How to Create Community Around Your Brand

How to build a brand community

Businesses that want to build a brand community must establish a clear brand voice and cohesive brand design. It’s also important to develop customer personas and understand the specific needs and behaviors of your target audience. These factors will influence your interactions with future community members.

With your branding and audience insights in place, follow these steps to build your brand community.

1. Research existing communities that include your buyer personas.

Start by examining your buyer personas and researching any existing communities to which they belong. For instance, if you’re selling sustainable home products, you might have these two distinct buyer personas:

• Buyer persona one: Your first buyer persona is an eco-conscious millennial homeowner interested in reducing their environmental footprint. For this person, explore sustainability-focused Facebook Groups, zero-waste communities on Reddit, and environmental advocacy forums.
• Buyer persona two: Your second buyer persona is a budget-conscious parent looking for durable, non-toxic products for their family. For this persona, investigate parenting forums, family-oriented Facebook Groups, and communities focused on healthy living.

After pinpointing communities that include your buyer personas, examine how members communicate with each other within the groups. How do they talk? What’s important to them? Are they discussing unmet needs or brand preferences? Can you determine any unexpected ways they might use your product?

This research will shape what you say — and how you say it — to potential members of your brand community. It can also provide valuable information to guide new product features and innovations.

2. Create a key value proposition.

All successful communities have a sense of belonging where members share a common experience. However, defining your community’s key value proposition — the core benefit members will gain from joining — is crucial. This proposition will be the main reason people join your brand community, and ideally, it should offer something they can’t easily achieve on their own.

Here are some examples:

• A fitness equipment brand’s community could offer personalized workout plans and real-time coaching from certified trainers.

A SaaS company’s brand community could provide exclusive access to beta features and direct input on product roadmaps.

3. Decide what constitutes success for your brand community.

What does a successful brand community look like for your business? Start by identifying the specific outcomes you want to influence, such as:

• Member numbers
• Number of engaged members
• Amount of user-generated content (UGC)
• How long people remain members
• How many leads the community generates
• How many referrals the community generates
• Number of positive customer reviews from community members
• Amount of sales coming directly from community activity

Retaining customers is also one of the strongest indicators of a healthy brand community. That’s reflected in the 2025 CMX Community Industry Report, where 42 percent of community teams ranked retention as their top priority for the year. This shift underscores how modern communities contribute far beyond engagement: They help deepen loyalty, strengthen long-term relationships and support the overall stability of the business.

By defining what success looks like early on and tracking the metrics that matter most to your goals, you can better understand your community’s impact and adjust your strategy as it grows.

4. Designate a platform for your community.

Brand communities can live in many places, depending on your goals and how your customers prefer to connect. Here are some popular options to consider:

• Business website: You can build a community directly on your website, either in a password-protected space or an open hub accessible to all visitors. Post helpful content and encourage members to share comments, advice and ideas with one another. Adobe’s Creative Cloud community is a great example, with millions of users exchanging tutorials, artwork and technical support.
• Third-party forums: Forums operate as collections of conversations on different topics, and members can jump in wherever they find value. They should be easy to search so people can quickly locate relevant threads. Discord servers, Reddit communities and LinkedIn Groups are common third-party options for brands.
• Custom forum: Larger businesses sometimes build a custom forum from scratch to create a fully branded experience. Microsoft’s Tech Community, for instance, has supported learning and career development for decades. If you go this route, you’ll likely need support from a developer or a platform like Discourse or Circle to manage the build.
• Social media: Social platforms offer a simple way to launch a brand community using tools you already have. You can host the community on your main business account or create a dedicated space with exclusive content for your most engaged customers. Just make sure you choose platforms your buyer personas actually use. In some cases, separate communities for different personas can help you deliver more relevant conversations and support.
• Branded app: If you have a highly engaged audience, a dedicated app can deepen the relationship even further. Apps make it easy to deliver unique content, track progress, and offer rewards or challenges. Nike’s Run Club app, for example, allows runners to log workouts, participate in challenges and connect with others in more than 160 countries. If you go this route, incorporate a customer loyalty program into the app for additional brand involvement.

How to foster a brand community

After building your brand community, keep it healthy, growing and engaged with the following tips:

• Send email newsletters. Email newsletters are a highly effective way to build relationships and strengthen your community. Share your brand’s story, offer exclusive content and highlight upcoming events or perks. Regular communication also gives subscribers outside your community a nudge to join.
• Focus on building brand authority. Establishing yourself as an industry authority boosts brand awareness and helps your community grow. Share insights in forum discussions, answer questions and point members to helpful resources such as blog posts, your YouTube channel or social content. The more value you provide, the more trust and engagement you build.
• Try face-to-face networking. Meeting customers in person can deepen loyalty and strengthen your community. Attend conferences, workshops and industry events where your audience is active. According to EventTrack 2025, consumers say that interacting with a brand at a live experience, especially through demos, education or product trials, increases their likelihood to engage further and make a purchase.
• Host live events: If you have a brick-and-mortar location, host experiences that appeal to your audience — anything from classes and seminars to celebrations or local meetups. Apple’s “Today at Apple” sessions are a strong example, offering hands-on education that draws thousands of participants each week and reinforces community connection.
• Encourage UGC. User-generated content, such as photos, videos, reviews and written contributions, is a powerful way to strengthen and grow your brand community. According to Emplifi’s Q3 2025 Social Media Benchmarks Report, social posts featuring UGC drove 10.38 times higher conversion rates than posts without it. When community members share their experiences, they feel more valued and invested, and your brand benefits from higher trust and authenticity.

