As the discipline of community building and community management continues to grow, several specializations are starting to emerge — brand communities, company-internal communities, and communities of practice just to name a few. I’ve been building brand communities for over 10 years. Mostly in the entertainment industry, but I’ve done some work with non-profits and packaged goods companies, too. I’ve been on both the vendor side and the client side. I’ve helped build lots of communities, and I’ve seen things that work and things that don’t work.

Guy Kawasaki recently posted 10 tips for building brand communities from Dave Balter, CEO of BzzAgent. I thought they were good, but I have a few elaborations and extras of my own to toss in.

Focus on your customer’s needs. Major brands have realized they can aggregate hundreds of thousands—even millions—of customers, but real engagement and meaningful interaction are still unattained goals. Focus on answering the question, “Why would consumers form a community around our brand?” rather than “How many people can we sign up?”

I absolutely agree with this one. There are some companies and industries that community will naturally form around. Gaming is certainly one — television shows and television channels are another. Companies in this industry don’t have to work very hard to get lots of people to come to a brand-oriented community. But it’s often the companies that don’t have to work hard for the people that forget they still need to do something with the people once they get there. Think like a member of your community and create tools, features, and interactions that a fan would be really excited about. 

Foster many-to-many relationships. A brand community is not a one-to-many relationship—that’s brand autocracy. People need to interact with each other and not simply “the brand” if you want to create a successful brand community. Therefore, build peer-to-peer communication into your structure.

Agreed. People come to communities to form relationships with other people who are into the same things they are. If they just wanted to learn what you have to say about your brand, they’d read your website. American Idol fans don’t just want information about the show and the contestants, they want to talk about the performances and predict who is going to get the most votes. They want to connect with each other.

Think local. Brand communities are not just for companies or products with huge budgets. It’s just as valuable for your local favorite ice cream shop or funky costume store to create a vibrant community as it is for a major brand. You never know: with a successful brand community, you may become a major brand. Isn’t that the goal?

Local brands, unless they have a cult following in a major metropolitan area, are going to have a harder time than most because their reach is limited. But that certainly doesn’t mean that it’s impossible. It also doesn’t mean that they need to create their own communities. For example, there’s a local ice cream shop in San Francisco that I love, called Bi-Rite Creamery. Their ice cream is organic, locally made, and totally yummy. (Try the honey lavender, if you get a chance.) They often have a line around the block, especially on nice summer days. They have over 1500 reviews on Yelp and great word of mouth. Community can be formed around local brands, but they probably won’t do it in the same way, or use the same tools as bigger companies.

Don’t create “more.” Massive amounts of information is being created about your brand and distributed across the web everyday. Rather than spend time asking people to create more content, make it easy for people to enjoy and engage with the stuff that already exists.

I agree, but not entirely. Sometimes, enabling and encouraging the community to create content is absolutely the right thing to do. It just depends on your brand, product, community and goals. But I do agree that making it easy for people to find and discuss content that already exists is a good idea. 

Foster peer celebrity. Whether your brand community is for Oscar Mayer or Lego, advocates love it when others recognize their expertise, experiences, and passion. Find ways to cheer members who give a little extra. And nix the anonymity – if someone’s a true advocate, they’ll want to be known for it.

Your brand probably already has advocates. But even if you don’t, you can build them. Make them moderators, single them out on your blog, ask them to lead a discussion, or ask them to create content. I would also note that “ditch the anonymity” doesn’t necessarily mean “have them use their real name”. Many people who are used to being in communities are happy to be known by their username. 

Say “hey.” Advocates want to know you’re doing more than just silently observing them or commercializing the relationship with coupons. Instead share “insider” information and offer a preview of what new products are being developed.

Absolutely. If the surge of businesses doing well on Twitter has taught us anything it is this. Users crave interactivity with their favorite brands. So often, when I’m following back people from the Sega Twitter account, people tweet about how excited they are to have us following them. And that’s before I’ve returned a reply saying hello. 

Let your advocates advocate. The only way to inspire your best advocates is to let them work their magic without interference except in issues of ethics and legality. Your advocates are not pawns—they are your partners, so treat them that way.

Agreed, you can’t treat advocates like they are your minions. If you do, they will stop being inspired to advocate your brand, and they’ll use their community power against you. It’s a lose-lose.

Don’t merely moderate. Creating advocacy is more than providing a place for consumers to congregate. If your primary job is deleting “f-bombs” and ‘keeping things clean’ you won’t inspire advocacy. Don’t be afraid to get deep into the dialogue.

This is so important. It may be the most important point here. Community managers and content moderators are NOT the same thing. I’m not saying that moderators and moderation is not important — it absolutely is. But your community manager needs to be in your community, leading discussions and creating relationships in the community. People can form attachment and loyalty to brands, but they don’t form relationships with brands. They form relationships with people at those brands. And community is all about relationships. 

Keep it simple. Just because you can add a feature, doesn’t mean you should. Centralize on enhancing single most important reason people keep coming back. Offering the hodgepodge of polls-messageboards-blogpost-videoplaylist-statusfeeds-avatars can lead to brand – and advocate – schizophrenia.

I agree that you shouldn’t use tools you don’t need. but I don’t think that there’s any one tool that can meet the needs of most communities. Not every community needs a message board, a blog, or a wiki. It varies so much with the companies, the products, and the goals. I just don’t think everyone can centralize on one tool. But adding something just because it’s the newest, hottest thing isn’t always right either.

Observe the 1-9-90 rule. This new rule, pioneered by Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li in their seminal book Groundswell, is quickly becoming a standard: 1% of your population will create content, 9% will comment or engage with it, and 90% will just browse. Voyeurs rule the online world, so keep this in mind.

This rule is becoming a standard for good reason. Voyeurs will rule, but you can’t focus on them to the exclusion of the 9 or 90. Just because 90% are read-only doesn’t mean that 90% of your effort should be focused on them. That 1% is incredibly critical — without them, the other 99% don’t have anything to engage with or read. You have to put more than 1% of your effort into finding, retaining and nurturing them. They are the backbone of your community. 

As this blog continues on, I hope to provide many of my own tips about starting and sustaining brand communities. I’m happy to address situations or questions directly. If you have specific topics you’d like to hear about, or situations you’d like tips on, please leave them in the comments.