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Step 2.3: Ten great branded community examples

Below, I have attached 10 examples of online communities. What they all have in common is that they have done a fantastic job of branding their product and created a strong community around this. If you are looking for inspiration, these brands are definitely a good place to start. 

Sephora

This cosmetics brand has a popular community set up around beauty and beauty tips. Also, they are very active and provide loads of content.

It is a perfect example of a symbiotic relationship between brand and community – the community genuinely drives a large number of sales and provides constant feedback.

Billboard with a Sephora advert

Results with Lucy*

This is a paid community for beauty, exercise and nutritional results. It originally started out as a website and now is a successful community app (7-days free trial – then paid).

It is a good example of a subscription app driven by content. Based around the combination of a media personality and a physical trainer. The app has great customer ratings.

Harley Owners Group

This is a full 360 community  with events, chapters, membership cards, training, insurance etc. A physical community with strong brand values and identity combined with a digital community that re-enforces the brand. It shows a community that is built to the extreme.

Playstation

Overall, forum for the Sony Playstation brand mostly focused on games. But, it also focuses on hardware and repairs. It is full of user generated content with strong input from members. The community even produced a full game.

Spotify Community

A community of engaged music and Spotify fans. There are lots of music discussions complemented by good user generated content.  

Their Rock Star Program is a great example of motivating members to generate valuable content and contribute to the community.

Laptop with Spotify on the screen

7 Streams Academy*

A high-priced subscription based business course and community centred on personal success and positive motivation.

A good example of how targeting a specific segment of a large influencer’s user base (Derrick axn has 1.1 Million followers on instagram alone) allows you to charge a larger subscription to the right people.

*Disciple app based community

Apple Support Community

Customer support can be costly, but it’s way cheaper to get your existing customers to do the work for you.  This community is a highly moderated community with community managers that step into a support role when needed.

Forum based and very structured. This support community covers all Apple products and is often the first result when searching in Google.

Tough Mudder

Official Facebook page with good levels of interaction (for Facebook) and 4 million followers.

Good example of passion and brand mixed – the brand creates community driven content that constantly drives to their events.

woman wearing black leggings, black crop top, and black Nike running shoes

Nordstrom

It takes a lot of guts to open a community channel on a platform like Reddit – known for its direct speech and honest users. Nordstrom have tried to build a community with mixed results especially when they release controversial products.

Interesting example of a different approach and platform. In many ways it comes across a very authentic and honest.

The Rolling Stones Official

Official app for the mega band containing updates, videos, images, live streaming and Spotify and Apple Music links.

Mostly user generated and moderated. This shows the highly visual nature and interactively of a good community app.  

We hope that these top examples will help you out with some inspiration if you’re feeling a bit stuck. Keep going and hopefully this sparked some new ideas!

Read the next article: 5 easy ways to monetise your community app

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