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Investing in and building a community around your brand can literally save your company. Just take Harley-Davidson, for example, which was facing financial ruin back in 1983. Fast forward to today and they’re one of the top 50 global brands, currently valued at nearly $8 billion — and they achieved those numbers by investing in their customer community at the most critical point.

Of course, creating a thriving customer community isn’t easy and it will take a lot of time, money, and effort, but it will pay off if you do it correctly. Here’s what you should be thinking about.

Why Build a Brand Community?

First off, building a strong brand community for your company can bring a great deal of insight into what your customers really care about. When you share things with your audience and you actually listen to their feedback, then incorporate that feedback into your products and services, you’ll end up with innovative, passion-driven ideals your customers can get behind.?

A strong brand community also equates to trust in your business as it requires a great deal of transparency with your audience. The community also helps create a strong customer relationship, encouraging not only loyalty, but patience in resolving any issues that do come up. These customers will also act as advocates for your brand, helping you sell more through word-of-mouth marketing. Ultimately, the support that your community of customers can provide is second-to-none.

Building a Brand Community

Wondering where you even begin? Here are some key things you need to plan on in order to build a strong brand community.

#1 Focus on Your Customers

If your product doesn’t ignite inspiration or passion within your audience, you’re never going to have a successful brand community. So, begin by listening to and incorporating feedback to make sure that your core offering is something people really want. Only then should you invest in building a community around it.

#2 Engage Through Features

When you allow users to create and share their own templates within a software, or create extensions for their favorite platform, these are features that help them engage with each other automatically and that forms the foundation of most strong brand communities. Whether you sell a product or service, think up creative ways where your customers can contribute and interact with one another.

#3 Join the Discussion

Whatever space you create to encourage community interactions, be it on social media or in your own dedicated forum, be sure that your team members get in on the discussion, too. A strong brand community is best built when the brand itself is part of that community and not just “running it” behind-the-scenes. Engage with your audience, answer their questions, and let them know you’re listening and excited that they’re there.

#4 Create Brand Events

Branded events that help bring your community together, whether in-person or online, has long been a proven tactic for strengthening a brand community. Whether you’re a major brand like Coca-Cola running a concert series or just a small local business leading a community event day at a park, there are endless opportunities for getting your brand community highly engaged.

#5 Grow with Your Community

As a brand, you have to be very approachable, very personable, and very human, and part of that means growing and evolving as a brand just as your customers will through time. This agility means you may change platforms overtime, change how you interact with customers, and even focus on new problems as they come along. The key is to keep your brand light on its feet, while always remaining consistent with the values and passions your customers express. That’s how you can carry your brand from one generation to the next.

The concept of a ‘job’ reaches back millenniums; as an early homo sapiens you’d have your role as rock collector, arrowhead-maker, cave painter, fruit-picker… to ensure your tribe was safe and secure in its devoted settlement; the sole purpose was survival. Over centuries, settlements became towns, which became cities, and the job pool got deeper and deeper, and the tribe required new skills and more collaboration in order to thrive as a mass race.

The definition of ‘tribe’ is used within the context of modern working culture in this article. Settlements and cities are now teams and departments. The workplace hierarchy is influenced by a developed theory that engages in psychological research of tribal development, which is split between five stages.

The stage in which an employee belongs is reflective of the co-workers and teams to which they gravitate, and their will to evolve or be thrown to the wolves. So, how do you identify which stage in the tribe theory you belong in? Let’s take a look.

Stage One – Everything Is Terrible

This stage is reserved for those with limited ambition, immense workplace resentment, and a poor sense of work ethic. Their approach is reflected in their adverse glossary. For context, these are probably represented by society’s delinquents. They believe that the world is just a terrible place.

Stage Two – In It for No-One

Stage two is satiated by a tribe of victims who are oppressed by their own existentialist misery that only their world is a terrible place. Stage two tribes are the wallflowers – their body language speaks volumes, as does their reluctance to convey passion or ambition. This tribe is described by theorists as ‘passively antagonistic’; they’ve been there, got the T-shirt, and have no interest to see how this time the process might succeed – it’s pointless.

