To build a successful online community, it’s important to look at what makes already established communities successful. This week, I took a look at the cult favorite beauty company Glossier and Adobe’s newest portfolio building acquisition Behance.
How each brand is building an online community?
Glossier engages and shows appreciation for their customers through replies and mentions, reposts user generated content from the #GlossierIRL and #GlossierGirl hashtags, and includes customers in ad campaigns. The brand is pop culture savvy and has a casual, approachable tone across all their social networks which is aligned with their younger audience and grabs their attention. Glossier rewards that attention by replying to every mention and featuring customer content.
Because Behance was originally an independent platform and community, Adobe basically bought into an already-formed online community. They continued to build on that by featuring designer content on their homepage, offering creator subscriptions, sharing job postings, and bringing community features to the Creative Cloud, all of which created a network of two-way links between Behance’s community and the products Adobe offers. They also provide livestreams, talks, and articles to help community members hone their craft.
How does the brand grows its membership?
Both brands grow their membership through word of mouth.
Behance used to be an invite-only community, so it already had a reputation as exclusive. Adobe has recently introduced a creator subscription feature similar to Patreon, allowing creators to advertise their work and the site. The site is designed to enable artists and designers to share their portfolios across a network of partner sites including channels like LinkedIn.
Glossier uses a combination of brand ambassadors and paid promotion to spread the word about their products. They focus on customer-to-customer and brand-to-customer relations, understanding that most people turn to customer reviews and people they trust when shopping for beauty products.
Does each brand have publicly posted guidelines or policies around how it governs engagement?
How the community utilizes influencers, ambassadors, or user-generated content.
Glossier selects loyal fans, usually with smaller social media followings, to share their skincare routine and which products are their favorite. Representatives are given a custom link that gives new shoppers 10% off on their first order. Their philosophy is to treat everyone like they’re an influencer. They have also partnered with associations like the WNBA.
Behance took a more educational route and launched a college ambassador program. They partnered with schools like Rhode Island School of Design and the School of Visual Arts in New York to make the community more accessible to less established college students and young designers. They have monthly guest curators to showcase users’ work and collections of livestreams recorded by Adobe brand ambassadors and professional artists. They also partner with actionable communities like Feeding America and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
Social media platform(s) the brand uses to engage its online community.
Because both Glossier and Behance are heavily visual, they use Instagram to engage their online communities. They both repost top content from customers and contributors. Glossier has a stronger Twitter presence, using the channel to provide customer service and feedback to all mentions of the brand.
Behance has recently taken a more career-driven approach, posting job listings on their own site and allowing community members to view posts from a variety of job listing aggregate sites.
Are they successful at managing both positive and negative comments or responses? Why or why not?
Behance doesn’t seem to engage with their community as much as Glossier. There have been a few complaints about bot-generated comments on projects, among other site design flaws, but it seems like Adobe itself handles that aspect of customer service.
Glossier, on the other hand, actively responds to comments and mentions across Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. They’re successful because their responses are timely and personable.
Specific examples of how the brand engages with its online community through social media apps.
Glossier has their own blog and a few years ago, the company started a Slack channel for around 1,000 of its most engaged members to chat directly with each other and the team. Another example is Glossier asking customers for feedback on the packaging of their best-selling moisturizer.
Behance doesn’t offer much in the way of social media, seemingly wanting to keep their community contained to the site, but they do offer daily master classes that can be directly scheduled to a variety calendar apps on YouTube. It is also available to access through Adobe’s mobile design app.
How the brand engages with its community offline but integrates it with online/social media experiences.
Glossier includes stickers and post cards with all their orders that contain the site and blog’s URL. In one of their recent campaigns they included limited edition plantable post cards that encouraged customers to post pictures of their plants after they sprouted.
References:
Danziger, P. N. (2018, November 7). 5 reasons That GLOSSIER is so successful. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2018/11/07/5-keys-to-beauty-brand-glossiers-success/?sh=42b88f89417d.
Dillet, R. (2012, December 21). Adobe acquired portfolio Service Behance for more than $150 million in cash and stock. TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2012/12/21/adobe-acquired-portfolio-service-behance-for-more-than-150-million-in-cash-and-stock/.
Rockwell, N. (2018, June 14). Talking technology: Scott Belsky. The New York Times. https://open.nytimes.com/talking-technology-scott-belsky-7a3a06bd141e.
Wedderburn, O. (2019, March 6). The glossier effect – the power of a community LED social & digital strategy. Medium. https://medium.com/@olivia.wedderburn/the-glossier-effect-the-power-of-a-community-led-social-digital-strategy-204cd6b1e37c.
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