Community Advertising: The Game-Changing Strategy to Build Loyalty and Drive Conversions

Community advertising is transforming the way brands engage with their audience. By building authentic connections with communities, brands can drive loyalty, boost engagement, and increase conversions.

In fact, research shows that 64% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase after interacting with a brand in a meaningful way within a community. This article will explore how community advertising works, its benefits, and how your brand can leverage it to foster deeper relationships and better results.

What is community advertising?

Community advertising is the strategy of targeting and engaging with specific communities to build brand loyalty and drive conversions.

Instead of traditional advertising, which casts a wide net, community advertising focuses on creating valuable connections within niche groups — be it online forums, social media groups, or industry-specific communities.

This approach allows brands to directly interact with potential customers in an authentic way that resonates with their interests and values.

Benefits of community advertising

Community advertising has a range of benefits that can truly elevate your brand’s marketing strategy. Here's how it can work for you:

Customer loyalty

When you engage with a community, you’re fostering trust and a sense of belonging. Brands that are part of a community gain loyal customers who feel personally connected to the brand.

For example, SaaS platforms like Slack have successfully built a loyal user base through active involvement in various online groups and communities related to productivity and team collaboration.

Higher engagement rates

Community-driven content typically sees higher engagement. Since the content is directly aligned with the interests of the group, it’s more likely to generate meaningful interactions.

Airbnb has effectively utilized this by engaging with niche travel groups, driving deeper conversations and involvement through user-generated content and peer recommendations.

Improved customer feedback loops

By directly engaging with your community, you get real-time feedback that can shape product decisions and customer experiences.

Basecamp, a project management tool, often uses its active user communities to get input on new features, helping them maintain product-market fit.

Better ROI due to organic advocacy

As communities grow and interact with your brand, they start advocating for you. Word-of-mouth recommendations from loyal community members are invaluable and often lead to higher conversions.

Dropbox leveraged community advertising early on by offering incentives to users who referred friends, which significantly boosted their user base at a low cost.

How to build a community advertising strategy

Now that you understand the benefits, let’s walk through how to create your own community marketing strategy.

Identifying the right communities

The first step in building a community advertising strategy is identifying the right communities that align with your brand's audience.

You can search for niche groups on platforms like Reddit, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Discord, or you can create your own community spaces (forums, Facebook groups, etc.). Make sure these communities have members who match your ideal customer profile.

Building authentic connections

Engagement is key. You can’t just post ads and expect results. To build genuine connections, participate in conversations, share helpful insights, and show transparency.

Buffer, for example, built strong relationships in its community by sharing behind-the-scenes content and being open about its growth and challenges.

Creating value-driven content

Content that resonates with community values is more likely to drive engagement. Whether it's blog posts, videos, or infographics, create content that adds value to the group’s conversation.

HubSpot excels at this, regularly posting educational resources that benefit their community members while subtly promoting their own services.

Leveraging user-generated content (UGC)

User-generated content is one of the most powerful tools in community advertising. Encourage your community to create and share content about your brand, whether it’s reviews, testimonials, or images.

Glossier has built its brand largely through UGC, where customers post their experiences, which gets amplified by the brand across social media channels.

Tracking success metrics

To measure the success of your community advertising efforts, you’ll need to track key performance indicators (KPIs) such as engagement rate, conversion rate, and community growth.

Tools like Sprout Social or Hootsuite can help you monitor and analyze your metrics effectively.

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Common Challenges and How to Overcome Them

While community advertising can be incredibly effective, it’s not without its challenges. Here are some potential pitfalls and how to avoid them:

Inauthentic messaging

One of the biggest mistakes is coming across as inauthentic. Audiences can easily spot when a brand is trying too hard to sell or push its agenda. Always focus on providing value and participating in the community, rather than just promoting your product.

Nike faced backlash for trying to insert itself into social movements in a way that felt forced, but they recovered by listening to their community and adjusting their tone.

Community backlash

It’s possible to face pushback if your brand’s messaging doesn’t align with the community’s values. To avoid this, make sure you thoroughly understand the community before engaging and align your content with their goals.

For instance, Lush faced criticism for using controversial tactics to promote environmentalism, but they handled it by addressing concerns directly and taking concrete actions.

Poor targeting

Targeting the wrong communities can waste resources and harm your brand’s reputation. Be sure to carefully define your audience and target the right communities where you can truly engage.