Stage Three – In It For Myself

Verging away from volatile self-esteem, stage three tribal development engages instead in a culture of narcissism. Imagine this tribal worker as self-obsessive, a relentless workplace gossip, and one who maintains a belief system that no one can live up to their standard. Conversely, stage three tribal development is made up of employees who are motivated to work, however, their vein of negativity is portrayed in co-worker disregard and a lone-wolf mentality. They feel unsupported and time-constrained.

Stage Four – No ‘I’ In ‘Team’

Finally, stage four tribal development acknowledges team recognition, as such, there is a new space for leadership. The stage four tribe rejects the personal agenda of the preceding stage, therefore holds a greater preference for teamwork and collaboration. The focus on team is so vivid that if for any reason there is a breakdown, the individual suffers a sense of loss. A stage four tribal worker turns up, not just for the job, but for the camaraderie and sense of group success.

Stage Five – Everything Is Inspired

This tribe radiates passion, pride, and unlimited potential. It is here that tribe culture is developed and refined through the birth of values and commitment, and these resonate through the business. Collaboration is just as crucial as the ability to work independently. Stage five tribe exists to innovate, lead, and inspire.

What Do the Tribal Development Stages Mean for Business?

Through a set of criteria, resolution, and self-awareness, it is perfectly achievable to climb the ranks in tribal development and to enhance your experience of work. The two key identifiers that place you within a certain stage are the words you use to express your feelings, and the relationships you form. By recognizing your shortfalls, growth becomes attainable.

In the eyes of the greater business, the advantage of acknowledging the tribe system is the ability to act upon it. By encouraging a next stage progression, a company creates an ecosystem built on self-sustenance and all-round elevation. Through identification, empathy, and motivation, business leaders can offer those at the earlier stages the chance to realize and implement their potential.

Corporate culture is ultra important these days, and some companies are doing it right. Here are nine examples of brands who have put employee experience front-and-center.

#1 Zoom

This video conferencing software provider has hit the mainstream as more people have begun working, conferencing, and chatting from home. But, from day one, Zoom has focused on caring for their workers. For instance, they encourage their staff to bring their friends and family to work so their colleagues can get to know each other on a personal basis. When the pandemic started, Zoom also gave back, offering free licenses to K-12 educators.

#2 Patagonia

The bold moves of Patagonia don’t stop in their consumer-facing activities. Behind their doors, Patagonia has adopted flexible work hours to promote a healthy work-life balance along with an abundance of time-off so their employees can pursue their passions. In return, they’ve earned an extremely loyal base of clients and workers.

#3 Intuit

The “Design for Delight” (D4D) model utilized by Intuit is one of the best cultural approaches in the world of business. Their consistent organizational practices help them keep the focus on “delighting” both customers and employees every day and their employee perks are a definitive example of that with lots of PTO and compassion in the workplace.

#4 Hubspot

At the top of anyone’s “Best Places to Work List,” Hubspot has earned quite the name for itself as a forward-looking organization. One policy that helps exemplify their mission is the “no door policy,” which they say empowers every employee to speak their mind to anyone, regardless of a person’s position or seniority.

#5 Zappos

Zappos now has a well-established company culture that works by empowering employees to work with autonomy, something that’s unheard of in the service business. By giving employees the chance to “do whatever it takes” to keep customers happy, Zappos’ workers are able to succeed with confidence and control. Beyond that, Zappos is also proud to brag about its long lists of employee perks.

#6 Pixar

The incredible creativity that comes out of Pixar’s studios is unrivaled, and a huge part of that comes from their culture of supporting creativity in every facet. Their inspirational culture, which encourages employees to share unfinished work and rough ideas often, helps people grow together in an environment of collaboration and good-spirited feedback.

