How to Create a Brand Community – Lessons from “She Code Africa”

By Precious Obiabunmo

A brand community is an online community of people who love the brand. Learn more on how you can make it effective.

Having an online presence for your brand is super easy now. You can just post content on either Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn and your brand will be fine.

However, we can see a shift in the way consumers interact with brands. They want to know more about the face behind the brand. They buy from brands that are connected to them emotionally and align with their values. 

So how do you humanize your brand? How do you create an emotional experience with your audience? How do you foster engagement and loyalty? 

This is where building a brand community comes in. But first, let’s define brand community.

So, how do you become a part of the 74% of large companies and 40% of small businesses that have harnessed the power of brand communities?

Last week, I chatted with Omotola Omotayo, the community manager lead for She Code Africa (SCA), a community that celebrates and empowers young girls, and women in technology across Africa. She and her team built the community from scratch to over 19,000 women today. 

In this article, we’ll take a look at how they created their brand community.

Note: Sections of this interview were edited for clarity.

1. Choose a Platform

The first thing you want to do is choose the platform on which you’ll manage your community. Some brands already use social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn as their brand community which is totally fine.

However, if you want to deeply connect with your consumers, you might want to consider using platforms like Slack, Telegram, Discord, or WhatsApp. This makes your social media distinct from the community. It also makes your community members feel exclusive and this is vital for deeper connections and engagement.

Your marketing goals and target audience demographics will help you decide the best option for your brand.

2. Define Your Members’ Goals

Once you’ve chosen a platform, identify your members’ goals. 

Omotola explains,

“Define your audience and strategically map out their needs and how you can solve them. Plan programs and activities on how to meet them”

With your members’ goals, you can understand their pains, gains, and what they hope to achieve when joining your community.

3. Create a Content Strategy  

Your content will determine the success of your online community. In the beginning, your community members might be shy and won’t discuss. This is why you should have a content strategy that will fan the flames and most importantly model the conversations you’ll like the community members to have.

If your content strategy is weak, your members will quickly get tired of the community and leave. Examples of content you can add to your strategy include:

• Daily and weekly conversation starters
• Member generated content 
• AMA Series
• Expert workshops
• Mentorship sessions
• Summits
• Meetups.

In an earlier article, we shared in detail how you can create a content strategy, which you can also find helpful in your business.

4. Establish Community Guidelines 

Without law and order in society today, it is easy for chaos to set in. This is no different from a brand community. For your community to thrive, you need to create community guidelines that will keep members in check. 

Omotola shares how community guidelines improved the SCA community.

“Ensure the community is a safe space for the members. SCA community is one in which our members feel comfortable speaking their voices. And it encourages activity, growth, sales and limitless feedback”

Your community rules should address issues of self-promotion and spam. Make it mandatory to accept the community guidelines before a member is allowed to join the community.

5. Promote Your Community

Allow the first set of members to get familiar with each other. A good sign to know when this happens is when they start to contribute to discussions. Once there’s a good amount of content on the platform, you can slowly begin to promote the community on social media.

Omotola explains,

“Promote the community on social media platforms to connect with more target populations and sponsors”

Alternatively, you can turn your community members into ambassadors and ask them to share the group on their social media platforms. 

Conclusion

Building a brand community today has so many benefits. It’s a win-win situation for the members and the brand. All you have to do is select a platform, create a community strategy, promote on socials, and just keep experimenting. 

I hope you found this post helpful. You can leave a comment below and share this with others.

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