Creating communities: A way of entering foreign markets in 2022

For companies, the top priority always lies in selling their products and keeping expanding the market to make them competitive. There are many ways to expand and discover new markets, which companies would be able to sustain long-term. Marketing communication within and outside the company is an important way to achieve this. Communities are the key factor for successful companies because they are the communicative bridge to their (potential) customers and employees. Community building can be one of the approaches of discovering and entering new markets.
Until now, most companies have communicated in the direction of the customer, like a monologue. In such an approach to marketing communication, the company talks about its product and advertises it to the customer. In order to not lag behind and remain competitive, companies should change marketing communication to a so-called multilogue. This means that customers and interested parties talk to each other about the product and the company. The company only serves as an initiator of new topics and as a moderator. In this way, a community can be established that builds sustainable relationships between the target group and the company. In contrast to mass media, the internet is particularly well suited for dialogue, but also for multilogue. Communication can take place in all directions: between the provider and the consumer, between the consumer and the provider or directly from one consumer to another.
The main aim of this paper is to identify the different approaches and platforms that can lead to success and the obstacles that can arise. In the end, we will present a case study of a young company that implements a similar approach and has been very successful so far, measured in terms of turnover and the number of customers.

Current state

When researching the literature on the topic of community building, one quickly discovers that most publications and studies on this topic exist in the B2C (Business to Consumer) sector. This is due to the fact that in the B2C market there is always a person at the end, not a company. The idea of the brand community was first raised in 1995 by Albert M. Muniz and Thomas C. O’Guinn in their paper „Brand Community”. They define a brand community as a specialised, non-geographical community based on a structured set of social relationships between admirers of a brand (Muniz and O´Guinn 2001).
Humans have always had a natural need to form communities. That is why people use brand communities to share a consumption experience with like-minded people. These communities are a good platform for sharing enthusiasm for a product or brand. In this way, brand communities generate added value for the brand that goes far beyond the functional characteristics of the brand, products or services. The basis for success of a brand community, however, are long known group dynamic processes, which are presented in more detail in Gustave Le Bon’s psychology of the masses. There the author describes the actions of people in a group or large society as fundamentally unconscious, irrational, and manipulable (Le Bon 2009). In his work, he also says that under certain circumstances, the individual loses his ability to criticize and behaves affectively. In the masses, a „communal soul” is created, and in this situation, the individual is more gullible and subject to psychic contagion. For leaders, the masses are therefore easy to direct and influence. Because of this, companies should try to bind their customers to them with association structures. These should be accompanied by clear visions and missions. It should be clear that this is not a membership in the sense of an association, but rather an intensified customer relationship. In any case, the feeling of an anonymous mass market should be avoided.
In customer loyalty, intrinsic motivation can be used to achieve certain actions. Intrinsic motivation is a motivation for something that every human being carries within him or herself. It refers to an action that is taken because of an inner incentive that lies in the activity itself (Le Bon 2009). For example, being active in a community can make people more likely to buy a product.

