Introduction: What Is a Brand?

The days of consumers buying only what advertisers were selling are gone. The landscape of marketing has shifted to a consumer-focused economy. More and more, people are evaluating products and services themselves online using articles, blog posts, and most importantly, consumer reviews. Potential purchasers regularly consult the opinions of others before they make a buying decision. This trend for greater consumer involvement with brands means that having a brand community is more important than ever.

Business owners and entrepreneurs are finding that an engaged community is more effective for marketing than traditional tactics. A community is a place where a brand can share its unique philosophy and mission with its followers. It provides crucial differentiation from the competition. In your community, you share yourself and your values in a way you wouldn’t normally in other areas of business. By doing this, you create a deeper connection with your audience which builds trust and encourages sales.

But the development of brand communities is not solely driven by sales. Many entrepreneurs feel a genuine desire to provide a more supportive environment for their followers and more transparency around their work. They encourage interaction between community members and empower their group to help each other.

In an increasingly impersonal digital world, the community reintroduces the all-important personal connection and reminds others that you are a human being. At the end of the day, people still like buying from people.

This course will teach you all you need to know to set up and run a successful brand community. You’ll learn techniques for encouraging the engagement and interaction which is vital to maintaining a vibrant community. You’ll discover how to attract the right members who resonate with your values and how to provide the content they want to engage with. This course provides you with the keys to growing your brand and your business through your thriving brand community.

Learning Objectives:

By the time you complete this course, you’ll be able to:

• Explore the benefits of a community for your business, so that you can identify the potential advantages for business growth
• Clarify your branding and the values you want your community to reflect and cultivate, so that you can share these to draw in like-minded community members
• Pick the type of community that best meets your business needs and what role you will play, so that you can be confident your community will help you achieve your goals
• Define who your ideal community members are and what they want from a community, so that you attract the people you can help most
• Find the right platform to host your community, so that your community members have quick and easy access to the group
• Describe the purpose and benefits of your community clearly, so people can decide if they’re a fit
• Define the rules of your community, so people know how to participate and feel safe in the environment
• Plan ways to entice people to join your community, so you can quickly increase membership to a level that fosters interaction
• Detail the guidance you will give new members, so they can reap the greatest benefits and provide value for other members
• Explore best practices you will follow for managing the group, so that your members have confidence in your leadership
• Identify what content your community will want and how you will encourage engagement with that content, so that you create a participative, interactive community
• Encourage interaction among community members, so that they get value and keep coming back to participate
• Tap into your community as a source of data and feedback on your offers and new projects, so that you can provide what the community wants
• Use your community as a source of recommendations about you and your work, so that you can attract more customers
• Leverage your community to grow your business brand, so that you expand your reach and nurture your business growth
• Consolidate and implement your learning and plan future action steps, so you can achieve the goals you set for this course

This course is broken down into 6 major modules and individual lessons to take you step-by-step through the way to create a brand community, get engagement with members, and leverage it to grow your business.

The modules follow a logical order, so while you can skip around if you want, it’s best to work through them one at a time.

As you go through each module, use your Action Guide to help you complete the Action Steps at the end of each.