Key Takeaways:
- Understand the basics of community marketing along with its elements.
- Practical examples display with respect to the strategies used in community marketing.
- Some important aspects of community building and influencer marketing are mentioned.
Let’s start from the very word itself, COMMUNITY.
Everyone has a social network made up of friends, family, and individuals they know both online and off. An online social networking site just makes our social networks available to others outside of our circle. People are kept together by pre-existing personal ties in a social network, and connections are created one at a time, which distinguishes it from a community. Consider how Facebook mirrors your social network. Family members, classmates, neighbours, and co-workers are typically among your Facebook “friends.” A community is made with like-minded people, who believe in common ideas and expression of thoughts, name there are LGBTQ communities, there are communities made through religion, and the list of distinguishes mankind continues.
Unlike social networks, communities are made up of people from different walks of life who appear to have no connection. A shared interest, such as a pastime, job, location, or cause, is the glue that keeps community members together. Consider the following scenario:
Yelp is essentially a social media platform where individuals can share their enthusiasm for local eateries. The Cisco Tech Zone is a social network where technical support engineers share important IT expertise. On the Virgin Mobile Australia online social community, like-minded consumers learn, publish, share, and hang out.
Communities are a very important part of the funnel of influencer marketing as not even social media needs faces that are backed up by a lot of following.
Check out the link to know more about influencer marketing.
As the name suggests, influencers are like those who are particularly influencing the community with their thoughts and perceptions which are largely related to the people in the community. If we think on marketing terms, because of his or her authority, expertise, position, or relationship with his or her audience, an influencer can influence others’ purchase decisions. He or she has a dedicated following in a certain specialty with whom he or she interacts often. The size of his or her niche’s topic determines the amount of his or her following. It’s crucial to remember that these people aren’t just marketing tools; they’re also social connection assets with whom businesses may work to achieve their marketing goals. Different sorts of influencers can be distinguished in a variety of ways. The number of followers, the type of material, and the level of impact are some of the most prevalent ways. Influencers can also be categorized by the industry in which they work. This means that influencers who appear to be in a low category on one metric may appear to be more influential when seen in a different light. Many mega-influencers, for example, are also celebrities. Despite this, both verticals generally have a less genuine effect on their audiences due to a lack of competence in a certain specialty. Some micro and even nano–influencers can have a huge impact on their specialized niche’s following.
You can know more about it by clicking here [https://influencermarketinghub.com/what-is-an-influencer/]
Hence influencers have to create and grow their network/following to have an edge over the competitors in the market. Community marketing helps a lot in the process of influencer management.
Community marketing connects the dots between your business’s strategy and the individuals who are driving it. People are more inclined to pay more for a product or service that provides a strong sense of connection, support, and service, which is precisely what community marketing does.
Customer loyalty is measured overtime via community building. In our day-to-day operations, this is frequently addressed by short-term sales promotion efforts. More and more businesses are realizing that offering a platform for community discussion and moderation is a long-term investment.
Unlike traditional advertising, which focuses exclusively on attracting new consumers, community marketing focuses on connecting and interacting with people to foster long-term connections. It’s all about the power of communication and making your customers or potential customers feel acknowledged, heard, and significant.
A community-building process has various things incorporated in it but the most common out of all is they have a special niche with the people. If we talk in terms of neuro-marketing, every influencer has a very important impact on the lives of the people in the form of dopamine rush.
Some Strategies which might work for community building:
It’s critical to establish the proper tone with your audience when it comes to community marketing. You don’t want to come out as aggressive with continuous sales postings, dismissing your audience when they engage, or bombarding them with unrelated material since this will backfire.
1. Participate
At the end of the day, people join online communities because they share a passion for a certain product, service, or cause. They’ve come to interact with others, share knowledge, conduct research, and learn about whatever topic your specialty covers. Nobody joins a community because they want to be sold something; they join because they want to, not because they have to. Keeping this in mind and utilizing your community as a place to truly participate in conversations and get to know the individuals that frequent it, will make a significant impact on the online atmosphere you create.
2. Contribute like a pro
Always keep in mind that you are the authority in your area and issue when creating a community. Respond from a place of offering as much value as possible so that others perceive you as the authority and expert. Publishing instructional articles, tips, and how-to not only demonstrates your knowledge but also helps you build relationships with your target audience. You’re much more likely to create loyalty if you focus on really assisting your audience rather than utilizing marketing lingo.
3. Be accessible
Nobody likes being ignored, so make sure you participate in your online community and show up regularly to assist people to gain trust in you. It will also give your campaign a more human touch and give it a feeling of authenticity, which consumers adore. People purchase from other people, after all.
4. Create raving fans
There’s no doubting that word-of-mouth marketing is the most effective kind of advertising. People have confidence in their friends, family, and peers. You may take advantage of this by identifying good influencers in your community and engaging with them to build a mutually advantageous relationship, such as offering discounts or becoming an affiliate. This allows you to develop your business naturally by making them feel like a member of your team.
5. Advertise in an informative way
Educating your audience on what you have to offer by promoting in an instructive manner is a wonderful method to do it without coming off as sleazy. When you answer FAQs or discuss industry developments, for example, you keep consumers interested without pressuring them to buy your product or service.
