Can a community be successful with low brand awareness?
Written by Paul Dunay on April 20, 2008 – 8:02 pm -
Ok, here is something I’m wrestling with: Can a community be successful with low brand awareness?
If you are a big tech brand like Dell or Microsoft, you have no problem launching a community. In fact, many of these organizations have several communities.
But what if you are a small SaaS vendor? Forget costs for one moment, and resources for another (chuckling) – can you attract enough community members to make it go?
Think about the last great party you went to (technically I have never been to a party – but if I had…) where there were a ton of interesting people, lots of great conversations, etc. Now contrast that with the opposite – the party where only 10 people showed up and there were too few conversations happening in too large room. Can you really blame the partygoers if they feel weird and don’t come to the next party?
So here is my question for you: Are community plays the domain of large brands only? Or can a small brand have a thriving community, too? What’s your view?
Tags: community
Posted in community marketing, marketing 2.0, marketing strategy |
Loading ...
April 22nd, 2008 at 8:01 pm
Paul,
If a small brand has something really interesting to talk about that hits a nerve with people — and it’s a topic on which people want to give and get help — it may be able to have a community. If you try to create community around a bland “so what” topic, people might come once for cocktails, but won’t stay for dinner if there’s nothing much to stay for.
Lois
April 24th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Great point Lois
I am painfully aware of the costs involved in an enterprise community play - so like you said you better have lots of good points of view that you can use for discussion
April 30th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
Expanding on Lois’ comment you have to appeal to the consumers personal values and offer a community on a product that they are passionate about.
Lets go with the party example. A construction worker who loves sports and being rowdy, can go to a huge party with lots of people there having fun but say he is at a business party that his wife or girlfriend dragged him to. Is going to want to go there again? No, but he may because of his wife.
However, take that same person and put him with a few of his co-workers at a superbowl party. Now he kind of likes it more and will more then likely return for similar parties.
Same this with products. If the product is something that appeals to the consumer and the company can find a way to get the message out to him (and there are plenty of non costly ways), then the company should be able to build a considerable fanbase