#7 Costco

When they were first establishing themselves, Costco earned a lot of attention for themselves with their operational choices, but their decision to empower, cross-train, and “un-standardize” the workplace has proven highly effective. No longer seen to be so radical, Costco’s culture has persevered, keeping employees happy for over 37 years.

#8 LinkedIn

The commitment to people is just one thing that has helped LinkedIn consistently earn a spot on Glassdoor’s list of Best Places to Work. It’s also their five founding principles that they actually put into action, each and every day. Those principles include: Transformation, Integrity, Collaboration, Humor, and Results, and it’s an approach that’s worked out perfectly for this professional social network over the years.

#9 Spotify While many services like it have come and gone, Spotify lives on as an extremely strong brand thanks to its unique strategies and strong company culture. Without a traditional corporate structure, their “squads, tribes, and guilds” have helped drive this company to success by cultivating shared interests amongst their large employee base. Meanwhile, their commitment to social experiences and fostering inclusion has taken them far.

If productivity seems like an elusive skill, technology is here to save the day. With more people working from home than ever, and our routines all out of whack, it’s about time you found an app that can help you adjust, stay on track, and get more done. These seven fit the bill pretty nicely.

#1 Todoist

This simple app helps you organize your daily to-do list and mark things off with great pride. Use it to manage all your little tasks, sorting them accordingly and setting reminders and due dates as needed. You can also track your progress and even add others to collaborate on lists with you. Location-based reminders are an extra perk!

#2 Evernote

The godfather of note-taking apps is an obvious addition to this list, allowing you to organize and plan your day from one application. Meanwhile, you can write notes or capture them using sketches, photos, audio recordings, and more. These files are then instantly searchable, and you can sync notes across devices so you’re never without a plan.

#3 Forest

Get distracted easily? Forest helps you put your phone down so you can stay focused. Just plant a virtual seed when you are about to start working and the app will set a timer. If you stay on task until the timer goes off, the tree will grow, but if you leave the app, the tree will die. The more you stay on task, the more trees you grow — and since Forest has partnered with Trees of the Future, your productivity has a greater benefit for the environment.

#4 Be Focused

If you like to take regular breaks when you work, this app may be the best solution for you to manage your time without breaks getting too far out of hand. With the Pomodoro Technique, you’ll be breaking your work up into 25-minute sessions with 5-minute breaks in between. The app also helps you manage tasks and track progress.

#5 Freedom

Kill online distractions with Freedom, which allows you to block time-wasting and distracting websites for a specific period of time. You can even add a custom list to block or block your phone’s internet access completely so you aren’t getting off task constantly.

#6 Trello

Need to manage your workflow? Trello is the best app for that, allowing you to work alone or with a team on your Trello Board. The simple layout lets you put tasks into cards and boards, assigning each to a group or team member and then setting a due date. Managing teamwork has never been easier!

#7 Toggl

This time tracking app is the last one you’ll ever need. Particularly great for freelancers, Toggl helps you effortlessly track just how much time you’re spending on various tasks. This is critical because knowing how you spend your time is the first step to reclaiming it and getting more done. It also helps you better judge how much time you need for different productive tasks, allowing you to plan your day more effectively.

Did you know that the average person spends over 2 hours a day browsing social media? Meanwhile, the average professional over-checks their email every 37 minutes. When you add up the countless examples like this, one study concludes we waste nearly 22 hours a week (see article).

Chances are, if you did an hour-by-hour recap of how you spent your last few days, you’d surely begin to realize where all your time goes and why you may just be feeling like there isn’t enough time in the day. So, what can you do differently? You can start by taking some pointers from the pros. Here’s a breakdown of some things highly productive people always does so you can pick and choose to design a schedule that works for your life.

#1 Plan the Next Day

Journaling or using a day planner each evening before you go to bed is a great way to wind down without screen time, thus improving your sleep quality and helping you get to sleep quicker. You can use these brief moments to plan your next day, mentally preparing yourself for the most important things so they aren’t forgotten.

