Your social media platform should be reverse-engineered based on where your target audience congregates. For example, selling to Gen X women points to Facebook, while targeting professionals for an accounting firm makes LinkedIn the obvious choice. Platform relevance changes over time, so constant re-evaluation is necessary.

Contrary to its reputation as a consumer platform, Facebook consistently outperforms channels like LinkedIn for B2B event marketing. It yields the lowest cost per registration and the highest attendee show-up rates, even for highly niche business-to-business categories.

While communities on platforms like Slack often fail, Facebook Groups remain a powerful and effective tool for brands. Meta's investment in Groups, highlighted by the launch of a standalone "Forums" app, signals its strategic importance and reliability for community-building efforts.

The most powerful form of community isn't a walled-off Slack group. It's about becoming the 'host of the party' for a specific audience's shared interests. Companies like HubSpot built a community around 'inbound marketing' by owning the conversation, long before they had private user groups.

While platforms like Slack often fail to maintain user engagement for brand communities, Facebook Groups succeed because users are already active on the platform daily. Meta's investment, including the dedicated 'Forums' app, confirms its strategic importance and effectiveness for community building.

Don't limit your definition of "community" to a Facebook group or Substack. Treat everyone who interacts with your content—on email, social media, or in person—as part of the community. This "community-first" mindset shifts communication to be more personal across all channels.

Dad Gang uses its 11,000-person private Facebook group to bypass social media algorithms. The group acts as a direct line to engaged customers for gathering feedback on new hat designs, fostering co-ownership, and granting exclusive early access to launches, ensuring new products are validated before release.

A side effect of Tekmetric's strong community is that its Facebook ad comment threads become public forums. Customers organically defend the product and share success stories, creating unprompted social proof that is often more powerful than the ad itself.

A savvy marketing tactic involves running paid ads with the goal of acquiring members for a Facebook Group, rather than sending traffic directly to a website. This builds a concentrated community of highly-engaged fans, leading to more successful product launches and higher lifetime value.