Mailchimp, for example, targeted small business owners with tailored content that directly addressed their pain points, avoiding broad targeting. Moreover, they managed to merge the perfect local community advertising tactics with online brand community building.

SaaS brands leading the way in community advertising

Let's see how it's done right by Intercom, Notion, and Slack.

1. Intercom: Building a community of customer support professionals

Intercom has built a strong brand community around customer support professionals by offering educational content, fostering discussions, and engaging users directly within their product forums.

Their brand community marketing strategy is focused on knowledge-sharing. They host live Q&As, and webinars, and create resources that empower customer support teams to be more effective.

They use their own in-app community platform, as well as forums like Discourse and social media groups on Facebook and LinkedIn to facilitate ongoing conversation and feedback.

Best practices:

• Creating dedicated spaces for customers to share insights and troubleshoot.
• Utilizing customer-generated content in blog posts and marketing materials.
• Engaging regularly with users in community discussions to maintain authenticity.

2. Notion: Empowering users through a thriving, knowledge-sharing universe

Notion has created a culture of active user participation where members contribute templates, tips, and tutorials, all while receiving recognition for their contributions.

Notion's brand community thrives on its willingness to let users shape the brand experience. They encourage community members to share custom templates and solutions, creating an extensive knowledge base that serves both new and experienced users.

Their community marketing efforts are focused on increasing community engagement, inspiring brand loyalty, and creating brand advocates. A community based marketing strategy that centers on an engaged community rather than acquiring new customers is rewarding in many ways - advocacy, promotion, referrals, and retention of their target audience.

Notion uses its own online community page, as well as social media campaigns on Reddit and Twitter, to facilitate user interactions and discussions. They also leverage platforms like Product Hunt to create buzz and gather new community members.

Best Practices:

• Encouraging user-generated content (UGC) through templates and personal stories.
• Using recognition (like featuring top contributors) to build strong community relationships and foster loyalty and engagement.
• Creating and hosting user-run community events, such as online workshops or “Notion Tips” sessions, to boost participation.

3. Slack: Creating a Platform for Conversations Across Industries

Slack excels at creating a effective community marketing strategies around different professional interests. By offering specialized groups for various industries and use cases, they’ve managed to build a vast network of engaged users.

Slack fosters a strong sense of community through a mix of facilitated discussions, product tips, and networking opportunities within specialized Slack channels for different topics, such as Slack for Marketing or Slack for DevOps.

Slack not only hosts its own user groups and forums but also promotes and monitors a broad range of specialized Slack workspaces, creating highly targeted communities based on user roles and needs.

Best Practices:

• Offering highly targeted and specific community spaces that speak directly to different user roles (e.g., marketing teams, engineering teams).
• Hosting online events and webinars tailored to niche audiences, making users feel heard and understood.
• Integrating Slack into its own internal workflows as a demonstration of how powerful the tool is in creating seamless community collaboration.

The role of technology in scaling community advertising

In the most successful community marketing examples we've shared thus far in this article, there is one fact we cannot deny - leveraging the superpowers of technology changes the game dramatically for community marketing and advertising.

Your tech stack can be based on simple social media platforms where your community hangs and communicates with you and among themselves. More sophisticated solutions could be community-building tools that allow hosting events online, deep dive into valuable insights, and comprehensive reporting to help you get to know your target audience better.

However, recent trends point us to three different types of tools:

• community management platforms
• analytics tools
• AI personalization tools.

Let's explore how they can be a crucial asset to your community marketing strategy.

Community management platforms: centralizing engagement and moderation

Community management platforms are essential for organizing and scaling community engagement. These tools help brands track conversations, manage multiple community channels, and foster meaningful interactions without being overwhelmed by manual tasks. By streamlining communication, they ensure consistent engagement while maintaining authenticity.

Key Tools:

• Bettermode: Bettermode is a powerful platform for building and managing vibrant online communities. It allows brands to create dedicated spaces where members can engage in discussions, share content, and participate in events. With easy-to-use tools, brands can scale their community-building efforts while keeping interactions personalized.
  
  • Key Features:
    
    • Customizable community spaces to create the perfect environment for your audience.
    • Community event hosting and content sharing capabilities to encourage continuous engagement.
    • Member segmentation and targeted content delivery to ensure relevant interactions.
• Mighty Networks: A platform that allows brands to create custom community spaces, facilitate discussions, and manage content in an engaging, user-friendly way.
• Discourse: A discussion-based platform that enables threaded conversations and easy moderation for creating deeper, more thoughtful engagement.

