I recently did an interview for PlanBig, for those not familiar it’s a place for sharing ideas and making them happen. Kind of like a Kickstarter or Pozible without the crowdfunding aspect. The video touches on how to build a community around your brand, so it’s community from a business sense and differs in some ways to how I would approach a community like Socialmelb for instance. I didn’t know the questions or what I had to do beforehand so while my top five tips are mentioned, I’m sure I could find another top five with more time. It was also raining outside (ah, Melbourne) so excuse the bad hair day!
If you don’t have time to watch, here’s the tips:
- Make your first action now
- Encourage your community to meet offline face-to-face
- Remain nimble and small in your culture
- Think like a publisher
- Maintain a curious and beginner-like mind
Kate Kendall 
Thanks Kate, great video, it will prove very useful shortly I feel :)
Hope your well, despite the rain!
Well done, lady.
I’ve been following you on Twitter for some time and always find your posts insightful. This post in particular attracted my attention because you touch on points relating to building a community around your brand. This can be a challenging venture, building a community around common interests seems to naturally attract individuals; as individuals tend to navigate towards things that personally interest them. However building a community around a brand is a different ball game, the brand needs to connect with the individual. I am interested to know what type of online behaviours successful brands can execute to increase that connection and interest.
I am currently about to embark on building an online community for Curtin University’s Alumni. Creating an online community for Alumni is likely to be easier than creating one for a brand because graduates tend to have had a long term engagement with the University after spending a few years there, as well as this they like to stay connected to peers, but the question is, how do we ensure that people feel connected to the University and that they value the means of communication we offer? I like the point you made about ensuring that there is offline face-to-face meet ups I think in the new digital age we can overlook the importance of human contact.