Who are your core customers and the brand promises that you are making for them. By brand promises, I mean like how Southwest Airlines promises "Low Fares, Lots of Flights, Lots of Fun."
I am keenly interested on how communities consume products that are branded in particular to them. In fact, I have observed that brand promises can actually create a community all on their own. Somehow there is a form of human association situated within a consumption context that consist of relationships among customers, firms, marketers and institutions premised either on the consumption or interaction with a particular brand or type of product.
More and more these days that geographical area is formed and located online. Any real world interaction only supplements the online activity. More and more firms have realized that by encouraging the formation of consumption and brand communities they can involve their customers in the process of value creation and product innovation. It is no secret how the development and maintenance of customer relationships are predicated on collaboration and trust. That has a way of mobilizing those same customers to help find a way to increase revenue.
As in any community, the process develops a positive sense of belonging. It is by opening the gateway to the online world to these very same forces that provide them with the instruments to accomplish tasks that would normally be done by an employee within the firm.
The creation of the brand and the community is a dance of social construction. Active interpretative functions are real. All involved in the community are self-aware and self-reflexive to their commerciality. The birth of social brand construction has arrived enabling and encouraging interaction between the product and their customerss. The strategic value has finally been realized.
Creative communities develop belonging - they unite people around creative endeavors and they provide opportunities for people to experience a sense of competence and accomplishment. Some communities are more likely than others to make this happen. Those that do have some sort of opportunity for recognition, collaboration and some sort of status that facilitate trust. To the extent that the firm behind the brand facilitates such interactions, the customer base is likely to reciprocate with increased appreciation and will have a sense of being an important part of the larger set of social community strategies and development.
The more public firms have a better chance than those who wish to remain private or a least prefer the background.
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