Community membership criteria, which define boundaries of a community, “provide the structure and security that protect group intimacy”. Secure community boundaries create emotional safety of members within a community. Emotional safety allows community members to feel they have a place in the community and that they belong. It is the sense of being a part of something larger than self.
For sustainable marketers, the key is to reinforce the sense of security for members of your brand community. You must constantly and consistently communicate that, by virtue of membership, your brand community members are special. Members should feel free to express their views and connect with one another. We humans are wired to detect and punish cheating and unfairness, and your customers need to feel your brand community is something they can count on and fall back on. Have their back and they’ll have yours.
Tips for using emotional safety to create Sense of Community:
- Reinforce uniqueness and similarity among your customers. As members of your brand community, your audiences must feel they are unique, as individuals and as a group. Appealing to their sense of self, who they are, their identity, will ensure their fidelity to your brand. At the same time, similarity engenders affinity, so your community members should feel they belong to a group of people who are similar and similarly unique.
- Develop platforms for expression. If your stakeholders feel secure within your community, they will be inclined to share their experiences – negative and positive – with you and others. Offering a variety of platforms to do so will demonstrate you value them for who they are. Every touchpoint should create opportunities for your brand community members to publicly engage, with the brand and with one another. Encourage and respond to comments on your and other blogs to foster conversations. Join and create online social networks your customers frequent. Engage them during every stage of the purchasing process and beyond through consistently exceptional customer service. Consider events, crowdsourcing, and community service projects.
- Create roles for members of your brand community. Membership and participation in your brand community are voluntary. Like any volunteers, to make their experience meaningful your customers must feel they have a role to play in your brand community and be appreciated for it. A precious core of your brand community members will be evangelists of your product or service, spreading the word or recruiting additional members through referrals. Some people will be more likely to write a product review. Others will want to be in a focus group. Whatever the role, make it easy for your customers to choose and reward them for their choices.
Quotes: McMillan and Chavis, “Sense of Community: A Definition and Theory”, Journal of Community Psychology, Vol. 14, 1986.
This post is part of Creating Sense of Community series.
