Engaging the Few to Influence Many: Niche Community Strategies for Brands

We live in a hyper-connected digital world where consumers are no longer satisfied with just participating in marketing campaigns. They need connection, belonging and purpose. Niche communities—small, tightly-knit groups created based on common interests, values, emerging trends, or lifestyles—have become powerful platforms for nurturing these desires.

For brands, niche communities represent a golden opportunity to engage the target audience more meaningfully.

Creating a niche community isn’t just about niche marketing; it’s about building trust, a sense of belonging, developing strong relationships and establishing a shared identity with customers.

These communities can drive loyalty and organic advocacy and help your brand co-create innovation with passionate consumers. Brands like LEGO and Sephora have developed successful niche communities and built platforms where customers feel seen, heard and valued.

But how can your brand create such a specific space? Are there any strategies that can help you ensure authenticity and increased customer and brand loyalty? This article explores how brands can identify their niche, design a thriving niche community and promote long-term participation and customer engagement to turn customers into ambassadors.

Let’s get started.

What are niche communities?

Niche communities are social spaces based around a particular niche interests, profession, or topic. These groups are filled with people passionate about the subject at the heart of the space.

They often have a small member base—although there are certainly examples of niche communities with many community members. Sites like GitHub, Instructables and Goodreads are all large communities that could be classified as niche communities due to their being based on a specific common interest.

What niche communities lack in size, they make up for by being home to valuable conversations, active participation, profound discussions, authentic connections and an engaged audience.

Examples of niche communities

Niche communities can start around any topic, from hobbies to professions and everything in between.

For example, Bettermode customers have created communities on topics such as customer support quality, pets, marketing operations and law.

Interested in building a customer self-service community? Check out our guide on creating a customer-centric self-service portal!

Here are some examples of niche communities:

• ConvertKit. A community of creators to foster collaboration, offer support and share resources.
• CoachHub. A Community of Practice (CoP) for coaches across the globe to connect and help each other improve their craft.
• Quality Tribe by Klaus. A SaaS company, Klaus, building a community for CX (customer experience) quality professionals.
• WebinarNinja. A community of entrepreneurs to help them uplift each other, collect feedback, offer help and share best practices.
• DeineTierwelt. DeineTierwelt aims to connect pet lovers and enable them to share knowledge and help each other.

Niche communities are so much better than social networks

Niche communities are taking over the space that was originally filled with social networks.

While these sites were—and in many cases still are—the go-to platforms for communicating online, they have several big failings.

First, in their size.

The biggest platforms, like Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, TikTok and Snapchat, have hundreds of millions to billions of users.

While this makes them useful for building a large volume of connections, it is harder to find a like-minded group of people who share similar interests and crave mutual support. Instead, users are more likely to get lost in an avalanche of videos, ads and suggested content.

People also struggle to find valuable conversations on social networks due to all the digital noise.

‍Studies show that people who are members of both online communities (even private ones) and social sites report being more likely to have meaningful conversations in online communities. They are also more likely to feel appreciated due to a positive atmosphere and respect commonly found in online communities.

What about groups?

Facebook tried to dabble into niche communities with its Groups feature. In theory, these spaces should have been easy to connect with people.

But they have more downsides than the upsides.

For starters, groups don't offer the community-building functionality of dedicated platforms. It is harder to create groups designed for specific use cases.

You can't:

• Create separate spaces within a group
• Embed the group on your website
• Customize the look and feel of the group

The Facebook groups algorithm is another big roadblock to community building.

The problem is that Facebook wants you to spend as much time in the app as possible.

It doesn't care whether this happens through time spent in a group or watching a video. It simply shows the content most likely to keep people engaged.

This means that even though people have signed up for your group, they won't necessarily see your updates—potentially harming engagement rate. Also, this social network is inherently full of distractions— notifications from friends and family, ads, cat videos and more are always popping up.

Another problem is that Facebook actively promotes competing niche communities to your users. The group feed has a section that shows users other communities similar to the ones they have already joined.

This means you could be spending time building your own community within niche market, only for Facebook to redirect community like-minded individuals to a competitor!

Check out the image below to see how Facebook redirects your customers to another community.

What are the benefits of a niche community?