The main goals of creating and sustaining a community for the company are:
• Co-creations are to be developed with community members and customers. This means that members help the company to further develop products and to find new products. Perhaps an innovation hub should be set up for this purpose. There, new ideas can be promoted and further developed.
• The company should have a good marketing strategy and involve its community in the development of new marketing strategies. Market research should also be conducted, and brand ambassadors appointed to present the product. Through community collaboration, intelligent decisions can be made based on swarm intelligence.
• User-generated content (UGC) can be created: Members can share their experiences with this product under product photos and thus produce effective marketing content. UGC is not produced by a website operator or a company, but by the users and the community itself. These can be, for example, pictures, ratings, comments, video clips, blog articles or experience reports. UGC can be used as a strategic brand management tool. With user-generated content, companies aim to achieve additional user activity through additional users in the form of, for example, word of mouth. A famous quote from Mark Zuckerberg proves this: „People influence people. Nothing influences people more than a recommendation from a trusted friend” (note [1]). Reviews and recommendations of products can significantly increase the sales of the products, as the trust of the buyers is greater there. Users often have an intrinsic motivation when they create user-generated content. USG offers the company many advantages, for example: it is authentic and credible, helps with customer loyalty, can achieve higher reach, can make brands better known, is cost-effective content, and can achieve a stronger identification of the user with the company.
• For exchange and mutual support, the community needs a digital meeting place, such as a platform, a group, or a forum. Good emotions such as the sense of community within a group of like-minded people are important for the community to remain stable and grow. The opportunity to exchange ideas with other group members and company employees and even to participate in company activities, for example by taking part in surveys and recommendations, also strengthen the community’s commitment. In addition, events and activities can be established that the community members can carry out almost independently. These can be, for example, joint cooking or sporting events that are shared online, playing joint online games or similar.
• With the right management, a community reduces service requests, enables more customer-focused product design, supports incremental sales, builds customer loyalty, leads to more word-of-mouth and provides a competitive edge. The words of enthusiastic members can be used to build authentic communication. If members are satisfied with the community and the company’s products, they will speak positively about them and recommend them to others. This leads to a growth of the community and an immense increase in value and turnover for the company.
• The community is made up of different people with different skills, knowledge and expertise. This can be used as a great opportunity, as the knowledge of the many can be drawn on for new developments and changes. Knowledge, experience and perspectives can be integrated into the decision-making process of the company. One example is Elon Musk, who recently put his followers on Twitter to a vote on whether or not he should sell some of his Tesla shares. He wanted to stick to the result of the poll, regardless of the outcome. This is a significant decision for him, as he would have to pay tax on the sale of the shares. Almost 58 per cent of his followers voted „yes”, meaning he sold 6.9 billion dollars’ worth of Tesla shares (Fürthauer 2021).

The best way for marketers to connect with consumers and secure their loyalty is to make community members feel connected to the brand and engage with them on a daily basis. Questions should be answered quickly, and recommendations and improvements should be taken seriously. Building a community in the right way can create many benefits for the company. These include, for example, the acquisition of new and existing customers, recommendations and evaluations, the expansion of the reach on the internet as well as the assessment of competitor products and trends.
In the community, people are given the feeling of being part of the company and of belonging. This is also a central, transformative promise of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), called „Leave No One Behind” (United Nations 2022). This makes clear the obligation for all to leave no one behind, to discriminate or to exclude no one. By sharing experiences and feelings, members feel connected to each other and have a sense of community.
Community building is no longer just about one-off or sporadic purchases of products, but about loyal fans who can identify with the company and its products. As loyal customers, they are an integral part of the brand, not only because they make repeated purchases, but also because they recommend the products in their social environment and on social media. It is therefore a question of long-term customer loyalty. Social media in particular make it very easy to present the company and build up a community there. Not least because there are no longer any geographical borders that often exist in real life, for example due to long distances and language barriers. Social media make communication and dissemination borderless, and ever-improving online services such as google translate make language barriers disappear.
Since the use of social media is now widely known and the competition is correspondingly high, it is important to distinguish oneself from the masses. The company should appear authentic and want to help people with its products, make a statement, provide an answer to problems or simply entertain. The brand and the product should always have added value and benefit, in whatever way (Karasu 2021).
You have to reach out to people and appeal to their emotions, but of course with authenticity and sincerity. There is a growing trend in social media to reduce content to memes, photos and videos. This addresses the community in a particularly creative way and makes them feel emotionally involved. Memes, for example, connect people with the same sense of humour and make them laugh or talk together. Because humour connects us and makes us feel good. Because people always keep the feeling – whether positive or negative – it’s not what is said that sticks, but the feeling that is left behind (Frister 2021).

