Before the business world discovered community mobilisation as highly relevant and effective for business success a decade or so ago, the concept had largely been applied in the humanitarian and developmental context.
It refers to the process of building social relationships, facilitating active community participation in pursuit of common community interests.
A renowned example that successfully mobilised communities and brought about impactful social change is the NAAM Movement in Burkina Faso, West Africa that has been working since the 60s to make villages responsible for their own development.
The aim of NAAM is to set up autonomous communities that are self-sufficient in food, labour and finance. Due to its ability in gathering local power, NAAM is able to support local farmers and village communities in the form of targeted assistance such as customised training, education and work programmes.
NAAM is currently one of the largest farmers’ organisations in West Africa, involving 85 national and 11 international unions with over 650,000 members. Its model has been adopted across many African countries.
Fast forward to 2015, when social media has become an indispensable part of our life, it is obvious for businesses that the online social platforms offer additional channels to reach out to their customers.
Lets look at some of the triggers that drive companies from startups to Fortune 500 around the world to build their brand communities or start to invest in their community marketing strategies :
Lower marketing expenses
Community is the best place for word-of-mouth promotion. Think of community-based reviews of Airbnb, the majority of the hotel booking sites, electronic gadgets review websites, etc.
Community reviews have become a trustworthy place for people seeking unbiased purchasing advice. Very often it is only a fraction of the marketing budget, and with it you get the most updated market info, trends and purchasing patterns.
Read more on community reviews:
- How retailers can use reviews to bounce back from the summer slump
- UK businesses blighted by online trolls costing them up to 30,000
- Honesty is the best policy: Brand review service Trustpilot wins $73.5m investment
Build and retain loyal customers
Human beings are social creatures, we seek commonality and connections and approval. Thinking of Maslows hierarchy of needs theory famously postulates the need for love and belonging is one of the top basic needs right after the basic physiological and safety needs are satisfied.
Once people find communities with like-minded people, they are likely to stay, share, discuss, and even contribute to make the community bigger and better. A good example would be Harley Owners Group (HOG), a famous example in the brand community study, as the HOG has helped to turn around Harley Davidsons business when it suffered from close to extinction back in 1983.
The HOG is a community among Harley-Davidson enthusiasts to share their loyalty to the brand and to connect and engage online. Currently, there are over one million active members around the world, all linked by one passion of Harley Davidson.
Market-driven innovations
Communities provide the ideal testing ground for innovations, as you get immediate feedback on existing products, can identify customer needs and can proceed to developing customer-focused products or services that have secured market demand.
For startups, crowdfunding is a very useful means for attaining such feedback. Its quite simple: if people want what you can offer them, theyll chip in some money to help you get to the finish line, and provide useful feedback along the way.
At nexpaq, we pushed-off using Kickstarter, and it let us know that not only did people want our project, but what they wanted to see from it in the future.
We believe there are four main areas to truly mobilise and cultivate your community continue reading on the next page to find out what they are and the strategy employed by Nike.
We believe there are four main areas to truly mobilise and cultivate your community:
1. Community-building is more than a marketing strategy
Community-building goes hand-in-hand with top-level business planning and to fulfil the business visions. Make sure a supportive company structure is in place supportive to serve your community, as well as cater enough time and resources for its growth.
Companies need to incorporate different departments and personnel to answer questions, solve problems, provide know-how, develop solutions together with the community.
2. The less control the better
A community thrives when they can express their opinions without restrictions. When users can actually express themselves freely, it is very likely they will provide useful market information (whether complaints or praises).
This freedom, together with the way business handles these responses will directly impact business to gain (or lose) credibility and loyalty among users. Between the company-managed community and the customer-run community, find the optimal mix for your business.
3. Go beyond the online community
Successfully mobilising a community involves understanding the needs, connecting people, getting people involved, gaining trust, making a difference inside the community.
Online social media is just a small part of the whole picture. A community needs to have a real life existence.
4. Put the community before the brand
People join communities due to many reasons (social networks, emotional support, get advice, or to contribute to a bigger cause) and the brand affiliation could be only a small part of it. The community does not exist to serve the brand, but to relate on certain social issues.
Some successful brand communities centred on the needs of the community and not put brand loyalty as their priority. For example, Nike+, has successfully built an online community for members to track their running activities, and the platform is set up entirely to catered to the needs of its users.
This community has helped Nike to forge a tighter customer relationship than ever before, that further translated to business revenue. As per former general manager of Nike+ 40 per cent of community members who didnt own Nike+ ended up buying .
The take-away
Maintaining loyal customers, getting instant access to market feedback, tapping into market-driven innovation ideas, lowering marketing expenses, building brand loyalty the attraction of having a successful community strategies is great.
However, not all the companies have got it right. On the contrary, many companies have placed the priority on building a community to benefit the business, and the results are clear: the community does not thrive and the ROI is low.
In every seed lies the promise of a forest. All we can do is provide the dirt and bring some water.
Hilary Tsui is the senior project manager at smartphone customisation business nexpaq