A niche community solves many of the problems listed above:

• It connects a small targeted audience, not everyone on the planet
• It focuses on building a unique value, not keeping users online for as long as possible
• It displays relevant content and conversations, not ads or clickbait videos

By fixing these issues, niche communities bring significant value to users and those who operate these groups.

Here are some of the main benefits of a niche community.

Establish stronger relationships

Building a niche community helps you form relationships with customers, leads and people in your industry.

That's because these groups let you connect with people on an individual, deeper level. It's a far more personalized interaction than other types of digital marketing like blogging or PPC ads.

The relationships don't just form between you and people in the group. Community members also build relationships with each other and share tips, increasing the value of your platform.

Build authority in your space

Communities are an excellent way to showcase your expertise and build loyalty and authority, which aligns with your community's goals.

When someone joins your niche and brand community, they'll discover your brand. This makes them an excellent way to increase brand awareness among a relevant audience.

By leading discussions and sharing content, you can use your group to show off your expertise.

Just be sure that you don't make your own niche community too promotional, or you might put people off.

Access to a targeted audience

When you build a niche community, you get access to specific target audiences.

If these people fit your customer persona, there is a good chance that you can turn them into potential customers further down the line.

The benefits don't end with sales. You also get unrivaled insight into your audience's challenges, needs and goals.

For example, Condo Control uses its niche community to find people willing to beta-test new product updates and then collect feedback from these users.

Finding testers is as simple as making a post in the brand's space.

More data control

If you build your space on a social network, you don't control your data. Those in charge can limit your access at any time.

Facebook introduced business pages in 2007 and began encouraging brands to build audiences on the platform.

Many marketers invested a lot in building their audiences. At the time, it was a huge source of potential traffic. But, it wasn't long before the platform drastically cut organic reach.

Brands that had made significant investments in growing their audiences on these platforms had three options:

1. Throw in the towel and give up
2. Accept their pages' increasingly small organic reach and continue to share content
3. Pay to advertise to the audience they'd already made significant investments in growing

Unsurprisingly, many brands chose the third option and Facebook is now one of the biggest advertising platforms in the world.

This was a warning to brands about building an audience on a third-party platform: if you don't own your data, it can be taken away from you at a minute's notice.

That's why many companies are now pivoting towards building niche communities on a platform (like Bettermode) that gives them control of their data. This is the only way to ensure you will always have access to your highly targeted audience.

Access to user-generated content (UGC)

Niche communities are valuable sources of user-generated content. You can put this library of information to use in many ways.

For example:

• Index discussions on Google to increase brand awareness through SEO
• Add Q&As to product pages to answer common questions—just like Amazon does
• Integrate support queries within your knowledge base to help users suffering from similar issues

At Bettermode, we encourage people who build communities on our platform to use their content at touchpoints throughout the customer journey.

This is called the community flywheel and you can read more about how this benefits your business here.

Build a moat

One of the issues many smaller businesses and startups face is competition from established companies. A niche community helps by creating a competitive moat around your product.

While others can steal your idea, it's much harder to steal the relationships built up in your group.

How to create your own niche community with Bettermode

Now, let's dive into the practical steps and community building efforts.

Here are seven key points and steps to creating and growing a successful specific niche community (like small groups) and how Bettermode can support you through each stage.

Step one: Decide on your target audience and what your community will be about

The first step in creating a niche community is deciding on the focus.

You need to know what your community will center on. Reflect on the type of people you want to attract, niche markets, how the topic aligns with your brand and what competition exists.

Community builders like yourself also need to find the right balance in terms of your community's niche. If it's too broad, it might lack the personal touch; if it's too narrow, its growth could be compromised.

Before you finalize this focus, identify your target market—those specific individuals who are most likely to be interested in your community.

Bettermode can help by offering tools to define and refine your community's purpose. It provides insights and analytics on community behavior, allowing you to identify gaps and opportunities to target your specific audience more effectively.

You can also use Bettermode's customizable features and templates (like Podders, Reddify, Event Quest, BetterX or Bettergram) to design a platform that matches your space's theme and goals.

Step two: Choose a platform

Selecting the right platform to host your community is essential.

While social media groups and chat apps like Slack or Discord (over even Facebook groups) offer some features (including spamming your members with digital noise!), they often lack the customization, branding and control needed to scale a community effectively.

