Within customer advocacy, community risks getting overlooked. 

However, I treat it as a mini customer advocacy segment within the larger advocacy whole. 

Just because a customer buys something doesn't necessarily mean they know how to use it effectively. This is where community comes into play. Going beyond the transactional aspect, a community can significantly help your customers succeed by providing the resources they need. 

These resources can include platforms with Q&As, educational content, and more. Your role in making a community impactful and successful goes beyond just inviting people to join. It's about creating value.

For your company, the value can manifest in several ways: gaining industry awards from third-party reviews, generating new referrals from leads, and more. 

In this article, I’ll give you a crash course on community building. I’ll cover what a community looks like, different platforms you can use, foundational impactful experiences, activities you can implement, and best practices to make your program indispensable within your organization.

Understanding customer communities

At its core, a customer community is a dedicated space that hosts a relationship between a brand or company and its customers. Pay attention to the keyword here: relationship. You're not just offering a service; you're offering an experience.

A community can allow for questions, answers, and networking with others. What makes a community impactful varies from business to business, but generally, a successful community fosters relationships by providing member value and benefits, giving a sense of belonging, and delivering positive outcomes for its members.

This relationship can be built on various platforms, such as emails, websites, and online platforms. To put this into community terms, there are multiple formats your community can take.

Types of communities

Social community

A social community functions much like a social media platform, where you, as a brand or company, engage with your audience on social media accounts. This can involve encouraging likes, comments, shares, and interactions on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. The goal is to use social media to understand what's trending and what's important to your target audience - What do they care about?

Support community

As the name suggests, a support community is designed to help customers support each other. This doesn’t necessarily involve extensive advocacy efforts. Instead, it might mean that if you don't have enough customer representatives, you can utilize your support community to assist with customer queries. This can be done through your website or a support forum.

Advocate community

My favorite type is the advocate community. This platform or space engages your loyal customers, giving them a place to rave about you. Advocate communities are versatile and can support both social and support functions, often in a fun and gamified way. 

Whether through social engagement, customer support, or advocacy, the goal of a community is to build meaningful relationships with your customers, providing them with value and fostering a sense of belonging.

The benefits of building a customer community

From our perspective, the benefits and advantages we've seen from our community platform are substantial. Here are a few key points:

Building genuine relationships

One of the most significant benefits is having daily conversations with our customers. This consistent interaction allows us to develop genuine relationships with them as friends, rather than merely marketers. This approach makes it easier and more natural to ask for participation in activities like case studies. 

For example, instead of an awkward request, it's more like, "Hey, Kevin, want to do a case study?" and the response is a friendly, "Yeah, I got you. Just give me some points." This fun, pressure-free environment fosters stronger connections.

Product development and feedback

We have also been able to consistently launch product updates and new features thanks to our community. Having a quick, reliable source of customer feedback is invaluable. This feedback loop is one of our biggest internal selling points for maintaining the community, as it ensures that our customers are actively involved in driving our product roadmap.

Fostering customer loyalty

Another significant advantage is fostering customer loyalty. We highly encourage our customers to communicate with each other, even though they might be shy, especially since many are IT professionals who may not always be the most forthcoming. 

By providing a platform where they can learn from one another and share experiences, we build a sense of community and loyalty.

Enabling customer success

Finally, we enable our customers to be successful by consistently providing them with valuable content. This includes posting educational content, releasing white papers, and directing them to forum sections where they can find user tips and advice from other community members. By offering these resources, we ensure that our customers always find value when they engage with our platform.

Our community platform has allowed us to build genuine relationships, gather essential product feedback, foster customer loyalty, and enable customer success. These benefits collectively enhance the overall experience for our customers and drive our business forward.

Building a solid foundation for your customer community

Wherever you are in your journey, having a solid foundation is crucial for launching a successful customer community. You can't just dive in and hope for the best. 

I inherited our community from a previous manager and had no idea what to expect or what value it could bring. I had to do some introspective work within our company to understand what we needed to provide for the community while also looking externally to see what our customers wanted.