Current platforms

When building online communities, companies need to provide appropriate platforms for mutual exchange between the community. The sense of community that is created within the various communities is an ideal foundation for social media marketing, because they have great communicative potential. There, messages, and emotions can be shared millions of times within seconds and thus spread worldwide. Thanks to the enormous reach, companies have the opportunity to enter into direct contact with their (potential) customers and, with successful community marketing, to build up a long-term relationship with them. In order to turn the clients into a community and to maintain the sense of community gained through this, regular community meetings are a good idea. Through shared experiences, they can help to foster a bond with the brand and the product. Shared memories not only strengthen the cohesion within the group but ideally also the identification with the company itself.
In addition to customer loyalty, social media platforms can also be used to optimise marketing activities through interaction with customers by varying the content of posts and evaluating user reactions to them. Social media users can also be involved in product development, e.g. as providers of ideas (crowdsourcing) or as informants for the improvement of product and service quality (e.g. through reviews, praise or complaints) (Beier and Früh 2020).
In the following part, the most important and most frequently used social media platforms are briefly presented and their depth of information and number of users are discussed. Overall, the number of social network users in January 2022 was around 4.62 billion. Compared to the previous year, the number has increased by around ten percent. In 2012, the number of social media users was around 1.48 billion (Rabe 2020). The worldwide social media user data refers to monthly active users and the year 2021.
• LinkedIn: 740 Mio. User: LinkedIn is divided into three pillars: The development and expansion of one’s own network, support for further education and professional reorientation, as well as the internal news service and the transfer of knowledge by other members. LinkedIn is a business network where users are interested in professional contacts, on this platform much deeper and more important data is disclosed than on others, the overall level is much higher (Hertel 2020).
• Facebook / Meta: 2.8 Mrd. Users: Facebook is primarily used for communication and networking between members and between private individuals and companies. Due to the very high reach at low cost, viral marketing is gaining in importance; this is achieved on Facebook with high-quality posts and appropriate topics (Behrens 2019).
• Instagram: 1.2 Mrd. Users: Instagram is a photo-sharing platform where the focus is on the visual aspect. On Instagram, the target group is reached through good content and the right strategy, and the focus is clearly on the image. For some time now, there have also been advertising opportunities through ads in the news feed (Behrens 2019).
• Pinterest: 431 Mio. Users: Pinterest is a kind of virtual pinboard that is not so much about interaction and communication. Nevertheless, the platform is certainly suitable as a tool for customer loyalty and strengthening the brand. Promoted pins can be used to integrate advertisements into the natural content (Behrens 2019).
• TikTok: 1 Mrd. User; TikTok is used for sharing self-made video clips, mostly by children and young people. Two-thirds of users are under 25 years old, which is a very exciting target group for companies that want to address young users with moving images. The information content of this medium is rather low (Stark 2020).
• YouTube: 2.56 Mrd. Users: YouTube is the most widely used video channel and offers a lot of potential. In addition to creating your own channel, it is also possible to promote content via influencer marketing that is appropriate for the target group, e.g. in the form of cooperation with YouTube stars (Behrens 2019).
• WhatsApp: 2 Mrd. Users: Normally only private messages are exchanged via WhatsApp, but now there will soon be a community function. There, several group chats can be combined into a community. Group admins are supposed to take over the administration of groups and thus make everything easier. Admins can invite users to a community, for example via a community invitation link. After joining, rights can then be assigned as to who can write in which groups (Bergert 2021).
• Telegram: 500 Mio. Users: Telegram has become more than a cross-platform messenger app. With the ability to create and manage public channels, it can also be used to run marketing campaigns. This allows companies to distribute their content to a mass audience without much effort (Unknown 2021).
• Events and real meetings: Events and real meetings are a great way for companies to attract potential customers and retain existing ones. With so-called community events, opportunities can be created for the community to meet and get to know each other in real life. These can be, for example, trade fairs, congresses, workshops or concrete actions that belong to the interests of the participants.
• Own company platforms, for example, homepage: Companies that actively engage in community building should also reflect this on their website. In any case, the various links to the existing social media channels should be available there and the page user should be made aware that there is an existing community.