#2 Start Your Day Sooner

Waking up just 30 minutes earlier than you already do can give you more “me time” so you can actually get more done. If you have to go into work, try giving yourself at least 2 hours before your workday starts so that you can prioritize other work (be it exercise, organizing, or self-care) before your actual workday starts.

#3 Get Plenty of Sleep

While waking up earlier will certainly lengthen your day, you need to make sure that you’re getting plenty of sleep. Most people need 7 to 8 hours and any less (or more) can impact your ability to reason, be creative, and be productive. Figure out when and how much sleep is right for you.

#4 Pump Yourself Up

When you wake up, frame your emotional state. You might consider some mantras or just taking a few minutes to express gratitude for what you have and excitement for your goals. If you wake up feeling bad, work to push out the negative emotions.

#5 Workout

Being physically active can help get your blood pumping, relieve stress, make you feel better all the way around, and even help you think. Your healthy body will also be able to do more in the long run, so aim for any amount of activity you’re able to achieve and work up from there.

#6 Avoid Information Overload

Reading the news all the time or browsing social media can give you the illusion that you’re being productive when, in reality, you’re just skimming a bunch of information that probably offers you no value and may even negatively impact your mental state. The most productive people spend 80% of their time executing and just 20% of their time learning.

#7 Learn to Delegate

Have too much on your plate? The absolute best thing you can do is find ways to reduce your workload by delegating tasks to others or automating them yourself. Ask yourself: Are you the only person who can do this job and are you the best person to do it? If the answer is no, find the best solution. Don’t waste your time on something someone else can do.

At Newtech we ensure that “we are living in difficult times in which it is more important than ever for companies to provide their employees with the necessary tools to improve their work well-being and productivity. It is essential that companies encourage and promote the ideal guidelines to get the most out of it to a working day and, for this reason, we reinforce our commitment and provide our support.

The traditional workplace is being challenged and reconstructed. The goal of accomplishing a Monday to Friday 9-5 role is left in the dust as employees crave more freedom, more variety, and an enhanced work-life balance. The term ‘wellbeing’ has never been so prevalent within the realms of the workplace.

Meanwhile, as expectations and requirements of new employees become greater, brands and businesses must appeal to those candidates who embody the best of the best; by promoting their unique and exciting company culture. The experience of work is now defined by a company’s ability to take care of its staff and their wellbeing. Here are the five signs you are working for a company with an amazing culture.

Supported And Encouraged To Grow

When working for a company, you are no doubt faced with the hierarchical structure of the workplace throughout your workweek. Traditionally, this mode protected the status quo and steady stream of workloads across staff, but the lines have steadily blurred. Managers are encouraged to be mentors and role models for those at the earlier stages of their careers. If you feel mentored and actively inspired to release your potential, then this is a good sign you are surrounded by a positive culture.

When the management structure of a business provides support and encourages its workforce to grow, it is producing a subliminal attraction to remain devoted to the team. A low staff-turnover represents a feeling of commitment and loyalty to a company that oozes an amazing culture.

You Feel Supported To Overcome Your Weaknesses

The dreaded obstacle of admitting our weaknesses is a rite of passage when it comes to appropriating a new role. However, in a society that translates vulnerability as a measure of courage, an organization should recognize its employee’s individual strengths and weaknesses. To this end, it is possible to match an employee to their ideal role. On one hand, this advocates wellbeing within the workplace. On the other, business efficiency and productivity are improved as the most appropriate member of staff is responsible for a certain task. Ultimately, it’s a snowball effect.

When you are compensated for your weaknesses, for example, offered flexible working for poor timekeeping or given space and time for additional training where you fall short, your organization is clearly proving themselves as owning an amazing culture.

Everyone On The Same Page

Once again, referencing the archaic hierarchical structure, information was traditionally released on a need-to-know basis. This format has no place in the context of 2021; transparency is key. A company that strives to maintain thorough communication at a consistent level across its workforce demonstrates an awareness of equality. It is also a necessary component when it comes to efficiency as there is no staggered release of information. Instead, everyone has access. Transparency encourages a close-knit and respect-driven environment, which equates to an amazing company culture.