The first foundational pillar to any community is understanding what your customers want. As a customer marketer, you should already know your customer journey. Dive deeper by asking your customers directly what they need, what resources they find helpful, and what gaps exist that you can fill.

Pro tip: Don’t just talk to your customers; speak to your internal employees as well. They can provide valuable insights into what you’re already offering and what more you could do.

When interacting with your community, remember that time is money. Your customers don't want to use a resource just because it's available; they want to gain something valuable from it. 

As a community manager, I often turn to our community to learn from other managers and apply their insights to my own work.

Valuable content can include:

  • Blog articles
  • Case studies
  • White papers
  • Training sessions
  • Workshops
  • Webinars
Pro tip: Create an editorial content calendar to map out the content you'll provide over the month. Sync it with your social calendar to stay current and establish your community as the go-to place for information about your company.

Many people, including myself, visit communities to speak with others using the same tools. Your customers do the same. They want to exchange best practices and user tips. Fostering these peer-to-peer interactions is essential.

Pro tip: Incentivize conversations and discussion replies with challenges and make it fun. Sometimes, all it takes is a little push to get people talking.

Recognition and rewards are critical. While it’s great if customers contribute out of goodwill, incentivizing their participation can be highly effective. Offering rewards like points, badges, or gifts can motivate customers to engage more.

Pro tip: Regularly recognize and reward top contributors. For example, I select a "Guardian of the Month" from our community and highlight their contributions on our social channels and forums. This recognition makes members feel valued and appreciated.

Building a solid foundation for your customer community involves understanding your customers' needs, providing valuable content, fostering peer-to-peer interactions, and implementing a recognition and reward system. With these steps, you can create a vibrant, engaged community that brings significant value to both your customers and your company.

What customers can provide for us

Now, I want to switch roles and discuss the value that customers can provide for us. This isn't a one-way street; it's a two-way street. 

Imagine you're sitting here with your foundation set and ready, and you've abided by the four commandments. You've done what you need to get started. The next step is to look introspectively and think about how you can provide value for your company. This will ensure continued investment in the community tool you've worked so hard to develop.

To keep it simple, I’ll cover two pivotal moves we made at Rubik to ensure every action within our community mapped back to a top key priority of our organization. This is crucial for making a strong case for the value of your work.

Creating a success plan

The first move is creating a success plan. This involves a top-down approach to setting goals. Start by looking at what your company and organization care about —your key priorities. Then, map these priorities and dive deeper into the goals of the departments you’ll work with for the community.

For instance, at Rubik, I work closely with the product and UX research teams. One of Rubik’s key priorities is delivering a market-defining product. Knowing this, I identified the goals of the product and UX teams, such as conducting beta testing and product feedback calls. I then mapped out specific member actions that would support these goals.

Once you've engaged members in these activities, you can easily demonstrate the value of your work. For example, if we launch a new product, I can show that our community members participated in beta testing and product feedback calls, directly contributing to the organizational goal. This kind of alignment makes the community function indispensable.

Pro tip: Ensure that every action you take as a community manager is valuable and makes your work undeniable. Understand the capabilities of your community and be creative in finding ways to support other teams.

Leveraging customer insights

The second pivotal move is leveraging customer insights to provide value back to the organization. As a community manager, you have direct access to customer feedback, preferences, and pain points. Use this information to inform and improve various aspects of the company’s operations.

For example, through regular interactions and surveys, you can gather valuable data on customer experiences and needs. This information can then be shared with marketing, sales, product development, and customer support teams to refine their strategies and offerings.

At Rubik, we use customer insights to drive product development. By continuously engaging with our community, we can identify areas for improvement and innovation. This proactive approach not only enhances customer satisfaction but also keeps the company ahead of the competition.

Pro tip: Regularly collect and analyze customer feedback. Share these insights with relevant teams to ensure that your community’s voice is heard and acted upon within the organization.