It makes sense to use existing platforms for community building, as many people already use these platforms and may have installed them as an app. This way you can reach a lot of people right from the start and building a community is easier and faster than starting from scratch.
However, there is a risk that large internet services such as Google, Meta, Facebook and many others collect a lot of information from users, for example, to display personalised advertisements. Many services on the net are free of charge, but in fact, you pay for many services with your data. This can generally be name, address and date of birth, but further information about specific usage behaviour can also be used. Google, for example, not only stores private and professional emails, but also documents, photos and videos. But it can also happen that social media accounts of private persons or companies are suddenly blocked. This can happen for a good reason, for example if you violate the guidelines, but it also sometimes happens incorrectly and without a comprehensible reason. For example, if an algorithm mistakenly finds violations that have not taken place (Hurtz 2021).
When using social media, it is advantageous for the company if the face of the company profile is known, and the page is not operated anonymously. This is because personal branding can support the image building and also the community building of companies. Companies can set up one or more employees, ideally one from the upper management, as a personal brand and let them speak for the company. This makes the brand seem more familiar, accessible and authentic.
A good example is the social media presence of the world-famous nature magazine national geographic. The account is operated by over 100 photographers and freelancers, all of whom have the account password and can post there at any time. These photographers share images and add captions that tell the story behind the images. In this way, they build a sense of community with followers because they see that the photos come from talented individuals and not from an anonymous corporate account. As a result, users research and follow the photographers’ personal accounts, which in turn maximises the brand’s reach and leads to further engagement. Meek says that Instagram Live is one of the most important tools for the next generation, and that it has taken off for all types of accounts in a way that the organisation never expected.
He says that this tool brings people together. The Live tool is very in-the-moment, it’s personal and it’s the most flexible interface on the social media platform. One of the advantages of Lives is that it is the only tool on the platform that sends push notifications. „It lets you know when someone goes live and it’s a great tool for engagement”, says Meek (Tshabalala 2020).
Nicci Meek, Instagram Strategic Partner Manager for Asia Pacific, revealed how to maximize and build a brand and its community on the social media networking platform Instagram during a Splice beta session. She says that a key finding of Instagram usage and measurement is that profiles of people have higher engagement than brands. Meek also says that memes are shared 7x more often than any other content on Instagram. As a brand, you should think about how you can drive reality (Tshabalala 2020).
Another important point on how to gain and improve the trust of the community is to be always present. It is advantageous that all comments are answered by users, and in the best case by other members. This creates a high level of trust and an emotional connection to the company and the brand.
A very important principle to bear in mind: Don´t be a business card or a label – be human.

