Community 101: a brand people belong to, not just follow

A brand community is a group of people who share an attachment to a brand and talk to each other about it. In their 2001 paper that named the idea, Albert Muñiz and Thomas O'Guinn described communities that are not bound to a place, held together by loyalty to a brand, whose members feel a duty to share its stories and help each other use it¹. Community marketing builds and supports such groups, and turns the word of mouth inside them into advocacy.

• What it is: a space and a programme where customers help, inspire and recognise each other, with the brand as host.
• Who runs it: the brand's community management team, often with volunteer moderators and ambassadors.
• Why it matters: people trust each other more than ads; in Nielsen's 2021 US study, recommendations from people they know were the most trusted source, at 89%³.
• How it is priced: mostly people and platform costs, not media.
• Best for: community building, retention and loyalty and advocacy and referral.
• Weak for: fast reach; communities grow slowly.
• As of: October 2026.

A community lives on what members get from each other: answers, recognition and a sense of belonging. The brand's job is to make that easy and safe. Most programmes move members along the same path:

Where it lives. The space can be a forum on the brand's own site, or a group on a platform people already use:

Platform limits shape the design. WhatsApp's Communities feature, launched in November 2022, groups related chats under one umbrella, lets admins send announcements to everyone, and raised the size of a single group to 1,024 members⁶. Telegram allows groups of up to 200,000 members and channels with an unlimited number of subscribers⁷.

What the team does. Community managers recruit and welcome members, set and enforce guidelines, start conversations, answer or route questions, recognise contributors, run events and report what members say back to the business.

Ambassador and advocacy programmes. Some members want to do more: host a local meet-up, welcome newcomers, test products early or speak at events. An ambassador programme gives them a role, a clear brief and recognition in return, from early access to invitations and merchandise. Write down what ambassadors receive, what they are asked to do, how they disclose the relationship when they post and how either side can end it. Whatever the reward, the disclosure rules below apply.

Brands hosted communities long before the internet. Harley-Davidson founded the Harley Owners Group, H.O.G., in 1983². In 2001, Muñiz and O'Guinn's paper in the Journal of Consumer Research gave the idea its name and its first academic framework¹. Online forums, then social networks and messaging apps, moved communities into software, and regulation followed.

Communities appear in every sector, but some depend on them: B2B software and telecoms and technology use them for peer support and product ideas; media and entertainment and gaming for fans; automotive for owners' clubs; nonprofits for supporters and volunteers.

CMX, a professional network for community builders, runs an annual survey of community professionals. Its 2025 report found that 83% say community is core to their company's mission, that return on investment is still the number one challenge, and that 17% of respondents have no full-time community staff, the highest share CMX has recorded⁵. In 2024, 37% had been affected by layoffs, and only 34% named engagement as a common challenge, against 55% when CMX first asked in 2020⁴.

• Americas: the FTC's rules on endorsements and reviews apply to ambassadors and incentives¹⁰¹³.
• Europe: the EU's Digital Services Act sets duties for anyone hosting users' content⁸, and the UK's Online Safety Act adds its own⁹.
• Middle East and Africa, Asia-Pacific: the right space follows the messaging app or platform people already use in each market; check local app use and local media rules before you choose.

• Retention and loyalty: members who help others tend to stay; track retention rate and churn for members against non-members.
• Customer support: peers answer each other, and the best answers stay searchable.
• Advocacy and referral: ambassador programmes, referral codes and reviews.
• Product ideas and research: members test, vote and explain what they need, a source of zero-party data.
• Content: user-generated content (UGC), from photos to tutorials, for the brand's owned and paid channels, with permission.
• Event promotion: local meet-ups and user conferences.

There is little media spend. The costs are:

• People: community managers, moderators, and time from support, product and marketing staff. CMX's 2025 survey found budget frustration higher than ever and many teams asked to do more with fewer resources⁵.
• Platform: from free group tools to paid community software; get quotes, and price data export and moderation tools as well as seats.
• Programme: events, rewards for ambassadors and contributors, and swag.
• Risk: legal review of rules and terms, and moderation cover for nights, weekends and crises.

