How to Transform Brands Through Community Engagement

Social media is not the megaphone you think it is. 9/10 of brands collect followers, blast promotional content, and wonder why engagement stays low. We took a different approach with Nailboo. We created a space where people could share their nail journey (weither they were using our products or not). And that approach actually pushed buyers CLOSER to our brand than if we just tried to hard sell at every touchpoint. Community happens when customers feel ownership. When someone posts their first successful dip manicure, dozens of other members rush to congratulate them. When someone struggles with application, experienced users share detailed advice. The community has taken on a life of its own. It's positive feedback loop: → New customers join the community → Get support and succeed → Become dedicated advocates → Help others succeed → Strengthen the community The results speak for themselves: Our community members have 3x higher lifetime value than non-community customers. The brand doesn't belong to us...not fully. At its heart, its a movement of people who believe everyone deserves salon-quality nails at home. What's your experience building communities around products? How do you measure community health beyond just numbers?

Slapping “community-led” into your brand positioning doesn’t magically make it true. Because if what you’re calling a “community” is really just: - A one-way email blast - A WhatsApp group with no interaction - A silent audience politely lurking because they don’t know what they’re meant to say… Then what you’ve got is an audience. There’s nothing wrong with having an audience, by the way. But don’t confuse people watching with people connecting. Real community-led brands do things differently: - They don’t just speak at their audience, they co-create with them - They build rituals and reasons for people to engage beyond product updates - They listen, tweak, involve - not just broadcast It’s not always loud and ain’t always sexy. But it’s consistent, intentional and centred around actual people - not just a content strategy or GTM feature. Look at Strava. They didn’t just build a fitness app, they built a behaviour loop. You show up because others do too. You cheer each other on. That, my friends, is community. If your people aren’t engaging, it’s not always an awareness issue. Sometimes, they’re just not being given anything to belong to. And calling it “community” without the trust, participation or two-way value exchange is simply just marketing. Again, that’s okay. But remember: you’re not building a community if no one’s talking to each other. P.S. We now have over 500+ members in our Nexus Femtech community. All built on a SHARED purpose. 🤝

A new marketing funnel? To follow up on my recent newsletter about community-driven marketing, I wanted to explore why the community is reshaping the traditional marketing funnel. Gone are the days when marketing was a linear journey from awareness to purchase. Today, it's all about creating an ecosystem where your audience feels connected, valued, and empowered. Here's why community is the secret sauce in the new marketing funnel: 1. Trust Amplifier: In a world of ads and sponsored content, authentic community voices cut through the noise. Your community becomes your most credible marketing asset. 2. Engagement Powerhouse: Communities keep your brand top-of-mind without constant promotional messaging. Members engage with each other, creating ongoing touchpoints with your brand. 3. Content Generator: User-generated discussions, reviews, and shared experiences become a goldmine of authentic content, extending your reach organically. 4. Insight Incubator: Your community provides real-time feedback on customer needs and pain points, informing your product development and marketing strategies. 5. Loyalty Builder: Engaged community members have higher lifetime values and are more likely to become brand advocates, fueling sustainable growth. 6. Differentiation Engine: A strong community can set you apart in crowded markets, offering value beyond your core product or service. By integrating community at every stage of the funnel, you're not just acquiring customers; you're building a network of passionate advocates. It transforms one-time transactions into long-term relationships, creating a flywheel effect that propels your business forward. Have you incorporated community-building into your marketing strategy? #CommunityMarketing #MarketingStrategy #CustomerEngagement #BrandLoyalty

I was at Bloom Nutrition's Energy Bar pop-up in Austin today, and it felt different. This wasn’t just an influencer-driven marketing stunt. It was an experience — one where the brand didn’t just want to be seen but wanted to be felt. For years, brands poured millions into influencer campaigns, chasing clout through sponsored posts and paid shoutouts. But the smartest brands are pivoting from influencer-driven to community-first marketing. Influencer marketing isn’t fading, but it’s evolving. Brands now realize that digital buzz alone isn’t enough; they need real-world engagement. Here’s why Bloom’s pop-up worked, and why more brands need to be thinking like this: 🔥 Exclusivity without exclusion – Anyone could sign up, yet the long lines created buzz and demand. Making an event open to the public while maintaining an exclusive feel is the sweet spot for community engagement. 🎯 Hyper-localized branding – They didn’t just drop a generic activation; they spoke Austin’s language. From ATX-branded hats to signage that read “Bloom loves Austin,” the event felt personal and intentional. When brands embed themselves in local culture, they foster deeper connections. 📷 UGC at scale: Live experiences generate way more organic content than a single paid post. Instead of relying on a few big influencers, they turned every attendee into a brand ambassador. 🙌 Participation = ownership – A photobooth, a charm keychain station — small, interactive moments made attendees part of the brand experience. People don’t just want to see a brand; they want to engage with it, create with it, and share it. Your audience doesn’t just want to be marketed to — they want to be included. The future of marketing is experiential, participatory, and community-driven. If you’re not building real-world experiences that make people feel something, you’re missing out.