Implementation/Basics

Communities should be strategically well thought out before they are built. Especially if a community is to be built for a brand, it must be clear how it fits into the existing company, what advantages it offers and how it should be structured (Breuker 2021). The application or decision to build a community is not a marketing plan or a tactical marketing action, but a corporate strategy. It thus forms the basic framework for further marketing activities. The goals must be precisely defined at the beginning. These should include, among other things: At what point in time do I want to have reached how many followers, and what measures can be taken if this is not achieved? How do I get more engagement in my community, which parameters should I measure? How do I get more support? Which platforms should I use? What should my „superuser program” looks like? How do I reduce churn? Who should I hire?
Furthermore, you should ask yourself in advance in which department or specialist area the department is located and how the community fits into the company. It is also important to know which values are to be conveyed and which areas in the company are to be strengthened or improved through community building. In general, you should ask yourself what you want to achieve with the community.
Values and Culture: Every good company has at some point developed a corporate identity that breaks down what the mission and vision of the company should be, where it is positioned in the market and what the brand is all about. This is essential for any marketing campaign. Exactly these steps must also be taken for the new community to be built. Because just as a company is positioned in the market, its own community must also build up its own identity and find its position. Of course, the community identity should be compatible with the corporate identity and not deviate too much from it (Breuker 2021). To attract attention, communication must be regular, diverse and, above all, interactive. In addition, it must be easily accessible to all members and ensure that like-minded people can easily find each other. This interactivity provides the basis for community building (Aeberli 2021).
As a basis for the mission and vision, the company should create its own corporate story and disseminate it. The vision of the company should be inspiring and represent a bold goal for the members, the community, and the world. It should make clear why someone should become part of the community and what added value and benefit this would have for the member. All should always be able to know and feel that this community realizes a higher meaning and benefit, on an individual and collective level. The members of the community work within the group towards common goals, connected by a sense of belonging. The resulting community is characterised by exceptional respect among the members for each other.
A target group should be clearly defined in any case. You should analyse the demographic composition of the target group on the platform in question, the age of the members, whether they are women or men, and their professions. You should also look at which content the target group reacts particularly positively to and which other profiles and communities the person follows (Nagl 2020).
There are many people in the community who share the same thoughts, values, and goals. They network with each other and, for example, get other like-minded people to join the community by word of mouth or by sharing their contributions. This generates a high level of organic growth, which means that users join the community of their own accord or pass on content from this community. The most important reason for joining is the high value of the site for the user, which often results from high-quality content.
In order to expand the community, it should be determined which social media channels are best suited for this and which are not yet being used. A good way to increase awareness and reach is to work with influencers. Once you have convinced them of your brand or product, it is easy for the influencer to talk about it and promote the product. Due to the influencers’ high follower numbers, this can lead to enormous growth in the community.
Another way to gain reach and awareness is to create your own hashtags. These so-called branded hashtags are hashtags that are unique to a company. These can be, for example, the company name, slogan or name of the product or campaign. Branded hashtags are much more durable in social media than normal ones, because they stand out due to their uniqueness. The important thing with your own branded hashtag is that it is easily recognizable. The hashtag should be easy to spell and not too long, so that it is easy to remember. The finished hashtag should be included in all marketing materials.
It has been proven that members prefer to follow groups that are already strongly followed than when only a few people belong to that group. High follower numbers generate the impression that the group is really good and offers added value, which is why many other members should also like to belong to the group. This mass dynamic should be exploited to achieve exponential growth of followers.
Communities need characteristic leaders to deliver their visions and missions. They usually pursue higher goals, because one should always have the goal of achieving something better than anyone else. This is also a concrete goal of the 2030 Agenda, which stands for a new global understanding of prosperity and calls on everyone to do their best to achieve it. Martin Luther King, for example, can be cited as a leader who has shown many people the way forward: He had a dream, and many wanted to dream that dream and walk that path with him. Leaders should be human, vulnerable and charismatic authority figures. Only then will people feel drawn to them and accept them as leaders. It doesn’t matter if the person is handicapped or weak, showing weaknesses can be a great strength and make the leader look like a hero who stands behind his actions. Elon Musk can be cited as an example here, who appears as the underdog and is particularly well received by people because he is approachable. It’s similar with Steve Jobs, who comes across as a cool kid and thus has a sympathetic effect on other people.
Because the heroes of today have no special history, they are not trained or chosen. Everyone can be a hero by impressing, inspiring and motivating us. The community offers us a certain closeness to the leader, and through this we identify with the values and ideas of the leader. The community then stands behind the deeds and ideas of the leader because they feel connected to him. And these are then passed on and spread. Storytelling has been around for centuries. In the past, stories were told around the campfire and passed on in the community, today this often happens via social media channels. Stories are often changed as they are retold, but in the end it doesn’t matter if they are still true.