Because ROI is the field's top challenge⁵, agree what success means before launch: member retention, questions answered by peers, product ideas adopted, referrals, or NPS for members against non-members.

Measuring it. Measure in three layers: the community's health (active and new members, the share of questions answered by peers, time to a first answer), its value to members (satisfaction or NPS), and its value to the business (retention, support requests avoided, referrals, ideas shipped). Compare members with similar non-members rather than reporting totals, because the most loyal customers are the most likely to join.

This is a summary, not legal advice.

• Hosting users' content in the EU. Under the Digital Services Act, any hosting service must offer a way to report illegal content and give users a statement of reasons when it removes or restricts their content; online platforms must also handle complaints and give priority to notices from trusted flaggers⁸. Most platform-specific duties do not apply to micro and small enterprises, but the hosting duties do⁸. If your community runs on Discord, WhatsApp or Telegram, those providers carry the platform duties, and you still enforce your own rules.
• The UK Online Safety Act. Since 17 March 2025, services in scope must remove illegal content quickly once aware of it and reduce the risk of priority illegal content; providers had to complete an illegal-harms risk assessment by 16 March 2025⁹. Check whether a forum or app where users share content with each other falls in scope.
• Ambassadors and perks. Anyone with a material connection to the brand, such as free products, pay or perks, must disclose it clearly (influencer disclosure), and the FTC expects brands to tell their advocates what to disclose and to monitor them¹³.
• Reviews. The FTC's rule, final in August 2024 and in effect from October 2024, bans fake reviews, buying positive or negative reviews, undisclosed reviews by insiders and suppressing negative reviews¹⁰. Incentives are allowed only if they do not require a particular sentiment¹¹. In December 2025 the FTC warned 10 companies about possible breaches¹². In the UK, fake and concealed incentivised reviews are banned practices under the DMCC Act from April 2025¹⁵.
• User-generated content. For the ASA, members' posts become the brand's advertising when the brand "adopts and incorporates" them, which can range from reposting to liking or commenting; moderation that removes only negative posts can also bring the community within the advertising rules¹⁴. Separately, a public post is not a licence: ask the creator for permission to reuse it and agree where and for how long.

• Ghost towns. Launching a forum before there is a reason to visit it; start with an existing group of engaged customers.
• Broadcasting. Using the space only for announcements; members leave when they cannot talk to each other.
• Under-staffing. With 17% of teams having no full-time staff⁵, many communities rely on goodwill; plan cover before growth.
• Proving value. ROI is the field's top challenge⁵; without baseline metrics agreed early, communities are among the first budgets cut, and 37% of professionals had been affected by layoffs in 2024⁴.
• Moderator burnout. Volunteer moderators see the hardest posts first; rotate them, give them proper tools and a direct line to staff, and thank them in public.
• One voice for the brand. Staff who post in the community speak for the brand; brief them on tone, on what not to promise and on when to hand over to support or legal.
• Rented ground. Groups on third-party apps can change rules, limits or features; keep a members list and consent you own as first-party data.
• Hidden incentives. Perks without disclosure and rewards for positive reviews break US and UK rules¹¹¹³¹⁵.

• Platform rules in force. The DSA's duties have applied to all hosting services since February 2024⁸, and the UK's illegal-content duties since March 2025⁹.
• Review rules enforced. The FTC has begun warning companies under its reviews rule¹², and the UK's DMCC Act bans fake and concealed incentivised reviews¹⁵.
• Teams under pressure. CMX reports more communities with no full-time staff and community spreading across customer success, marketing and product⁵.

Choose community when customers already have something to say to each other and you can commit people for years, not a campaign. Pair it with social media for reach and CRM and loyalty for the data, and map where members meet the brand with touchpoints and the journey. See the community discipline page, the hub for content and social leads and which mix for which objective.