Abstract
Does Google owe its success to clever marketing? Where are the Tesla commercials? How about TikTok billboards? Does Harvard University pay influencers? Did OpenAI buy Facebook ads? These organizations have built empires without advertising and marketing. Instead, they hacked their growth with the endorsement of communities. They perceive the products of these companies as win-wins. They share values and matter to each other.
Hacking growth with the levers of communities is the holy grail. In other words, organizations want to gain respect in their specific community. They must become enablers and connectors in their field to thrive. Google, Tesla, TikTok, and Harvard did it, among many others.
Many organizations and companies put community building front and center. Yet, nine out of ten fail to win their respect. Why? It is challenging, costly, and without direct short-term results for the bottom line. It also requires a new understanding of communication, marketing, and content strategy.
Story-Driven Science has developed strategies to develop useful content for organizations and communities. Using this approach, organizations win the trust and endorsement of the communities that matter to them. This unlocks network effects and growth. This article explains how this works.
Why Communities Matter
Communities are the most important drivers for organizations, high-tech businesses, non-profits, or even governments. Examples in the high-tech space are blockchain technology, AI, robotics, UAVs, or open data. In these fields, innovation emerges from scientific communities. Multinational corporations such as IBM, which entered the blockchain field, failed miserably to win community support. A community project like Ethereum trumps IBM’s Hyperledger many times over.
Communities generate word-of-mouth if they respect organizations. They support them if their intentions are in line. This can eventually convert communities into ambassadors or customers. The misunderstanding lies in treating communities as a fanbase or social media following. Communities are much more than the existing value chain of an organization. They are more than existing customers or employees, an association or lobby group, or attendees of a conference.
At the same time, communities are a tough crowd. They are unpriced assets. Dormant resources that open doors for positioning, deal flow, and recruiting. Many organizations wonder how to identify, engage, and leverage their communities. A lack of community engagement is the result of a misalignment of incentives. Most organizations misperceive community involvement in digital channel management or event marketing. A novel approach is necessary when working with communities. But how do communities tick?
Attributes of Communities
Some positive attributes of communities are, among others:
- Intelligent individuals from startups, academia, and corporations who want to change the world.
- Experts in technology, tinkerers in their free time.
- Hold idealistic values about the merits of the technology.
Not-so-positive attributes (among others):
- Fight against the commoditization of their ideals with an “us vs. them” mentality. Big Brother (governments, multinationals) and their handlers (advertising firms, marketing firms, and PR firms) are enemies.
- Can lose themselves in unimportant details or community politics, missing the bigger picture.
- Lack resources to create enough visibility for their causes beyond their communities.
- Fail to leverage available corporate or government actors for their own goals.
Organizations vs. Communities
Many organizations fail to engage communities, even though they could address their pain. The rift arises for the following reasons:
- Their efforts in thought leadership register as self promotion with ulterior motives.
- They have a “community manager,” but they misunderstand the true meaning of community. They mistake it for a group of people or social media followers to market to.
- An organization may dress up hip, but the community ridicules these efforts. Examples: Corporate hackathons, thought leadership events, a university creating a rap song, conferences, etc.
- Brands hire influencers, whom communities shun as “sell-outs.”.
- PR firms twist the definition of communities so it hits short-term KPIs. In the medium term, this leads to a loss of credibility in the real community.
Content and Communication Layers
Communities should be front and center in every growth strategy. They should involve the senior and executive levels. If a community perceives an organization to align with their views, they respect it. Examples are Tesla and Google, at least in their early days. They won the respect of the tech community and leveraged it for growth.
Content is the key to the hearts and minds of customers, and it also unlocks communities. To engage them, organizations must strike a balance between the views of the community and theirs. They must address their needs. To find out what that is, organizations must understand the attributes of their communities and fill the gaps.
To create content for communities, Story-Driven Science structures content in three layers. We first produce Layer 3 content, and from there, we work our way down to Layer 2 and Layer 1 (green arrow on the left). A Layer 3 project creates high-impact content that ties in with the views and needs of the community. The figure below gives an overview of how content flows in communication initiatives.
Figure 1: Flow of content across Layer 1, 2, and 3 (Story-Driven Science)
We call Layer 3 content “master content.” It creates a content library for communication activities in Layer 2 and Layer 1. Master content is top-down. It communicates the same mission and values with every fiber. This approach improves on the regular approach (blue arrow on the right side). Small content initiatives may target specific KPIs. Yet, they never combine into an overarching piece that a community would find useful.
Examples of Layer 3 Projects
Master content comes in many forms. Here are some examples.
- Story-centric interview series with community stars (videos, podcasts, articles).
- High-quality video content from invited talks.
- A high-quality documentary film that brings community values into mainstream channels.
- Endowed chairs or scientific working groups that produce studies. Google, Facebook, or OpenAI produce better research than many universities.
Figure 2: Examples of Layer 3 content that overarches communication channels
Develop Content for Impact
Which kind of impact will Layer 3 content achieve with a specific community? Organizations should aim for a win-win. They must help the community achieve their goals. In return, they will endorse the organization. The figure below gives an overview of the areas of high impact that content could achieve.
Figure 3: Areas of impact of Layer 3 content in a specific community
There may be more areas with more overlap than this graphic suggests. They inform each other, for instance, education or community initiatives generate stories.
Conclusion
Communication strategies often fail to engage communities that may unlock your growth. Bottom-up initiatives fail to achieve this goal. Small-scale content initiatives hardly ever accumulate by themselves into a bigger picture. High-quality Layer 3 content achieves this goal. It stands a true chance to create a win-win with the community that helps organizations achieve acclaim. Layer 3 content builds a library with meaningful media that serve communication initiatives. Layer 3 preserves the identity of an organization’s brand in marketing and communication initiatives.
Open Questions
To gauge where your organization or business stands, ask yourself the following questions:
- Which communities do you care about most? How are you working with them now?
- Which pain points does the community have that you could address?
- Which supporting actions can you provide for Layer 3 projects? Content for presentations, events, hackathons, conferences, recruiting, etc.
- Which interfaces with community stakeholders exist within your project?
- How do existing communities perceive your firm and your projects and events?
- Which relationships with community influencers exist in your network? Employees, advisors, etc.?
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
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