Finding the right platform for your community depends crucially on the company’s target group and objectives. XING and LinkedIn are ideal for B2B communities, while Snapchat can be a promising option if you want to reach a very young audience. Very few companies should do without a Facebook page (Nagl 2020). Content should always be well thought out and prepared, because only with good content you can convince the often critical and demanding social media community. Good content is a kind of service that you offer in order to provide customers and interested parties primarily with the information they need (Karasu 2021). Content should be pre-produced in order to always publish meaningful and value-added articles. It is best to make one or more people responsible for this, initially serving as initiators, then later as moderators. Free translation tools that can translate the language into the desired language in real-time and thus eliminate any language barriers are a great advantage here. This can be done, for example, with the free tool Google Translator (note [2]) or Deepl (note [3]).
Colors, Symbols and Rituals: Symbols and rituals should be added to the corporate identity to further unite the community. This works in a similar way to the prayer in a church. It is constantly repeated, everyone knows it, and everyone feels they belong together when they pray it together. The community identity should appear everywhere, in various forms, but always with the same appearance. One example of this is Mc Donald’s, even though it is not a real community. Anyone in the world can order a cheeseburger there, regardless of whether they understand the language or not. They simply point to the picture, because it is known worldwide, and get the cheeseburger they know in their own country, which probably tastes the same everywhere. The risk of making a wrong purchase is very low.
The desired development of a community in the field of social media is as follows: First, a person likes a post, image or video, becomes a follower or subscriber to this page, then comments on this post, and in the best case, shares it. Then the user replies to comments from other users and creates his own posts, which he then publishes in the community.
Tim Salau (note [4]) spoke at global marketing day 2019 about the P.I.E principle, which consists of the areas of purpose, influence and experiences. When building a strong community, it is important that the company first clarifies the purpose: Form a guiding sentence, explain why your brand and your company exist. With regard to influence, you should make clear what exactly you represent, what point of view you take or what you can influence. Experience represents how your community engages with and feels about your brand. All these points have a great influence on the successful development of a community and should be taken into account in any case. Salau also said one important sentence: „Building a brand community requires concentration and consistency.”
Commitment: Once the content plan is in place, the engagement of community members should be worked on. After all, followers are more important for companies than likes, and comments and interactions in the group are more important than followers. After a certain period of time, the community should, in the best case, act among itself and keep the community running and growing. To do this, it is important that the community communicates with each other, shares its own contributions and calls for interaction. In the best case, the community will later be so large and strong that it defends the company against possible bashing and fights verbal battles with critics. The simplest small engagement that helps a company is a product review or a review on google.
„You are special”-feeling: In order to further bind the community to a company or product, each individual member should feel that he or she is something very special in the group and is accepted exactly as he or she is. People’s mistakes are accepted, opinions and suggestions for improvement are listened to and partially implemented. In this way, the members feel needed and understood and give the company their trust.
Consistency: The member should have this feeling at all times, and it should be confirmed again and again. The community is there for each other and stands behind the members. Members are proud to be in the community and feel happier, fitter and validated.
To further bind members to a company, a good way can be to produce a pressure to perform: If the company fails, so do you – everyone in the community should do their best to ensure that this does not happen. Everyone should stand proudly behind the company and the brand and show it to the outside world. The members should be seen to be passionate and motivated to wear the brand publicly, thus promoting the company and the brand.
Entice Recruitment: Members will publicly communicate the benefits and advantages they have gained from the community and thus encourage more people to join the community and become convinced supporters of the community. This can be called the network effect, which is much more important for a company than advertising. The basic idea here is also that interested customers become active community members and thus partners of the companies. In this way, the traditional stakeholder system can be expanded.
Events and Communication: Events are an excellent way to introduce your community to each other. By getting to know each other, interests are exchanged, the bond between members is strengthened and memories are made that will last forever. It is important to make the events and meetings unique so that people talk about them for a long time and the event is not seen as boring. This can be done with special offers and attractions, but also with funny language elements such as inner jokes, inner wordings and memes. In some cases, it is also useful to have your own language or expressions. The crypto community, for example, has its own expressions such as „to the moon“ (Ma 2020), „bagholder” (Lange 2018) or „HODL” (Wikipedia (note [5])). They use their own language and their own terms that no one else understands, thus bringing the community even closer together because they understand each other.
In any case, members should also be shown appreciation by giving out small gifts, awards for particularly active members and special praise and motivation for members.

