One-way street marketing or influencer-based socials doesn’t work anymore. Today’s consumers crave authenticity, connection and a brand that feels more like a friend than a faceless logo or a sterile corporate brand. Community-driven branding is all about making your customer (not your business) the hero of the story.

Let’s take a look at some tips from our branding agency on how you can create a community-driven brand.

It’s User Generated Content or Crickets

Building trust and relatability is at the heart of a community-driven brand, which means choosing real-world content over designed or highly curated content. Airbrushed images wreak of ‘fake’, appear inauthentic or are plain old ‘unrealistic’.

Aussie activewear brand Lorna Jane is a master at this. Their #LJleggings hashtag boasts over 380,000 posts on Instagram, showcasing everyday women rocking their Lorna Jane gear. Encouraging customers to create User Generated Content (UGC) with the brand is a win-win.

Engage With Them & They’ll Engage With You

Brands that excel at responding to comments and messages cultivate a sense of approachability. If you take the time to actually reply to queries, with personalised feedback that answers a question, your customers will grow to trust your brand. Resist the urge to resort to reply templates, that are impersonal or simply acknowledge a message, comment, email or DM.

Give The People What They Want

At the heart of a thriving brand community lies a deep understanding of your audience. In order to create products and services that your clients want, you need to listen to what they have to say.

Social listening, targeted focus groups and general audience engagement will help you keep your finger on the pulse of, not what the general cosmetics audience, for example, is looking for but what your particular audience, your working-women-aged-25-to-35-looking-for-eczema-friendly-makeup, wants and needs.

Forging genuine connections between your audience and your business is key to building brand loyalty today. But relationships don’t happen by accident – they take work! Key decisions related to digital and print marketing and PR need to be based on an overarching brand blueprint that is built from a brand anatomy.

If your business doesn’t have a larger brand strategy set up, let’s work together. Our branding agency will help you sell products to a deliberate audience with the help of a carefully optimised brand.