EMOTIONS - THE RECIPE FOR A COMMUNITY

I’ve received a couple questions about what experience and emotional connection is about. Some of you are also wondering why it’s so fundamental to the Entertainment Content Sales Funnel. Why exactly, you ask, is it such a big deal? What really is it anyway?

First of all, let’s not get mixed up between creating an emotional connection and creating and sustaining it. It is possible to create an emotion with bright, backlit surroundings, happy colors, happy people, happy places and a close-up shot of your subject doing something that is meant to leave the viewer feeling similarly, or at least hoping to feel the same as the model. It is possible to create an emotion with the right typography, like this font and font arrangements makes me feel hipster, cool, streetwise, childlike or babyish. There is a connection, true, at that very moment, but what you want is for your content- whether it be words or visuals- to evoke sufficient emotion where those very emotions become internalized by the viewer.  

 

That’s one of the basic blocks when you’re building a Community.

Without the emotional connection- the part that connects and lingers in your audience, you don’t get a Community. It’s just that. You probably know why the Community is so important. If you don’t, ask the gamers. Or the comic book fans. Or the fan clubs of pop singers. Or the cosplayers.

 

You may think that it’s only for the big guys, you know, people with lots and lots of content and announcements and stuff happening and characters taking place and the singer’s new single release and so on. But everything starts somewhere.

All healthy communities have a story. What distinguishes one from the other is the fact that they have a history of experiences together and the belief that there will be more experiences in the future.

 

 

I’ve used examples from the Entertainment industry, but it’s definitely there in real life too. In racial culture, in cross-racial culture, in lifestyle choices, in geopolitical culture… it’s the sense of belonging, it’s the sense of having being there when those experiences happened, and it’s the knowledge that you’ll be there when new stuff takes place. It’s a familial sort of feeling, an excitement shared, a sense of “we”.

RIO Carnival

 

In Entertainment Content, the Community is what drives your content which in turn drives your product or service. Right there at the bottom of the funnel is the Evangelist and the Evangelist(s) are what form the Community. It is a result and an extremely powerful extension of our funnel. With the right members who are Evangelists making up your Community, the digital marketing and social media campaigns are “literally” running solo. How? Through user-generated content. Through questions and discussions and debates that builds a strong emotional bond between the members. Whether they be on this ‘team’ or that ‘team’, whether they agree or agree to disagree, they form the definitive element for true community. To build a community is not a walk in the park but it’s worth the effort, it’s worth the time.  

Beginning one doesn’t start at the bottom of the funnel. You don’t wait till you have one evangelist before you think, oh, okay, now’s the time to start one, because you’ll never get one that way. It starts from your content strategy itself. Think about it. If no one’s gonna be interested in whatever you put up there, if you don’t have an audience at all, how are you going to find a lead to become a customer to become an evangelist?

Here’re some questions to guide you along.

1. Boundaries- Who are your right members? How do these people become members? What is the criteria to adhere to? How do you keep others out?

2. Emotional Safety- How do you create a sense of trust amongst members? How do you prevent members from trolling other members? How do you create the sense of safety within the group?

3. Belonging- How do you make members feel like they fit in and that this is theirs?

4. Contribution- What are the avenues where members can contribute to the community?

A point to note, though, it’s wise not to invite just about anyone and everyone to your community. Each evangelist is an asset. Think about what you want your community to be about, who you want to be your evangelist and who would be able to make your community better.  

Because it is all about the experience that you manufacture for your community. Whether it be a debate where they can throw out their gauntlets and get all fired up and passionate (but become more united afterward), whether it be an event they can physically gather at- think the burgeoning year-on-year Comic Con San Diego or video game launches by Sony Playstation, it’s all about the shared experiences, the shared emotional connection that lingers in them, that identifies with them, that they can claim for themselves.

That’s the kind of content we’re talking about. That’s the kind of experience we need to create. It’s pure Entertainment Content, and it can be done for your product or your service. If you’re finding that your current content isn’t strong enough to be internalized by your audience, you need to go beyond it, and you can do it. Help is just around the corner