What are the benefits of building a strong brand community?

Building a brand community creates an organic ecosystem you can leverage in multiple ways. Here are some of the biggest advantages:

• A brand community creates ready-made buyers. A strong community gives you a built-in audience that’s already interested in what you offer. When you launch a new product or service, you’re not starting from scratch; you’re introducing it to people who already trust you. Landmark research from Bain & Company found that increasing customer retention by just 5 percent can increase profits by 25 to 95 percent. In addition, the success rate of selling to existing customers can be as high as 70 percent, compared to 5 to 20 percent for new customers. When your community is engaged, your next launch automatically has momentum.
• A brand community creates emotional connections. When customers feel like valued members of a group, not just buyers, they form deeper emotional ties to your brand. That sense of belonging increases the likelihood they’ll purchase, recommend you to others and advocate on your behalf.
• A brand community increases brand loyalty. When being part of your community becomes part of a customer’s identity, switching to a competitor feels unlikely or even unthinkable. Think about the loyalty of iPhone users or Peloton riders: Identity and community play a powerful role in long-term retention.
• A brand community provides easy market intelligence. Your community becomes a natural source of insights about customer needs, preferences and pain points. Instead of guessing what customers want, you can simply ask or observe the conversations happening organically. This makes your market research plan much more straightforward.
• A brand community fosters customer retention. Communities build trust, familiarity and ongoing engagement, all of which support long-term retention. Customers who feel connected to your brand are far more likely to stay, renew, upgrade or repurchase.
• A brand community can improve your reputation. Communities help distinguish your brand as one that values relationships, transparency and connection. And if your company faces criticism or misinformation, a healthy community can help protect your brand reputation by sharing positive experiences and offering balance.

Examples of successful brand community strategies

Lego is one of the strongest examples of community building in the world, with platforms that engage millions of fans across generations. Here are a few ways Lego has built a thriving community that blends digital creativity with real-world connection:

• Lego Ideas: Formerly known as Lego Cuusoo, Lego Ideas is a platform where fans submit original designs. Projects that receive 10,000 supporter votes undergo official review for potential production. Since its launch, over 75 fan-designed sets have reached store shelves, with creators receiving 1 percent of net sales.
• LEGO Play (formerly LEGO Life): LEGO’s kids-safe creative app replaces the older LEGO Life platform. It allows young builders to share creations, participate in challenges and connect globally; the brand launched it in 2024 and rolled it out in over 75 countries and 25 languages.

Other brand community examples include the following:

• Sephora Beauty Insider Community: With more than 40 million members, Sephora’s community has grown far beyond a loyalty program into a full beauty ecosystem. Members contribute millions of product reviews each year and engage with virtual try-on tools powered by AR technology. The community’s “Beauty Board” lets customers create and share mood boards, generating hundreds of thousands of user-created looks each month and fueling a steady stream of authentic content.
• Notion: Notion has built a thriving global community of “Notion Ambassadors” across 23 countries. These power users host local meetups, create templates and provide peer support. The community-curated template gallery attracts more than 20 million visits annually, and many top creators earn meaningful income from selling premium templates, turning Notion’s community into a collaborative marketplace.
• Lululemon’s Sweat Collective: Lululemon’s Sweat Collective brings together yoga instructors, run leaders and fitness professionals from around the world. Members receive a 25 percent discount, early access to new collections and opportunities to test products in development. This group not only fuels product innovation but also contributes significant revenue through steady, repeat purchasing.
• GoPro: GoPro’s community processes thousands of video submissions every day, with standout clips featured through its GoPro Awards program, an initiative that rewards creators with cash prizes and recognition. The company’s subscription tier, GoPro Premium, now includes 2.5 million members and offers unlimited cloud storage and exclusive editing tools, helping GoPro turn its community into a sustainable revenue engine.

Your community is an invaluable resource

Building a thriving brand community takes strategic planning, consistent engagement and a genuine commitment to delivering value. As digital platforms evolve and consumers look for more authentic, human connections, the brands that prioritize meaningful interactions, not just transactions, will stand out. Maintain a professional, respectful tone in your content and conversations so your outreach never feels “spammy.” 

Focus instead on helping, educating and supporting your members. When you create a space people truly want to be part of, your community becomes one of your most powerful long-term assets, producing loyal customers and an enthusiastic and organic brand advocacy program that can support your business for years to come.