As digital brand communities dramatically grow in popularity, it makes sense to explore some high-profile examples.
The customer-experience industry is undergoing a shift to mobile and niche platforms, away from conventional social media. But, regardless of the platform you use, a good experience for community members always comes first—and it starts with the landing page.
The community landing page is one of the most important building blocks of an engaged, growing community. It's what draws people in.
Here, we'll look at some of the best communities out there and their landing pages, and discuss how you can draw inspiration from them.
A Formula for Success
Right away, a successful community landing page conveys a clear value or benefit to visitors: What the community do will for them, and why they should join and participate.
As for being user-friendly, a good portal should be easy to navigate and understand. Ask yourself: Are the call to action and the signup process straightforward? How quickly can users start contributing—or benefitting—after they've joined the community?
To garner engagement, the community needs to provide meaningful content and insights, but it should also provide a little... fun. Something different... which can be achieved via various approaches and media: video, photo, audio, even activities or events.
The best of the best make it rewarding to get involved.
Successful digital communities exist to serve the needs of the user and provide a good experience, first and foremost. It's not about sales.
Community Landing Pages: 10 Examples
If you already have an online brand community or you're just looking to get started, it helps to do a bit of benchmarking. Here is a list of 10 examples to consider. These online communities have customer engagement down to an art.
1. Xbox
Sure, you know Xbox. It's a huge gaming platform. But what about community?
The Xbox community page boasts one of the best welcome videos I've seen, presenting real-life Xbox ambassadors and the games they enjoy. You're joining not only a "group of the biggest Xbox fans" but also a community that will provide you with "exclusive rewards."
Sometimes the best way to tell your story is to let your customers (or members) do it for you.
2. Lego
The LEGO brand is synonymous with creativity and building, so it follows that its community is unique.
The landing page hooks users immediately with photographs of stunning Lego creations. I mean the solar system build is cool, but the Up! house is awesome and colorful!
Members are also invited to submit product ideas, enter contests, and shop. This idea of contests is engaging and fun—it's digital-community gold.
3. Underlined
Underlined is an expansive community for aspiring writers.
Young creatives can get a great deal of value from this community, a fact made clear right from the start. The landing page offers quizzes, writing prompts, and a video with advice from a professional author. Helpful tools, such as creative story templates, and help with writer's block draw new users and keep members coming back.
Because the audience is inherently creative, Underlined takes creative liberties with its layout, visuals, and landing page offerings.
4. Oracle
Oracle is a giant software platform, so it needs to have giant offerings in place to build its community.
On the landing page, everything you need to know is right there, in bold print. Join the world's largest interactive community dedicated to Oracle technologies. But in case you needed more, the welcome video is another winner, featuring interviews with actual users.
The testimonials are especially powerful, considering some users reveal they've been an active part of the community for more than 10 years.
5. Alteryx
"Sign in. Geek Out." OK, I'm listening...
Alteryx offers a highly effective community introduction: Sign up, get involved, and you'll be able to network with an entire community of "data science and analytics experts."
The rest of the page is just as impactful. Other elements include a topic, solution, and new-posts feed, as well as social plugins—such as currently active and online users. The intuitive navigation helps to serve up content visually to help members focus on what they want to know.
6. GiffGaff
GiffGaff is a mobile network company that does away with the conventional elements of modern telecommunications. There are no contracts and phone restrictions, and customers are referred to as "members."
GiffGaff's landing page features a quirky video welcoming new users to the community. Beyond the informal greeting, it portrays clear value to visitors, telling them exactly why they should get involved and what they'll get out of it.
And the company wants its members to get involved! The community offers polls, discussions, and other ways to get people to provide feedback (or even a funny meme).
7. Airbnb
Airbnb's community revolves around the hosts, the people who make the service possible. The landing page features tools that hosts can use to improve their experience. For instance, the "Connect Locally" feature allows users to organize meetups, find local members, and host discussions with one another, all of which bring people closer together across cities and countries.
Airbnb has a local/global approach with a focus on quality content related to travel and hosting. Additionally, the content is easily searchable by topic. The topics help keep threads and conversations linear, which is a good tactic for community managers to adopt.
8. SAP
SAP is huge. Colossal. Its community focuses on user, partner, vendor, and integrators. It essentially created a community around its products/solutions to keep people informed and up to date on all things SAP.
The top of the SAP Community landing page is dominated by a search bar, reminiscent of Google. You can search, ask a new question, or answer a question. It's simple and users can start right away. It allows users to filter right down to the content or experience they're looking for, making the experience instantaneous.
9. Sephora
Sephora is a major makeup and beauty retailer. The company makes a concerted effort to go beyond skin deep for its product users, fans, and community members.
The design of the "Beauty Talks" community is colorful and attention-grabbing, with a handy "start a conversation" button right at the top. It's built around the idea of community-driven "looks": Members share their best makeup and beauty content.
Users can also reach out to Sephora's support team, search for individual members, and form subgroups within the community. Moreover, trending tags, product links, and social-like posts—complete with an active feed—fill out the bulk of a user's experience, making the site easy to sort through.
10. Southwest
Southwest Airlines needs no introduction. Its brand community is dedicated to frequent travelers, and it has been cited before for good customer experience stories. Community discussions are focused on helping users "share stories, exchange knowledge, and find inspiration from...members."
The best sections of the landing page are those dedicated to the latest activities, brand stories, discussions, and troubleshooting. The brand distributes regular content through blog posts, which is a good approach. Southwest even allows for guest posts... Now that's inclusive for a major company!
Every Brand Community Needs a Stunning Landing Page
The landing page should combine all the best features and benefits of the community in one space for quick access. The way to achieve this is going to be slightly different depending on what kind of online community you wish to build.
The examples in this article stand out because they're clearly built with the needs of their users in mind. Each provides value and has an element of fun to drive engagement, whether that means welcome videos, great photos, eye-catching graphics, contests, snappy copy, ways to connect members in the real world, or good filters.
Pick and choose the elements that work for you while making innovations of your own. Your community will thank you.