Invigorating An Entrepreneurial Spirit

Slowly, companies recognize that the most effective approach to increasing productivity is through a happy, healthy workforce. Humans thrive off of acknowledgement from their peers and effective utilization of creative skills. So, companies inject drive through positive influence and ignite an entrepreneurial spirit amongst the staff. The shift to creating an amazing company culture is the new trigger for productivity, not holding the proverbial gun to an employee’s head.

Awareness And Emphasis On The Employee Experience

The employee experience relates to what people encounter, observe, and feel over the course of their career journey within an organization. Your experience is dictated by how well a company stands true to its ethos and culture to deliver results both internally and externally.

Turning employees into advocates of a business is incredibly effective for permeating a positive brand message of its exciting culture, both in external and internal contexts. Pizza lunches, half-days, trips out and financial rewards for successful innovation are all examples of incentives that serve to enhance the employee experience.

Are You Experiencing An Amazing Company Culture?

As the workplace moves beyond recognition, and with endless career paths as well as intermingling work roles housed within a single company, finding an organization that reflects your core beliefs through its incredible corporate culture has never been so accessible.

Today, companies seek to build cohesive and diverse teams that contribute both labor and culture.

It’s an incredibly exciting time to witness the evolution of the workplace, and company culture is one of the greatest assets to consider when considering your job role. To identify if you are in the correct company, it must always ensure the generation of constant opportunities, make sure that you can grow personally, that it recognizes your work and your good performance but above all that it is able to adapt to future changes so that this way you can always stay at the forefront of all the opportunities that organization offers.

Social media is, undeniably, an incredibly influential and accessible tool for forging relationships with your target audience. It offers an immediate space for brands and customers to interact with one another.

However, social media offers so much more than a stage for brand identification and customer engagement. It is a potent place for businesses to cultivate powerful insights into their customers’ sentiments, i.e., t e overall impression that you transmit.

What Is Customer Sentiment Analysis?

This refers to the ability to process social analytics and data to produce insights into the all-round impact a brand makes on its target audience. Through customer sentiment analysis, brands can gauge the positive and negative reactions to new products or service releases, and over time, may produce an aggregated report into trends and customer concerns.

Customer sentiment value is collected through text analysis. This is a system that gathers statistical and linguistic interpretations through natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning techniques to generate a score of public response to the content a brand puts out. The results allow data analysts to produce an understanding of public opinion, to collect necessary market research, and enable brand monitoring and product reputation. The data provides an all-encompassing perception of customer experience.

Using Social Media to Measure Customer Sentiment

Social is unavoidably reserved for real time customer engagement and interactions – it offers a platform to ask questions and share both positive and negative experiences. Such feedback is crucial for the brand to grow and adapt their customer service approach.

Before implementing a social campaign, determine an avatar – an impression of the ideal audience figure. By doing so, it’s possible to create a social plan that will serve to enrich the audience experience – from the choice of social platform to the variety of content you choose to share. For example, if you target female Millennials, Instagram will feature heavily in your brand’s social plan. Alternatively, you may direct your energies towards an entrepreneurial and business-focused audience, in which case, LinkedIn would become the platform of choice. Choosing the right social platform and forming an online community will assist in building a system of social listening, concept development, and gap analysis – all of which contribute to the measurement of customer sentiment.

Customers have refreshed expectations of customer service in this digitally-driven world. While in decades passed reputation was built through word-of-mouth and published reviews, customers can now deliver feedback in an instant. As such, brands must employ response staff such as social media managers, brand executives, or even a chatbots who will communicate with customers reaching out.

Speed Vs. Assessing the Perfect Response

Social media moves fast, so its crucial brands keep their finger on the button. Implementing a response plan will ensure consistency when handling customer sentiments of all forms. This will include an escalation process, a set of dedicated guidelines, and a list of compensations or complementary products that can be offered as an apology.