Shifting focus to what customers can provide for us involves creating a success plan that aligns community actions with organizational goals and leveraging customer insights to drive continuous improvement. As a result, you can ensure that the community remains a valuable and integral part of your company’s success. 

This two-way street approach not only strengthens your community but also solidifies its role within the broader organization.

Establishing cross-functional collaboration with stakeholders

The second pivotal move is establishing cross-functional collaboration with your stakeholders. As we’ve discussed, customer community and advocacy are at the center of everything, but they also function like a spider web, with each strand connecting to different parts of the organization. We’re the spider in the center, around which everything else revolves.

The first step in establishing cross-functional collaboration is meeting with stakeholders and leaders from key departments. 

In my case, these leaders were from support, sales, marketing, and product. I knew that our customer community could integrate with these departments effectively. 

Here’s how I approached these meetings:

  • Sales: I sat down with the sales team and discussed mutual goals. I offered to provide sales references for their calls and host user groups. In return, they needed to help register members for our community and bring customers into the fold.
  • Product: With the product team, I knew they wanted product feedback calls and beta testers. So, I proposed that they participate in AMA (Ask Me Anything) sessions with our customers. This allowed customers to ask questions and gain insights directly from the product team, enhancing their success and engagement.

To ensure we stay aligned with our key priorities as a company, we focus on several key activities. These activities are designed to mature the customer experience and community journey beyond just the basics.

  • Sales collaboration: By providing sales references and hosting user groups, we help the sales team while they assist in bringing more members into the community.
  • Product collaboration: Organizing AMA sessions and gathering product feedback calls ensures that the product team gets the insights they need while keeping customers engaged and informed.

Expanding the community beyond just discussions and white papers is crucial. We need to mature the community experience and journey, and this involves offering a broader range of activities that align with our organizational goals. This maturity brings us to the core of our program.

Best practices for a successful customer community

To wrap up, I want to share some best practices I've learned during my tenure, along with a few tips. 

Measure and analyze your metrics

One of the most important practices is to regularly measure and analyze your metrics. It's essential to have a clear understanding of your performance. If an executive asks you about your community's activities, you should be able to provide precise answers. 

Set up tracking systems that you update weekly so you always know your numbers. Own your metrics and think about them objectively — they’re not tied to your professional value but are critical for showcasing your community's impact.

Make your community sticky

Get your stakeholders involved early and ensure they’re invested in the community. Meet with them, establish mutual goals, and help them understand the value of the community. Consistency is key here. Your stakeholders should never question the worth of the community.

Consistency is king

When interacting with customers, consistency is vital. Customers need to know they can rely on your community to provide valuable content regularly. 

Set up a content calendar and stick to it. If you post "Tuesday Tips," make sure you do it every Tuesday without fail. This consistency creates a stable environment that members can depend on, encouraging regular engagement.

Listen to your community members

Always listen to your community members and their experiences. A bad user experience can significantly impact your community. 

Establish a feedback and survey loop, and register yourself as a member to experience the community firsthand. This’ll help you identify and fix any issues in the onboarding process or user interactions, ensuring a smooth and pleasant experience for all members.

Always grow your community

Recruitment is as important as programming. Without new members, the community can become stale quickly. Focus on recruiting new members continuously. 

Implement strategies like including community invitations in welcome kits or promoting the community at conferences. Fresh blood keeps the community dynamic and engaging.

Have fun and be creative

Finally, have fun and be creative! Your personality is a crucial part of the community. Let your passion show, and engage with your members authentically. Innovate and bring new ideas to the table. Your enthusiasm will inspire and energize your community

Regularly measure your metrics, make your community indispensable, maintain consistency, listen to your members, continuously recruit new members, and infuse your personality into everything you do. By following these best practices, you'll create a thriving and engaged customer community that provides immense value to both your members and your organization.

This article comes from Pida Pairawan’s insightful talk at our Customer Marketing Summit, Las Vegas 2023, check out her full presentation. At the time of the talk, Pida was the Customer Marketing & Community Manager at Rubrik.