Do you know that by having a simple idea you can have a profound impact on your brand? Let’s take a few examples. When a furniture company creates a social space to talk about decoration, when a food company forms a community to share recipes or when a fashion brand organizes a micro-social network to share their latest styles. Those initiatives open the door to a huge amount of content at very low cost. You can gain greater interaction and engagement with customers. We call these initiatives creating a promotional space, which leads to the development of a brand community.

Improving your customer journey and increasing the trust

There are many businesses advantages for brand communities. When you decide to raise your brand’s visibility you start to get new data and information about consumers without being constrained by the restrictions of general social networks. This issue is explored in a new study by Leader Networks and CMX Media, where they revealed that the concept of an online brand community is gaining more and more strength among companies.

When asked about the impact that brand communities have on the results of their company, an overwhelming 86% of respondents replied that they had an impact on income and another 85% said that they perceived improved customer journey and increased trust.

What are the main objectives of leading brands to invest in this type of initiatives?

The main initiative is to increase retention and customer satisfaction. A lot of businesses want to collect ideas that drive new products and services in order to reduce support costs. In many cases users themselves are able to resolve questions related to the use of products.

When should you launch a brand community?

Many companies are considering launching their own brand community to enhance their customer’s perception of value. Given that the success of these online communities depends on their use by members, it is important to ensure that there is some demand presence before actual launch.

If your customers are looking for a brand community they are expecting feedbacks or ideas on your products which will help them to resolve their doubts or related questions. Another important sign is the trust of your brand experience in a particular field, where you act as the advocate and are resolving complex issues.

The main fear of most brand communities is that the community might not be engaging or not have active participants. In that sense it is essential to have a strategy which will encourage your customers to join and engage with you in your online community.

Companies are using different approaches, but they tend to use the power of social networks in order to empower the existence of the community. Most of them noticed that above all activities designed to attract new members; the most effective is promotion through social networks.

Nine out of 10 companies with an online brand community perceive the initiative as a success and are satisfied with the results.