Learning communities, the next big step for brands
The recent push for communities of customers is indicative of the role learning communities will play in brand reputation, customer relationships and business models.
Five or ten years ago, even the most sophisticated Silicon Valley techies would buy their toothbrushes, dog food, or paint at Walmart/Target/Walgreens.
Today, with the rise of brands, all these products are offered by highly specialized, often subscription-based, direct-to-consumer companies, and millions are now buying these products from them. The user behavior has fundamentally shifted, from one that sought products that were just “good enough”, to one where the alignment with brand values, signaling power and sense of belonging are all fundamental to the purchasing decision.
This has greatly shaken the shelves of retailers such as Sears and the like, who are unable to reach their new young customers where they are, both physically (from a distribution point of view) as well as mentally (unable to differentiate themselves, provide a environmentally sustainable product or connect their users in a meaningful way). These connections take the form of communities.
Community…
These brands often use platforms to manage their communities like Instagram (most brands), Facebook (some groups like Focusmate or CMX), Reddit, Telegram (mostly crypto) or even Twitter (I’d argue Superhuman should go here!)(MightyNetworks also deserves a shoutout here).
This, along with the arrival of new vertical platforms (Discord for gamers, Islands for college students, etc.), means that brands have an increasing number of reaching customers directly and connect them to one another through communities.
…& Learning Communities
I am particularly interested in learning communities, those where the interactions between users ideally lead to learning about the sector or the product by the users: some illustrative examples include Republic (incentivized interactions and “usefulness” through their Note token), Quartz or OZY(for community-driven analysis of news).
As these communities develop and new entrants figure out more effective ways to increase retention and lower acquisition costs through community, I believe that one of the next big developments will be the use of learning and pedagogy to structure the interactions and design of these communities. Currently, these are managed based simply on intuition and the capabilities of the available platforms, but I am confident these will professionalize further to include some of the core principles of learning. I’m also confident this will enable lots of innovative work at the intersection of more traditional education and community + brands.
Overall, communities and brands have come a long way since just a decade ago. Community plays a central role, and often these are learning communities. In these cases, the lack of educational tools is keeping many brands from realizing their true brand potential. I’m very excited to see more work from this intersection of education and community!
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