How To Build Brand Authenticity And Community
Learn how social communities reveal customer sentiment, shape brand positioning, and build authenticity through meaningful engagement over time.
How To Build Brand Authenticity And Community
Social communities where customer sentiment and potential product or service positioning enable a brand with a wealth of information. Cultivating those communities and building the authenticity, engaging with your customers takes time and effort.
Main areas to be discussed in the article include :
- Value and tone
- Translation message across channels and carry customers
- Deciding whether engagement should be paid or organic
Value and Tone
Brands are leaning toward transparency and sharing all of the ins and outs of how they function.
For example, Semrush.
The company settled the debate once and for all with a clear-cut statement, actually ruffling a few feathers as the community didn’t like being told they were wrong. Semrush ensured that its branding would be consistently moving forward, which was particularly useful as it prepared for its IPO.
Translating Messages Across Channels
Engaging with the social media communities, claim your profile across all channels and know your customers and prospects that are or could be enticed to engage.
Authenticity and trust are currencies for brands on social media platforms. User-generated content (UGC) and testimonials help create an authentic brand identity by showcasing real-life customer experiences and satisfaction.
Facebook verification refers to a process that enables businesses and public figures to confirm the authenticity of their Facebook pages. This verification helps prevent impersonation and ensures that your audience interacts with the official page.
Facebook offers a suite of features to help you collect and display UGC and testimonials, encouraging customers to leave reviews on the Facebook business page, providing immediate social proof to page visitors. By focusing on user-generated content and testimonials, your brand can cultivate a sense of authenticity and trustworthiness on Facebook, strengthening your relationship with existing customers and attracting new ones.
Tone: Generally casual and personal, but may vary depending on the content shared.
Pace: Moderate pace, with a mix of real-time updates and more evergreen content. brands typically post 1-2 times per day to maintain visibility in the algorithm.
Creative flexibility: It includes content formats such as text posts, images, videos, live streams, and stories, while moderation includes adherence to community standards, restricting certain types of content.
Community management tools provide features such as Groups, Pages, and messaging for community management. It also offers insights and analytics for Page owners.
Instagram is a powerful platform for establishing brand identity, connecting with your audience, and achieving measurable results. Building a brand on Instagram is about showing up, creating an experience that feels real, relevant, and engaging. A strong brand identity, smart use of data, and a flexible approach to trends all contribute to a brand that genuinely resonates. Brands that know their audience stay true to their values and connect meaningfully not only attract followers, but also create loyal communities.
Tone: Visual and aesthetic-focused, is often aspirational or inspirational.
Pace: Fast, with focus on real-time updates and stories. Brands typically post at least once per day to maintain visibility.
Creative flexibility: this primarily includes visual content, with the features of filters, stickers, and editing tools for creative expression. Moderation includes content guidelines and community standards enforcement.
Community management tools: provide business profiles, analytics, and messaging for community management. Hashtags and tagging features help in discovering content.
TikTok
Authenticity, which used to be a creative choice, is now a performance lever. It is also one of the most overused words in marketing. TikTok’s latest F.I.R.S.T update and their new automation suite, Smart+, Symphony, and GMV Max, are proof that the industry is converging around one truth: authenticity needs a system. TikTok’s F.I.R.S.T. framework is a new standard for building credibility through verified identity and authentic engagement. F-Foundation First, I-Integrate & Link, R-Roles & Responsibilities, S-Spark Creativity, T-Track & Transform
With the new Smart+, Symphony, and GMV Max suite, TikTok is building a system where AI takes care of the heavy lifting, campaign setup, creative testing, and optimization, while marketers stay focused on strategy and storytelling.
Tone: fun, entertaining, and often light-hearted or humorous
Pace: Very fast, with short-form videos designed for quick consumption. Brands typically post multiple times per day to maintain visibility.
Creative flexibility: highly flexible, emphasizing short videos augmented with effects, filters, and music. Moderation includes enforcing community guidelines and restricting certain content types.
Community management tools offer features such as Duets, reactions, comments, and hashtags for engagement. It also provides analytics for creators.
Brands that embrace community-first thinking have a better chance of succeeding on Reddit. People have the highest trust in Reddit as a platform, and Reddit’s transparent and trustworthy answers, from real humans, are transforming the way people search. People chose a Reddit search result within their Google searches 23 billion times last year, because Reddit answers cut through the search engine spam. As a result, Redditors trust the brands they see on the platform more. They’re +46% more likely to trust the brand because it’s advertised on Reddit instead of other sites.
Reddit is the top platform where people discuss purchasing products. It is where opinions are formed and purchase decisions are made. Compared to competitor social platforms, influencer, Amazon, and independent review sites, Reddit is ranked #1 for purchasing behaviours like learning about new products, reading honest reviews, or getting recommendations, and engaging in discussions.
Tone is diverse, depending on the subreddit, but generally informal and community-driven.
Pace can vary, but is often a mix of real-time discussions and slower-paced threads. Brands typically engage regularly but avoid spamming to maintain credibility.
Creative flexibility supporting various content types like text, images, links, and videos. Moderation includes subreddit-specific rules, enforced by moderators.
Community management tools: Tools such as banning, removing posts, and community guidelines enforcement. Subreddit creation and management, and voting and commenting systems, are important for community engagement.
Paid Versus Organic
Finding the right balance between paid and regular content means keeping it real with your audience and respecting their preferences. It is all about building trust and making sure the brand stays true to itself.
Final Thoughts
Different communities have different algorithms for how content reaches users, so if you care that the content reaches your people specifically, you must ensure to go through the group regularly and receive all updates as opposed to only getting it filtered through their feed.
Building brand authenticity is all about consistency and being useful to your people in the way that they want to be helped, using a channel