A community platform like Bettermode provides less competition and all the tools necessary to create a branded space where target audience can interact, access resources and grow.

With Bettermode, you can embed your community into your existing website, design custom layouts and control the member experience. Unlike social media groups, Bettermode allows you to index your content for search engines, improving SEO and maintaining full control over your own branding, community's identity and user experience.

Step three: Set up your community

Once you've chosen your platform, it's time to set up your community space.

This includes defining clear guidelines and rules and creating different discussion spaces that align with your goals and members' shared interests. Create content to get conversations flowing early on and provide guidelines that help members engage in meaningful, value-driven interactions.

Bettermode makes this step more straightforward with its customizable content blocks and layout tools. You can easily create areas for different topics, ensuring your space's discussions are organized and engaging. Our platform has a quick setup and useful design tools, so you can easily establish a welcoming space that's professionally branded to increase brand loyalty.

Step four: Start with a small but dedicated audience of community members

The early stages of a community often come with a lot of challenges, particularly when conversations are slow due to a small number of members.

To get around this, start with a small, dedicated group of advocates gathered around particular interest. These early community members can help set the tone for the community and engage in the initial conversations, making it more attractive to new members.

Bettermode's user engagement features, such as member profiles and leaderboards, can help you identify these key advocates within your target audience and make data-driven decisions. 

You encourage their involvement by highlighting their contributions and rewarding their engagement with badges or statuses. The platform's ability to create a sense of belonging and recognition will motivate your initial members to be more active, making them act as micro influencers.

Step five: Build an effective onboarding experience

Creating an effective onboarding experience is crucial for retaining new members and helping them get the most out of your community.

This includes clear introductions, detailed guidelines and a roadmap for getting involved.

With Bettermode, you can customize your onboarding process and make informed decisions to provide new members with all the necessary tools and information:

• The platform allows you to create a space where members can introduce themselves
• Users can post their goals and learn how to navigate the community
• You can also automate emails or messages that guide new users through the platform's features

Step six: Promote your community

Once your community has gained some initial traction, the next step is to scale it.

Promotion is key and you can use multiple channels, including social media, email newsletters and your website, to spread the word.

Bettermode provides tools to promote your community within the platform, such as referral programs that reward and encourage members for bringing in new users.

You can incentivize your most loyal members to share the community by creating unique links or reward systems.

Bettermode's integration (with Amplitude, for example) with email and social media platforms makes it easy to send out invitations or announcements to grow your community organically.

Step seven: Always look for ways to grow your community

Even after your community starts to grow, you need to have a hands-on approach, especially in the early stages.

Engage with your members, host virtual events and provide valuable content that keeps members coming back.

Bettermode can help you manage and facilitate community engagement.

With features like event management, live chats and Q&A sessions, you can participate in discussions and provide real-time support. Additionally, our tools for tracking member engagement and feedback will help you identify areas for improvement and continue offering content that aligns with your community's needs.

By following these steps and using Bettermode's powerful community platform, you can create a thriving community that relies on engagement and growth. Bettermode is the right platform that offers the tools and flexibility you need to build a vibrant, connected community that lasts.

Conclusion

Creating a niche community offers brands unique opportunities to develop deep connections with an audience.

By focusing on specific interests and values, brands can build trust and encourage meaningful engagement and loyalty. Niche communities provide a space where customers feel heard and valued, leading to stronger relationships and authentic advocacy.

With the right platform, like Bettermode, brands can control the user experience, enhance member engagement and unlock valuable insights to drive growth.

Get started with Bettermode today; it's free!

FAQ

What is an example of a niche community?

An example of a niche community is GitHub, where developers and coders worldwide share, contribute and manage software projects.

What is a niche community?

A niche community is a small, focused group of individuals united by a specific interest, passion, or need, which creates deep connections and engagement around that shared interest.

How to build a niche community?

To build such a community, identify a shared common interest or problem, create a central platform for engagement, provide valuable resources and discussions and nurture authentic connections.

How do you find a niche audience?

You can find a niche audience by researching specific interests, analyzing Google trends, conducting surveys, or monitoring forums and social media to discover unmet needs or passions.

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