Case study based on the company „Black Ops Coffee”

Black Ops Coffee was founded in 2018 and is based in the German region of Westerwald. The idea of founding the company came from active soldiers on duty who wanted to build a community to support the heroes in their everyday lives. They wanted to do this primarily with good coffee, but also with suitable equipment, gear, food and also joint events and training. The customers of this company are mainly people in the security sector such as police officers and soldiers, but also from other areas such as the outdoor sector, rescue services or others. They all share a common mindset, which unites the customers of this brand into one big community.
The idea of founding a company goes back to some commando soldiers who thought about founding a company while on duty. These ex-commando soldiers of the KSK (commando special forces, a special military unit of the German Bundeswehr) have now been the owners of the company for several years. The KSK soldiers are considered heroes within the Bundeswehr because only the best soldiers are deployed there. Recently, there have been more and more reports in the press about KSK soldiers, which were not only positive. Because the press has focused on them, they are vulnerable and mystical due to their level of secrecy. The idea is to learn and share experiences from the lives of the heroes and to bring only the best products, selected by them, to the market. In all areas such as sport, education and many others, the aim is to achieve a common development of the community by offering events and training. The whole thing is structured in a similar way to the Camel Trophy (Wikipedia (note [6])) or RedBull (note [7]) events in the past.
In order to develop into a successful company, Black Ops Coffee relies on specific rituals, events and seminars to strengthen and bring the community closer together. At events, for example, members compete with each other in hikes, runs and obstacle races. All participants are later presented with a certificate and a gift in the form of a t-shirt or patch to strengthen the sense of community. The logo can be found on almost every product sold by the company to increase the recognition value of the company.
To keep the community connected and customers informed, as well as to attract new customers, Black Ops Coffee is present on several social channels. On the one hand, there is the company’s website, which also serves as an online shop and through which the main business is conducted. On the other hand, the company is very active on the social media channels Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn, where it regularly provides its community with information, new product presentations and also funny sayings on the subject of coffee.
It can be said that the company’s greatest success in terms of social media presence can be seen on Instagram. The company has gained a huge number of followers there in the last few years, with almost 10,000 people now following the site. The interaction on Instagram is particularly good because the products are often linked when they are used, and the company is also often linked at events because people often wear this brand or have products from this brand with them. On Instagram, posts with funny sayings about coffee are particularly well received by customers, as are presentations of the new products. The slogans are often shared in the followers’ stories, as many can identify with the texts and products there. This has created a large community that regularly communicates with each other, links to each other or promotes the new products and events of Black Ops Coffee. The company also strengthens the community with services such as the customisation of patches and shirts for various groups and clubs, for example, and offers a large portfolio of products. The company is also gaining more and more followers and supporters on Facebook and LinkedIn, even though the numbers are not comparable to those on Instagram. The company’s main audience is definitely on Instagram. Because this is also where most of the interactions with followers occur.
Despite the good interaction and the increasing number of followers, the owner of the social media pages is usually still the initiator instead of the moderator. This means that they have to get the conversation going and encourage people to share products and posts to increase their reach. The long-term goal is to serve as a moderator who guides and supports the conversations of the followers.
With the offer of a lifetime membership, the company offers clients an even greater opportunity to join and belong to the community. This unites the community and offers many advantages in terms of events, orders and special products that only these members receive. In addition, membership guarantees discounts with other manufacturers and suppliers.
Retail products from other brands are offered at very favourable prices with special discount codes in order to sell your own products. Especially if you want to buy a lot of products and often, a membership with the company is worthwhile. The basic idea behind this is the principle of amazon prime – where people also like to pay for additional benefits.
The aim of the company is to establish a so-called gamification system. In this system, playful elements are integrated into contexts, applications or processes in order to motivate participants and thus boost sales and increase reach. The company aims to achieve this by allowing people to earn credits at various events that lead to certain awards. For example, a certain number of credits can lead to a certificate, awards or an increase in rank. The customer segment of this company likes this and is therefore willing to give more and more and thus get more.

Conclusion

In summary, it can be said that a market entry can certainly succeed and be successfully expanded with the help of adapted marketing communication. Thanks to the borderless communication possibilities via social media and the lack of language barriers thanks to google translator, expansion within Europe and also into Asian countries is possible relatively quickly. This can be achieved by using the social media channels well and moderating them constantly, occasionally also initiating them to keep the conversations going. Announcing and holding regular events can also be a good way of binding customers to a company or brand, as it strengthens cohesion and makes people feel connected to each other.
Of course, it is always difficult to start from scratch. The first followers and members are always particularly difficult to get, but time plays along and with enough effort and imagination you will soon see success. Steering and directing a community should also not be underestimated. Building a community is a complex marketing strategy in which the right communication method and timing is absolutely critical to success. Of course, it is difficult to adapt and maintain the existing marketing channels and structures – but the effort will be worth it, because the new decision-makers belong to the Y, Z and alpha generations. Their values, behaviours and desires are different from the others, because civilisation is advancing and you must adapt with it, otherwise you have no chance of staying in the market. According to Charles Darwin’s survival of the fittest (note [8]): the one who adapts best survives – recognise the signs of the times and remain a worthy competitor on the market.

