Content Lights the Flame. Community Fuels the Fire.
So far, we’ve outlined our fundamental approach for marketing and community building: emotions. If your content doesn't create an emotion, it’s failing. With our basic guide outlining one angle on how to craft that emotion as the key part of your activity.
This leaves us with the next question: What happens next? What happens to that emotion after you hit ‘publish’? Where does the initial spark of joy, the wave of relief, or that inspiration actually go next?
If your answered: "Hopefully it gets some views! Likes and shares!", then you are tracking the wrong metrics, and are doing the hard work of creating emotions only to let it die in the harsh cold winds of the internet storm. In today's market, this is simply no longer good enough. To build a brand that lasts, you must move beyond simply creating content and start building a home where that emotion can live. You’re building a community, a culture.
The Problem with Shouting into the Void
The typical the model has been simple: a brand creates a powerful piece of content and broadcasts it out to the masses. This is the Emotional Monologue. The brand speaks, and the audience listens.
It comes with a fatal flaw that we see becoming ever more prevailing: it doesn’t last. An emotional video might earn a like, might even get a share. But the feeling and the resulting connection is temporary. The audience consumes the emotion and moves on. And we’re left to start it all over again.
This is not a strategy for building a loyal lasting and scalable following. It's a strategy for creating individual disconnected moments.
Where Emotion Finds a Home
Now, let’s rethinking that powerful piece of content instead of it being a broadcast, it’s a Campfire.
It’s warm. It’s inviting. It’s a central point of light that naturally draws people in. They don’t just observe it from a distance; they pull up a chair. They start talking. They share their own stories prompted by the warmth of the fire.
This is the difference between content and community.
Your most emotional content pieces are the campfires. Your community is the circle of people gathered around them. A community manager is the person responsible for ensuring the campfire is hosted in a save, and inviting environment. They build the base camp. They stoke the flames, encourage interactions, sign post, and put on another content log to keep the fire going. Here, the emotion you create doesn't dissipate, it's shared, reflected, and amplified, transforming a broadcast message into an experience.
From Shared Emotion to a Shared Identity
This is where true culture-building begins. When a group of people gather around your campfire and feel a sense of belonging. A shared understanding of social norms, and interactions, creates a bond, and sense of inclusion.
The relief from your problem solving guide becomes a shared sense of "we found a way!"
The inspiration from your case study becomes a shared belief that "This will work out!"
The joy from a funny video becomes an inside joke that only we get.
It turns the brand with an audience of disconnected customers, to a brand with a community of members. A tribe united by a shared social norms and understanding. This is how you build a culture. This "us" identity is a competitive advantage that can't be copied. Belonging can't be reverse-engineer.
Community is pure Insights
Once this campfire is burning, it begins to generate its own heat and light. A community becomes the ultimate source of emotional insight, telling you exactly what they care about, what they fear, and what they aspire to.
Their struggles become the topic of your next guide.
Their celebrations become your next powerful case study.
Their language becomes the language you use in your copy.
This is the ultimate feedback loop. Your community provides the authentic, human stories that fuel your next wave of emotional content, which in turn strengthens the community. You stop guessing what your audience feels and start knowing.
In today’s marketing world, just creating content, isn’t enough anymore. Creating the right emotional response with your content is the entry ticket to the basecamp to gather around the campfire.
Stop just creating content. Start building your campfire, with emotions!
