If you stop listening to your audience, don't be surprised when they stop listening to you
It’s not unusual, especially in our digital first era, to hear brands talking about communities.
It’s a label often used to soften the reality that community is still viewed through a metrics lens (followers, subscribers, impressions), rather than as a group of people whose feedback, behaviours, and expectations shape a brand’s long-term success.
Communities will tell you what they value, what they don’t, how their needs are changing, and where your brand sits in their world. Brands that treat this as an ongoing dialogue earn trust. Brands that treat it as a campaign moment lose it.
Seek feedback for clarity over validation
A common misstep is assuming feedback is about gathering praise, when it should be a way to capture unfiltered and truthful audience input. When brands rely solely on internal thinking, they’re driven by ego, rather than what makes sense to their customers. Put simply, they end up talking just to hear themselves speak.
When approached in the right way, community engagement can bring to light where brand and audience are aligned (or not), particularly when:
- Needs or tastes are shifting
- Cultural or economic conditions change
- A new category player appears
- Your product/service evolves faster than your messaging
Ongoing listening
Community engagement should be an ongoing priority, and when treated as a pillar of customer research and understanding, can become a tool to facilitate strategic decision making. True two-way community engagement should be built into everyday touch points like:
- Social conversations
- Customer service interactions
- Product communities
- Email replies
- In-person events
The benefits of community engagement
When a brand can embrace the idea that what their communities think about them is more valuable than what they say about themselves, they are in a better position to:
- Spot emerging needs earlier
- Make more informed product decisions
- Communicate with more relevance
- Avoid preventable backlash
- And most importantly, build deeper trust and retain loyalty
As a brand, losing connection with community is a gradual process that reflects how wide the gap between their own intention and customer reality is. The opportunity lies in whether a brand has a feedback loop capable of spotting that gap early and adjusting accordingly.
Patagonia case study
Patagonia is a great example of what's possible when community sits at the centre of brand strategy. They don’t just talk at their audience, they invite active and honest participation. As a result, there is a unique alignment between message, behaviour, and customer expectation. They aren't manufacturing trust through a campaign, they're earning it through consistency. What follows is loyalty because audiences feel both heard and taken seriously.
Project50’s Approach
At Project50, we work with brands to build those loops, so that communities don’t just react after decisions are made, but are positioned to help inform those decisions from the start. If you’d like to learn more, book in your 30-minute chat with Mo now.
