Why you should build a community around your brand
This is important if you wish to succeed in the long run
Hello readers,
For this week’s newsletter, I interviewed Praveen Ramesh who’s a community building wizard and currently takes care of the Freshworks community (the Indian Saas Unicorn)
Praveen and I started our marketing careers with the same agency. Later, he went on to join Stayzilla, before landing a job at Freshworks.
Through this interview, I wanted to bring out the benefits of creating a community around your business or brand and how you can leverage it.
Let’s begin
Luv- You work as a Community Manager at Freshworks, how do you define a community? What exactly is a job of a CM?
Praveen- Wikipedia quotes the community as “the condition of sharing or having certain attitudes and interests in common”. Translate that to B2B context- A community should encompass and everyone who is related to Freshworks. Customers, prospects, influencers, analysts, investors, and other stakeholders. The community is NOT what you define it is, it’s what your members define it as. So, one of the pivotal jobs of a community manager is to identify the different denominators that connect your members.
Then it’s all about letting them extract maximum value out of the community. This could mean creating content, inviting the right members to speak, facilitating engagement, identifying advocates, encouraging lurkers and building a thriving ecosystem.
Sounds so simple- But it’s a long and drawn out process.
Luv- What are the benefits of having a product community?
Praveen- Product communities are one part of any larger community, but a very significant one. For most brands, product is the common denominator that connects all your customers . Primarily, B2B product communities should focus on bringing transparency with their customers.
This could having regular interactions through AMAs, offline-meetups or encouraging two way communication between customers, among others. But, most product communities end up becoming a ‘rant channel’ or a support channel for customers. It’s the job of the community managers to identify other communication opportunities that will be of benefit to their end users.
Luv- Is building a community relevant in B2B businesses only or B2C companies can also benefit from it?
Praveen- Community is something that everyone should have (or already have) in one form or the other. Think your social media. You have a group of people following you. That’s a mini-community. Loyalty programs- That’s a mini-community there. As a community manager it’s your job to bring everyone and every program under the one roof. There are only upsides to a good community program- Think Trailblazers by Salesforce, Notion’s community, product hunt or my favorite one- TradingQnA by Zerodha.
As a brand if you don’t provide a channel for your stakeholders to exchange views, they will find their own.
Luv- What are the channels you use to reach out to your Target group?
Praveen-
Reachout- It’s part inbound and outbound. And that’s how it should be.
Inbound
There are a few people who will be naturally inclined with your brand. They will believe in what you do. If your company is big, this number will be a significant one. They’re your evangelists. Your advocates. Your community should be built on what they would need. Encourage them to the face of your community and brand. Customers/prospects relate to people who’re like them. If you provide the right firepower to your evangelists, they will take your community to newer heights.
Outbound
This is predominantly local meetups, online events, summits, and other engagement programs. Again, instead of outsourcing this to an agency, it would be great if you could have a variety of stakeholders to contribute.
Have a customer who’s on the fence? Invite them for a local meetup. Seeing an evangelist speak might change their mind.
Always wanted to feature in a B2B magazine? Invite the journalist for a community meetup and let them see what other stakeholders have to say.
Every person who walks into your meetup should have some direct/indirect impact on the long run.
Luv- If I think of community, the first thing that comes to my mind is "engagement". Can you list some community building strategies/activities you use to keep people engaged?
Praveen- Make no mistake, engagement is the core of any community. But the key is to not make it about yourself. Engagement is just a by-product of good intentions and identifying what your members want.
A good way to look at community building will be to see how it can contribute to every department in your company. Not just in terms of $$$, but also in terms of insights, relationships, and others. Here’s an example
A product manager could start a discussion with power users and prospects about a feature she’s building. This could help her identify her blindspots, use cases she might not have thought of, and the target audience that’s most likely to buy this.
Now translate this to every team, and see where it takes you. Bonus if you can frame a single campaign that could benefit multiple teams.
Luv- Once a community starts to evolve, you identify evangelists within your community. How do you leverage them?
Praveen- An evolved community with evangelists is a gold mine. Warning though- It takes A LONG TIME. A VERY LONG TIME. It’s a dreamland for community managers.
The possibilities are infinite when you have an army of evangelists-
Advocacies
Speaking opportunities in external events
Anchored local meet-ups with evangelists
Case studies, content collaterals
Rock-solid referral program
Luv- According to you which is the best platform to build a community and if you could explain your pick? (Fb groups, Quora, reddit, LinkedIn groups, etc.)
Praveen- Personally I always believe in an owned community. Gives you greater control over features and other aspects like gamification, customer support et al. So any SaaS community platform would be a better fit if community is part of your long-term strategy.
Luv- Everyone has their source of knowledge, what are some of your favorite books, blogs, podcasts, etc. that are highly recommended for founders/marketers?
Praveen- I personally love Seth Godin’s blog. I keep reading them. I read a lot on copywriting and advertising because it gives a wider perspective to everything we do in marketing.
Some of my favourite books are 22 Immutable laws of marketing, Scientific advertising, Cashvertising, Atomic habits, The ultimate sales letter, Purple cow.
Luv- You have been doing a lot of activity on LinkedIn. What are your views on LinkedIn as a platform for a B2B marketer? Any LinkedIn Growth Hack you would want to share?
Praveen- Linkedin is a great platform if you have the right connections, and put out the right things. Again there’s no way to find out what’s right unless you publish a lot. So don’t be afraid to put out things to see what works out. Once you crack what works (and do it consistently), no one is going to remember the shitty posts you put out. Just be sensible, and don’t be shy.
Luv- If I'm starting a community building process today, are there any guidelines that I should keep in mind?
Praveen- Only one- Your community is NOT what you think it is. It’s what your customers/members decide it is. You are just a facilitator.
Luv- Final question to end this interview. Any favourite marketing quote you want to share :)
Praveen- “You don’t have to have great ideas, if you can hear great ideas”- Eugene Schwartz. Listening is such an underrated skill.
If you wish to learn more about community building, you can connect with Praveen on LinkedIN
If you liked this interview do give it a like and share.
You can also follow me on Twitter- @luvarora12
Thanks :)