If you think community building = social media, you're doing it wrong. It's so much more: When your brand creates community, it goes beyond social and into the real world. I'm talking deep in the brand, stretching from customer service into the P&L. It has to be in your operating system or you will absolutely fail at it. F-A-I-L. Effort go kablooey. Deciding to host a party doesn't make a good time on its own. We've all been to parties that are lame. What makes a party—personal or for business—fun are the delightful disruptions, quality interactions, good atmosphere, simple logistics, food and drink, and the connections made. There is so much to this, ranging from where you host (social platform) to who you let in (interaction guidelines) to how frequently you interact with your audience (throughout the brand's operations). When companies work with me at Prologue 🔮 and want to build community, we don't start with social. I start by looking at the brand and the customer journey. Simply focusing on the social content without understanding the brand could result in putting lipstick on a doody covered pig. My last company was a social media app. The company didn't make it, but that community was strong. We built it by putting the members first at every interaction. That community building checklist starts something like this: • Customer service • Customer journey • Website copy • Physical shipments • All emails • Delightful follow up after purchase • In-person event engagement • Finding the human representatives of your brand • Social interactions • Social content creation For brands who already have traction, you have so many areas where you can focus on community building besides social. Start by: ☑️ looking at who you are as an organization and brand ☑️ evaluating who your customer is (not just demographics, think personas) ☑️ thinking about how you provide a pain killer (not just service/product) ☑️ find alignment in the customer's goals and yours ☑️ think about how you bring those together without selling ☑️ find touch points within the company to tell that story The social component will become much easier once you've figured out these pillars. - I built a killer community with my last one. Now? I teach other companies how to do it with great storytelling through Prologue 🔮. Slip into the DMs if you want to chat on it, or hit the + if you want to follow along with these kinda thoughts: Brad Luttrell.

Who you are is what you build. (If you think community is a "marketing tactic", then perhaps need to dig a little deeper.) Every brand says they're "building community." If you look more closely, most are just building customer conversion programs with "community" language. But people are smarter than that. They know real connection when they see.. and feel it. The difference between community theater and actual community: ❌ Community Theater: "Join our community!" (it's a Facebook group with 10K lurkers) Rewards program disguised as belonging Asking for engagement before delivering value Measuring success by member count Creating spaces and narratives that don't allow for connection. Internal org cultures that advances "me" individuals vs "we" individuals. ✅ Actual Community: Members help each other without prompting Value creation happens peer-to-peer Business results follow relationships, not the other way around Success measured by member retention and mutual support Business models that promote connection Physical spaces and brand narrative that creates a sense of belonging. Internal organizations that reward "in-the-trenches" leadership. The framework that actually works: 1️⃣ Start with shared struggle, not aligned demographics. Create a shared solution for the struggle. Shared experience is more important that your data set. 2️⃣ Great brands are a platform for connection between humans. Your job is to enable those connections at every touchpoint. 3️⃣ Create authentic and meaningful connections between members The best communities work when members need each other, not just you. 4️⃣ Fitness is a hospitality business. The way your team shows up at POS is more important than your marketing campaign. Invest in making people feel welcome. Bottom line: Community isn't a marketing tactic. It is who you are -- your company culture, hiring priority, business model, 4-wall strategy, social philosophy, and core value. What's the best community you've ever been part of? Why was it differen from the generic "communities" most brands create? #CommunityStrategy #CustomerRetention #BusinessStrategy #CustomerExperience #SocialWellness #CompanyCulture www.the2percent.club

THIS is how you tap into community. I shared a post last week about how niching down isn’t just smart marketing, it’s how brands actually connect with people. There’s real power in niche communities that already exist. When brands approach them with understanding, not just opportunity, the results hit differently. It’s about becoming part of something, not just sticking your logo on it. Nike’s new collab with London calisthenics studio PNP fitness is such a perfect example of that. The film feels raw, local, and community-first. It’s so London and features real pnp members. No slogans. No monologues. Just movement. There’s no swoosh splashed across the screen, but every athlete is wearing Nike. It’s subtle. Human. Smart. They’ve understood the power of going small to go big. By backing real communities, they earn relevance, and conversation, organically. This is the kind of work that builds earned eyeballs, not just ads. It’s grassroots storytelling on a global scale. At Axe + Saw, we talk about this a lot, how community is a superpower, how brands can move at the pace of culture when they listen first. I'm so pleased to see Nike coming through with campaigns that bring their values to life. The things that always made them a brand that stood out. Now I can’t stop thinking about what’s next, what other subcultures, micro-communities, and scenes they could champion in this way. That’s where the future of brand storytelling lives.

Community-Led Growth, a New Gear for Business In a crowded market, simply having a great product is no longer enough. The most successful and fastest-growing companies today are building more than just solutions; they are building communities around their users. This shift lift customers from cheque writers to advocates, shareholders and supporters. CLG is not a side project. It’s a core business engine that leverages a community to drive outcomes like customer acquisition, retention, and engagement. Unlike models that build from the solution, CLG starts with the user. A business utilising a strong community-led growth strategy is defined by several key features: The Community Flywheel: A powerful, compounding cycle where growth in the community directly fuels business growth, which in turn attracts even more members. User-Centric Feedback: Feedback is not just collected; it's shared organically among members, allowing the company to capture valuable, unfiltered insights that inform product, marketing, and sales teams. Cross-Functional Ownership: The responsibility for community engagement is shared across the entire organisation from product and marketing to sales and customer success not just siloed in one department. Champion Advocacy: The strategy intentionally identifies and empowers "champions" or prolific contributors, who become powerful brand advocates through their active participation and peer-to-peer support. Focus on Member-to-Member Interaction: The primary value of the community is designed to be the connections between members, not just their relationship with the company. This self-sustaining network drives deeper loyalty and a sense of shared value. Ultimately, CLG helps businesses build a durable competitive advantage. By putting the needs of the community first, companies can transform users into advocates, improve key business metrics, and build a lasting, authentic relationship with their customers. If you are building a more open investment landscape, where community, access and strong brand stories drive momentum, you can subscribe to my newsletter here on LinkedIn. It is where I share what we are learning as more people get the chance to back the businesses they believe in.