Poznámky/Notes

[1] Quote of Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook
[2] translate.google.com, 2022. [online]. [cit. 2022-4-8]. Available at: <https://translate.google.com/?hl=de>
[3] deepl.com, 2022. [online]. [cit. 2022-4-8]. Available at: <https://www.deepl.com/translator>
[4] Tim „Mr. Future of Work” Salau, is the CEO, Co-Founder, and Executive Chairman of Guide, the experience group and collective that owns Big Black Tea; timsalau.com, 2022. [online]. [cit. 2022-4-8]. Available at: <https://www.timsalau.com/>
[5] wikipedia.org, 2022. [online]. [cit. 2022-4-8]. Available at: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin#Term_%22HODL%22>
[6] wikipedia.org, 2022. [online]. [cit. 2022-4-8]. Available at: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel_Trophy>
[7] redbull.com, 2022. [online]. [cit. 2022-4-8]. Available at: <https://www.redbull.com/ch-de/live-events>
[8] Charles Darwin (1809-1882) was a British naturalist and is considered one of the most important scientists because of his significant contributions to the theory of evolution. In the sense of Darwinian evolutionary theory, survival of the fittest means the survival of the best adapted individuals.

This paper is an output of the scientific project VEGA (S.G.A.) 1/0737/20 „Consumer literacy and intergenerational changes in consumer preferences when purchasing Slovak products“.

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Kľúčové slová/Key words

community, marketing, community building, communication, social media
komunita, marketing, budovanie komunity, komunikácia, sociálne media

JEL klasifikácia/JEL Classification

M31

Résumé

Vytváranie komunít: Spôsob vstupu na zahraničné trhy v roku 2022
Pre spoločnosti je najvyššia priorita vždy predaj ich produktov a udržanie expanzie na trhu, aby boli konkurencieschopné. Existuje mnoho spôsobov, ako expandovať a objavovať nové trhy, ktoré by spoločnosti dokázali dlhodobo udržať. Marketingová komunikácia v rámci spoločnosti aj mimo nej je dôležitým spôsobom, ako to dosiahnuť. Komunity sú kľúčovým faktorom pre úspešné spoločnosti, pretože sú komunikačným mostom k ich (potenciálnym) zákazníkom a zamestnancom. Budovanie komunity môže byť jedným z prístupov k objavovaniu a vstupu na nové trhy.
Doteraz väčšina firiem komunikovala smerom k zákazníkovi ako monológ. Pri takomto prístupe k marketingovej komunikácii firma hovorí o svojom produkte a robí mu reklamu u zákazníka. Aby firmy nezaostávali a zostali konkurencieschopné, mali by zmeniť marketingovú komunikáciu na takzvaný multilóg. To znamená, že zákazníci a záujemcovia sa medzi sebou rozprávajú o produkte a spoločnosti. Spoločnosť slúži len ako iniciátor nových tém a ako moderátor. Takto sa dá vytvoriť komunita, ktorá buduje udržateľné vzťahy medzi cieľovou skupinou a firmou. Na rozdiel od masmédií je internet obzvlášť vhodný na dialóg, ale aj na multilóg. Komunikácia môže prebiehať všetkými smermi: medzi poskytovateľom a spotrebiteľom, medzi spotrebiteľom a poskytovateľom alebo priamo od jedného spotrebiteľa k druhému.
Hlavným cieľom tohto príspevku je identifikovať rôzne prístupy a platformy, ktoré môžu viesť k úspechu, a prekážky, ktoré môžu vzniknúť. Na záver uvedieme prípadovú štúdiu mladej spoločnosti, ktorá podobný prístup implementuje a je zatiaľ veľmi úspešná, ak sa pozrieme na jej obrat a počet zákazníkov.

Recenzované/Reviewed

2. March 2022 / 17. March 2022