Are Brands Investing in Social Media Communities in 2023? We Asked 1,200+ Marketers

The ultimate goal of social media marketing is to generate revenue, and a crucial step to generating revenue via social media is creating engagement. If your followers don’t engage with your posts, they won’t engage with your business. And a sure way to boost engagement is by fostering a tight-knit social media community.

Social media communities are incubators for brand awareness, loyalty, and trust. They’re also a dime a dozen, so marketers must refine their approach to building and leveraging them correctly.

Let’s explore more about social media communities, their benefits and challenges, and where brands will invest their resources in 2023.

Are brands investing in social media communities?

Social Media Community Benefits

How are social media communities formed?

Social Media Community Examples

Building a Social Media Community

Challenges of Building a Social Media Community

Final Thoughts

In a sense, every social media community member is a micro-influencer, sharing real experiences and opinions that can influence other members. This is worth mentioning since nearly nine out of ten consumers read reviews before buying a product.

Customers who love your brand want to talk about it. They want to share reviews and pass on advice, and communities give them a place to do that.

But what about bad reviews? As an active participant in your community, you have an excellent opportunity to resolve any issues or complaints. And since members are already invested in your brand, they’re more apt to find solutions with you.

2. They can cut costs.

Active, self-sufficient communities can become hubs for customers to ask and answer questions, which alleviates pressure on customer support teams. They can also reduce support costs — one study found it was 72% cheaper to answer a question via a community than to submit a ticket to a support team.

Communities can also reduce your ad spending. In 2022 ad spending in the US was predicted to cross the $200 billion mark. Brands with active communities can spend less on social media advertising because they can reach customers in an owned space for free.

3. They create active participation with your brand.

We’ve all heard the statistic — it’s cheaper (arguably easier) to retain customers than convert new ones. This is why brand advocacy and retention are critical to any marketing strategy.

Brands can strengthen relationships with community members by encouraging active participation — with polls, surveys, contests, and user-generated content, to name a few. In essence, what was once a transactional relationship is now an active conversation. And every active engagement brings customers closer to your brand.

4. They offer insight into your consumers.

The most productive communities are strategically designed to spark conversations. You can take full advantage of these conversations by tracking common complaints, ideas for improvement, and unique ways they use your products to solve problems.

Remember to let your community know when you make a change based on member feedback. People love to know you’re listening and taking their suggestions seriously.

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Users ask questions about local weather within the community, share photos and videos of weather phenomena, and speak to First Coast News meteorologists. First Coast News will often take photos and videos shared in the group and feature them in live broadcasts.

2. Mad Rabbit

Mad Rabbit is a tattoo skin relief care brand that started a thriving social media community on Instagram that is focused on the subculture of tattoos. Followers of the company’s page share and receive information regarding tattoo aftercare and artistic creativity. Mad Rabbit’s Instagram page also frequently collaborates with tattoo influencers who help the brand further engage with users.

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3. Official Crunchyroll Discord

Anime licensing and streaming company Crunchyroll started its own social media community on Discord. The community is a space for anime fans to discuss their favorite shows and anime-related content.

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Check out how Glow Recipe, a skincare brand, provides value by offering tips for healthy skin while subtly promoting their products:

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3. Feature user-generated content.

A great way to boost engagement within a community is to encourage user-generated content. This is any content — like text, videos, or reviews — that your members create, which you can then share across your social communities.

Peloton does an excellent job featuring user-generated content by highlighting customer stories and fitness milestones. Not only does this give the audience a voice, but it also encourages members to share their stories and testimonials — effectively fueling word-of-mouth marketing.

4. Make your community findable.

Building a community is almost impossible if people aren’t aware it exists. Here are a few ways to spread the word:

• Embed social icons on your website

• Invite family, friends, and colleagues to follow and share your community

• Use hashtags to expose your content to new audiences

• Cross-promote your community on different channels

• Run exclusive giveaways or discounts for community members

5. Don’t let your community collect dust.

Consistency is an important ingredient in successful social media communities. If you let your accounts collect dust, members will abandon ship. Creating a content calendar and publishing schedule is a good idea when planning ahead. And if your brand is juggling various platforms, check out HubSpot’s social media management tools.

To help with this process, you may want to designate someone on your team to moderator your community. Or, hire a community manager or online moderation partner such as Hive Moderation or SupportNinja.

Another challenge is measuring the ROI from your community. In other words, are your community-building efforts paying off? For instance, you may have high engagement levels in your community, but your conversion rate is stuck at 0%.

Before doing anything else, ask yourself — how do I want my community to contribute to my businesses? Is it customer engagement? Retention? Product adoption?

Next, you’ll want to identify a few metrics to measure your goals. They should be community-specific and directly related to community activities, such as click-through, sign-up, or engagement rates.

You can take this one step further by tracking the same KPIs for both community members and non-members and then comparing the performance between the two. For instance, you may discover a 30% higher product adoption among community members than non-members.