’re interested, what the company is doing is relevant, and they’re headed in the right direction.
But it’s not necessarily about building the largest community. Small communities can make a big impact too. A few dozen entrepreneurs can drive millions in business through a networking group. Or think of the select group of Transcendentalist writers in New England who made a profound impact on philosophy and literature through their connections.
I find that the quality of the connections is of higher value than the quantity. Once a community exceeds a certain number of people, its impact can get muddled and diluted if it is not managed extremely well. You may find that just a few like-minded people eager to belong and collaborate can move mountains.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” -Margaret Mead
Whatever your vision for building a community, it is an excellent strategy for marketing, communication and meeting our human need for love and belonging.
What communities do you belong to?
Have you created a community around your brand or business? How might you nurture it better or differently?
