How to create a powerful brand community?

Today’s objective: understand how to build a sustainable ecosystem for your brand and its people.

First of all, what is a community?

A community is a tribe. It is an ecosystem to which every participant contributes and from which every participant benefits.

So first, we must remember that your brand is only one part of this larger community. You are not really creating or building a community. You are simply helping its members to connect and bond with each other.

Your brand is an entity that is part of that community. The community benefits from the contributions made by your brand. Your brand benefits from the contributions made by the community.

Nothing more, nothing less.

What are a tribe and a community made of?

A tribe/community is made up of two elements:

• Leaders
• Members

As a brand, your role is to guide your tribe members toward a common goal. Without leaders, there are no followers. Without leaders, there is no movement. That’s your mission: to create movement!

Every tribe exists because of two essential elements: leaders and members. They will only gather around an idea and a sense of community.

As a leader, your goals are to :

• Make this idea as tangible as possible
• Gain the trust of your tribe to serve it better

What does your tribe need to thrive?

Only two things allow a group to become an influential tribe.

It needs:

• A common interest (the famous idea mentioned above)
• A means of communication

The vision: the tangible illustration of an idea

As mentioned before, you must bring to life the big picture your tribe carries. This is the time to articulate your vision.

Your vision statement is the tool that will help your followers rally around you and your idea. By extension, it is also the tool that will help the tribe achieve its mission.

It’s easier to fulfill a mission when it’s well-defined. That’s what your vision statement is about.

A means of communication

Great leaders energize the tribe’s communication. This is how they create movement.

If this means of communication does not already exist, it is up to you to implement it for your community. With this communication tool, your tribe will be able to communicate in the following ways:

• Tribe to Leader
• Leader to Tribe
• Member to Member
• Member to Outsider (stranger to the community)

With this powerful communication tool, a leader (you) can increase the effectiveness of the tribe and its members. To do this, you should combine three tactics:

• Transform a common interest into an exciting mission and a powerful desire for change through one’s vision.
• Providing communication tools and methods that allow members to reinforce their message.
• Leverage tribe excitement to enable it to grow and gain new members.

An illustration of the three tactics

There is nothing more telling than examples.

We’ll discuss three examples to help you bring your community together. We’ll talk about vision, communication tools, and growth.

First example: Nike and its vision

The common interest shared by Nike and its tribe:

To revolutionize, evolve, and inspire the world of sports by creating more sustainable products that positively impact community members.

To bring its community together, Nike has articulated their mission as follows:

To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.

Do you want to join the movement? I do!

By reading this mission statement, one can imagine thousands of ways to carry out the mission.

It is the power of having a mission and articulating it. You can imagine the way to solve the problem, but you can’t grasp it until you join the tribe. This is when leaders will share their vision statement with you.

Second example: Twitch and its tool

Twitch has one goal:

Help people come together live every day to chat, interact, and make their own entertainment together.

By providing their powerful communication tool to the world, they help thousands of people create entertainment. So they’re helping millions of people come together around these content creators. Twitch helps communities grow around entertainment.

Twitch designed everything to energize the communication of tribal members with each other.

As a result, Twitch honors and celebrates each member of its community.

The third tactic: growth of the Start-up

The third and most common tactic is growth!

This is the tool of choice for any start-up. This tool is so widespread that everyone talks about growth all the time.

Good news: many use at least one of the three tactics.

Bad news: many forget to combine growth with the first two (“vision articulation” and “communication tool”).

Without embracing all three tactics, growth becomes a goal and no longer a tool. Today, only some start-ups combine the three tactics, but let’s not blame them; growth is one of the ultimate indicators before finding a business model.

Moreover, when a start-up exploits these three processes and finds its business model, we no longer call it a start-up. The company should know where it is going. A small illustration: Apple is no longer referred to as a start-up at this precise moment.

In conclusion, growing your community is a good tool if it is combined with the two previous tactics.

The recipe for creating excitement in your community

A compelling story about who you were in the beginning, who you are now, and the future you are trying to build.

A facilitated connection between tribe members and between the leader and the members.

Something to achieve together!

The privilege of leading a community must be earned

Only generosity and transparency give you the right to lead a group. You must prove yourself worthy of the trust the world places in you. It’s all about strengthening and nurturing your relationship with the people who decide to follow you.