Don’t ignore customers, and always respond to them via the same form in which they connect – such as through messenger, on your account page, or as a comment. Furthermore, if their feedback refers to a certain team or member of staff, it’s good etiquette to request they share their contact details through private means so it’s possible to respond accordingly. And, in every instance, respond in a way that is positive and reflective of the brand’s tone and identity. Show your customers that you are listening and that you truly care. Actions speak louder than words.

Learning from Customer Sentiment on Social

Customer sentiment can take a variety of forms, but every situation should be considered a learning curve. Constructing and refining a holistic response procedure will set a brand on good stead when new feedback is received, in addition to preparing you for unanticipated criticism.

While customer service remains a historic methodology, the forms in which it takes in 2020 onwards are immense – so using social to understand customer sentiment is fundamental to ensure the provision of the highest quality and to forge deep relationships with your customers who in turn will help you improve your products and services with their direct feedback.

The peak physical sign of business success is the uncontainable smile of a satisfied client or customer. Customer satisfaction is the ultimate goal of any organization – without the customer, there wouldn’t be a business after all. But accomplishing a target customer’s emotive response to a brand, service or product requires a certain corporate algorithm that combines profitability, employee morale, and consumer satisfaction. Let’s dive in.

Why Happy Employees Make Happy Customers

The corporate approach to the working model can oftentimes feel as though it prioritizes results over process. This lays a significant amount of pressure on employees, particularly those in the operational side of the business who may be considered dispensable (such as shop floor advisors or warehouse operatives). When the entire focus is on how a customer receives a product, this corporate strategy is in fact counter-productive. For this reason, rife

Where the goal is to attain repeatedly happy customers, it is crucial that the workplace itself produces happy employees. Why? Because happiness is palpable. Your employees are the most important brand representatives. When spirits are high, productivity is at its best. It requires a well-oiled and finely-developed machine to deliver the results of a successful business, and customers feel this.

Inspire and Innovate, Positivity Breeds Positivity

The lead up to 2020 has brought along with it an emphasis on wellbeing and company culture. The job search has transformed. Once a painful, grinding system of physical resumes and trawling towns, job boards, and newspapers for vacancies, the internet now provides various social networking platforms where brands and businesses are expected to bare all.

It is now an organization’s best interest that its employees boast cheerfully on public domains how great it is to work for them. It isn’t just prospective employees who see this, but also prospective customers and clients. In a ratings-obsessed world, the corporate model has had to reapproach the foundations on which it bases its success.

Consequently, employees become individuals. The refreshed model favors their experience of work as part of the process of well-rounded triumph. Such success is bred from encouraging staff with incentives, additional training, coaching, and recognition. Inspiring inward growth and innovation transfers a greater quality of output.

Happiness Is Contagious

In an examination into how employee morale impacts productivity, Gallup’s 2020 State of the American Workplace Report found that, while wellbeing has dipped (largely with thanks to the pandemic), engagement in the workplace has “hit a new high”. This refers to workers who are enthusiastic and dedicated to their work and working environment.

The pandemic backdrop has invariably influenced the findings. The employer response, which has had no choice but to improve, has injected newfound commitment to transparency and communication among staff. Further, with a significant portion of employees made unemployed, there is a smaller employment base in which to cultivate metrics. However, this has restored the spirits of those who remain employed and their consideration of their employers. As opposed to dis-engagement, they wish to contribute to positive change.

Ultimately, Gallup found that greater levels of staff engagement produced substantially better outcomes, elevated customer service, greater company loyalty, and improved health; engagement demonstrating a different kind of employee happiness. While this only represents 38% of workers, it proves a huge 12% increase since Gallup began tracking the metrics in 2000. It’s reassuring to see improvements, there is, however, a lot of space for progression.

The Circle of Happiness

The pursuit of customer happiness must be less utilitarian and more process-driven. With such simple tokens of gratitude as pizza lunches, 4 p.m. fridays, useful workplace training, and the odd ping pong table, employees are more encouraged to produce the results that a brand wishes to succeed – simply for feeling happier.