6. Stay consistent
Don’t give up hope if folks don’t turn up right away. Your community will grow as you remain consistent with your strategy and the material you post, and people will naturally develop faith in what you’re doing.
7. Engage
It’s critical to figure out how to interact with your audience in a way that works for them. Is your target audience active and on the go? If that’s the case, it’s possible that making videos will be faster than writing blog articles. If you’re running a book club, for example, your audience may prefer to read rather than watch videos, thus blog articles will be more welcomed. Using the Poll tool is a fantastic method to learn what kind of material your audience enjoys the most and to encourage additional interactions.
Examples of Influencer marketing concerning community building!
1. Allen Solley created #ShootForSolly
A campaign to promote their chinos collection, to attract young customers and portray chinos as a viable alternative to jeans. 22 influencers from all walks of life matched Allen Solly chinos with a shirt of their choosing from a retailer in their city as part of the campaign. They also had to choose a photographer and arrange for a photo shoot around a city landmark with the help of the Allen Solly team from afar. All of the photos were compiled on a microsite and distributed over social media. #ShootForSolly produced 712,203 impressions and reached 73,493 people. The campaign reached 1,16,279 unique engaged users on Facebook, resulting in a total reach of 2 million people and 3.2 million impressions.
2. Skittles – Exclusive the Rainbow, Taste the Rainbow
Skittles’ Taste the Rainbow with Marcos Menendez was created to catch people’s attention and pique their interest. DDB Chicago created the campaign intending to create a Super Bowl ad, but not for the Super Bowl. Skittles has stated that they would create a Super Bowl commercial for a single viewer that will only be viewed by that one Skittles superfan. They followed up with four perplexing videos starring David Schwimmer a week later. “Is this the moment from the upcoming Skittles ad that will only be shown to one person?” the actor wondered after each video. The special ad was then broadcast to Marcos, the brand’s super-fan, on February 4th, Super Bowl Sunday. A million people saw Marcos’ reaction to the commercial on Facebook Live from all around the world. The ad garnered 1.5 billion media impressions and was featured on ABC’s program, and it won Gold in the Social & Influencer Lions category at Cannes 2018.
3. Taco Bell – #MakePotatoGreatAgain
Tanmay Bhatt and Taco Bell created #MakePotatoGreatAgain to promote Crispy Potato, a potato-taco hybrid.
Taco Bell’s Head of Marketing, Sambit Dash, Yum! Taco Bell only has 17 locations in metropolitan regions, according to the brands, and its target customer is millennials.
Tanmay Bhatt shared short videos with a dash of comedy. Potato received a lot of attention thanks to the hashtag, which attracted influencers like Karan Tacker and Lady Gabbar. According to the Tweet binder, #MakePotatoGreat earned 24,522,245 impressions.
4. Lo-fi the wolf dog
To be an influencer, you don’t have to be human. Just look at Loki the Wolf Dog. Over 2 million Instagram users follow this canine Instagram sensation as he and his owner, Kelly Lund, frolic around the North American wilderness. Mercedes asked Loki and Kelly to participate in the #MCPhotoPass campaign, which required driving a 2017 Mercedes GLS over snow-covered Colorado Rockies. The campaign used film, photography, and virtual reality. Outside-facing 3D cameras were mounted so that spectators could experience racing over icy terrain alongside Loki, while inside-facing cameras displayed the 2017 GLS cabin. Mercedes also asked several well-known Instagram photographers to contribute to the coverage. The Instagram account for the campaign had 173 million impressions, 2.3 million comments and likes, and $4 million in earned media.
5. 67 Shades of Dior Campaign
Dior, in collaboration with the influencer marketing agency Buttermilk, won the Gold Award for Best Beauty Campaign at the 2020 Influencer Marketing Awards. The advertisement was created to promote the debut of Dior’s Forever Foundation, a collection of 67 different foundation colours.
The goal of the campaign was to raise global awareness of Dior’s new Forever Foundation by displaying the vast range of colours available. They also sought to highlight the product’s diversity by appointing an ambassador for each hue. Another goal of the campaign was to generate branded material that could be reused on Dior’s channels. When it came to choosing influencers, Buttermilk had precise quantitative and qualitative criteria. These included the following:
- High levels of participation
- Past performance that has been proven
- Passing the authenticity test
- Having a presence in particular major consumer markets (and also having audiences in these locations)
- Having beauty-obsessed audiences.
In the end, they chose 67 influencers for the campaign, each of whom matched one of Dior’s 67 colours. The influencers, in turn, made one post every day for a total of 67 days.
A total of 2.66 million people were reached by the 67 influencers.
Communities are very important as they are a creation of an idea that is shared by many and creates the foundation of living beings. As the generations pass, leaders, teachers and various other professionals have become influencers of their communities helping the people of the community to be strongly connected to their core unique thoughts! Hence, it’s the responsibility of any influencer to guide the community through the right means!
Siddharth Agarwal
Content Writer
Anooj Srivastava
Graphic Designer
Ashish Singh
Editor
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