A community website is a nuanced and powerful new tool for consumer companies to engage customers. On opposite ends of the spectrum, typical brochure-ware corporate websites offer limited options for two-way interaction and social media presences remain floating communities that lack a sense of brand cohesiveness, impact and depth. So, if your consumer goods or services-based company is ready to provide customers with a new way to take ownership of your brand and foster brand evangelism, read on!

We’re in the final phase of developing a community website for Health Management Resources (a leader in medically-based weight management programs). Our goal was to create an online space that fostered brand loyalty through education and interaction. Here are some of the some mantras that guided us through the process:

Turn your community into experts.
Providing well-organized resources for your community to explore and share and will eventually turn them — and those they share these resources with — into experts. Content authorship is the key, here; while corporate thought leaders can provide initial seed content select super-users from within the online community can supplement that content. Putting a spotlight on super-users both benefits the existing community and helps boost overall sales. The 90 lurkers of the 90-9-1 rule are encouraged to delurk and enjoy similar leadership opportunities, creating a more vibrant and bustling community. Spotlit super-users are likely to want to share their contributions with their own online networks, thus introducing your products/services to a new group of people you may have never been able to reach through traditional marketing campaigns. This is true viral marketing by empowering your users.

Provide tools for your audience to grow the site.
The success of a community website is reliant upon the tools that you give your users. With fun and user-friendly interfaces for both gathering and sharing information, the content and activity on a community site will grow exponentially. We had the good fortune to work with HMRdiet’s vast library of recipes, weight-loss success stories, lifestyle tips and blog entries. Accompanying this kind of content with a ‘share’ button allows users share content via existing social media platforms where they're likely to be connected to other users with similar interests, thus helping grow the community.

Give users the options to create robust profiles that encourage meaningful connections with each other.
Robust user profiles are a core component of a thriving community website. The benefits of rich profiles are vast: photos and personal information give faces and personalities to the community and allow users to better network amongst themselves, encourage lurkers to de-lurk and also supply valuable target market information. In addition to the typical facebook-style profile components, it’s important to include a snapshot of the user’s site life (such as linking to a user’s submitted text/multimedia content, forum comments, etc.) Blending a user’s offline-identity and brand-identity promotes brand ownership and facilitates brand evangelism.

Want to learn more about how a community website can benefit your company? Give us a call at 617.338.8922 or contact us here, we’d love to hear from you.