Automation features. Some of these tools offer a certain potential for automating redundant and time-consuming tasks.

• Automating welcome messages and community onboarding flows.
• AI-powered moderation that filters spam and irrelevant content to keep conversations high-quality.
• Scheduling community events and content releases, ensuring consistent interaction without manual intervention.

Bettermode and other community management platforms focus on creating spaces that foster genuine, organic discussions. Automation is used to streamline processes like onboarding or event management, but the platform ensures that the brand remains engaged with members in a meaningful and human way.

2. Analytics tools: measuring impact and optimizing strategies

Analytics tools help brands track the performance of their community engagement efforts. By measuring metrics such as engagement rate, conversion rate, and member activity, brands can make data-driven decisions and optimize their community advertising strategies.

Key Tools:

• Sprout Social: A social media analytics platform that tracks engagement and audience growth across multiple community channels. It helps brands understand which content resonates most with their community.
• Google Analytics: Provides insights into how community-driven content, such as blog posts or landing pages, performs across various platforms. It helps you track referral traffic from community interactions to website conversions.
• Bettermode Analytics: While Bettermode is a community-building tool, it also offers built-in analytics features that allow you to track member activity, engagement rates, and community growth. These insights help inform content creation and community management strategies.
  
  • Key Features:
    
    • Real-time data on user engagement and community health, helping you identify trends.
    • Reports on content performance and member interactions to refine your strategy.
• HubSpot Analytics: Tracks engagement within HubSpot’s CRM and can provide detailed insights into how your community engagement impacts sales and conversions.

Even though data-driven insights are critical, Bettermode ensures that all analytics stay focused on improving the user experience. Insights into member preferences allow brands to create content and discussions that align with community values, while avoiding overly automated or impersonal interactions.

3. AI-driven personalization: delivering tailored experiences

AI tools help brands deliver highly personalized content to community members by analyzing their behaviors, interactions, and preferences. These tools ensure that each member has a unique experience, increasing engagement and building stronger connections with the brand.

Key Tools:

• HubSpot: HubSpot uses AI to create personalized marketing campaigns, delivering tailored email content and recommendations to individual users based on their interactions and interests.
• Drift: An AI-powered chatbot that engages community members in real time, offering personalized responses, directing them to relevant content, and answering questions based on prior interactions.

Conclusion

Community advertising is more than just a trend; it’s a strategic approach that can help you build lasting relationships with your audience, drive higher engagement, and ultimately increase conversions.

By leveraging community-driven content and fostering authentic connections, you’ll set your brand up for long-term success. Remember, the key to community advertising is not just about talking to your audience but engaging with them in ways that are meaningful and valuable.

Bettermode is the perfect tool to get you started on your community advertising journey. With its easy-to-use features for building and managing your community, you can create a space where members feel valued and connected.

Best of all, Bettermode is free to get started, allowing you to explore its powerful community-building tools without any upfront cost. Whether you’re looking to engage your audience, host events, or share valuable content, Bettermode has everything you need to scale your efforts and drive better results.

Get started – it’s free!

FAQs

What is community advertisement?

Community advertisement focuses on building meaningful relationships with specific groups to drive engagement and conversions. It’s about creating authentic connections rather than simply pushing ads. By engaging with these communities on a deeper level, brands can increase brand loyalty and encourage organic advocacy from their members.

What is an example of community marketing?

A solid example of community marketing would be Patagonia, which has built a strong community around environmental activism and sustainability, regularly engaging its customers through content that reflects those values. This community-centered approach has helped Patagonia not only increase brand loyalty but also inspire real-world action on environmental causes through collaborative efforts with its customers.

What is a community marketing strategy?

A community marketing strategy involves engaging with niche communities to create loyal advocates. It focuses on building trust and providing value over time through content, conversation, and collaboration. By nurturing these relationships, brands can turn their audience into active participants who feel personally connected to the brand’s mission and values.

What does a community marketer do?

A community marketer builds relationships with audiences by engaging in conversations, creating content, and fostering a sense of belonging. They listen to the community’s feedback and use it to inform marketing strategies and product improvements. Their role is to act as a bridge between the brand and the community, ensuring the brand remains aligned with the needs and interests of its audience.

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