To build a community is to share impactful experiences between members. Brands can build communities through their website and social media channels to provide those interactions with members, advocates, and owners of the brand, creating overall positive encounters. 

Chewy and Lego are two brands that have a great built community through their social media and online experience. 

Chewy

Chewy is an online-only product store for pets. And while the brand sells products, it is exceptionally known for its customer service. 

The brand has grown considerably within the last year, during the COVID pandemic. Throughout this time, their efforts to continue advancing in customer service helps to grow their memberships and, therefore, build the community further. 

Chewy has and advertises their 24/7 phone line, chat, and now offers features like connect with a vet – which provides initial vet consultations online. 

Chewy is also well known for sending flowers to customers who’ve lost their furry family members and oil paintings to existing customers to keep their loyalty. 

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will always remember how you made them feel.”

Maya Angelou

A great brand initiative is the #ChewyBoxLove which uses their boxes as a source of community building with their customers. The hashtag is used mostly on Instagram – their platform with the most engagement – but also on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Facebook is another social media channel that proves to have tons of engagement.

#ChewyBoxLove also helps create the user-generated content side of their social media marketing. The brand has an affiliate program, but it doesn’t currently look like brand ambassadors or influencers are directly utilized on social media. 

Chewy also provides many how-to blog posts and infographics which directly mean to help customers find answers to anything pet-related. And with each social post, the brand provides consistent responses to customer and user questions via social media. 

Because Chewy is an all online business, their commitments offline aren’t very applicable – However, it appears to completely work for the brand. 

Lego

Lego is a very well-known brand that’s been around for decades. And with the boom of the internet, it needed to find new ways to interact with customers. 

Throughout the rise of social media, Lego has built its roots with most engagement via Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. The brand does an exceptional job by actively responding to comments on its social media pages, creating consistent content, and actively involves its community members.

Lego has affiliate programs and uses professionally photographed UGC on its Instagram. On Twitter, Lego has #LegoFanFriday which gives fans the opportunity to display what they’ve recently made with their Legos or Lego sets. 

The brand provides its ideas site for users to vote and be active with contests, product votes and ideas, and more. Through this, fans have been able to vote for new Lego product concepts and branding like the 90th-anniversary retro logo. 

By using these tools that involve their audience members and building an online community is a great way for the brand to grow its memberships, also known as their Lego VIP. Lego VIP includes special offers, points systems to earn and redeem, and additional reasons to buy more.

Outside of the online encounters, Lego also has immersive in-person experiences like Legoland stores, resorts, and theme parks. In addition, Lego took the initiative to involve itself in movies – The Lego Movie was a huge hit in 2014, which now has the popular characters included at Legoland and its own theme park.

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Overall, building a community for brands and audience members to be a part of is a great way to involve loyal feedback, and keep customers wanting more. Through the examples of Chewy and Lego shows that interactions between customers and brands can be very effective for the brand itself.