Why You Should Treat Your Community Like Influencers
it's not clocking to some of you.
Hello there, friend! Happy Monday.I hope your weekend went well and that if you were an avid Love Island watcher, you’re now finding another hobby to do at 9pm EST. Last week, despite having to join all calls with sunglasses on because #concussed, was pretty nice.
Let’s recap veeeeery quickly. On Tuesday, I got to celebrate the re-launch of a client’s fragrance with a tennis match. On Wednesday, I had the honor of having breakfast with other writers and the team from Substack, which has me so excited to really put more energy into bringing you more content here. Thursday and Friday, I was down for the count.
Speaking of Substack, we have so many new faces! If you’re new here, hit “reply” and write back with a little bit about you, your latest snack find, and perhaps what you’re wanting to see from this newsletter.
Now, onto today’s topic because it’s one that I am loving see come to life this year.
Brands are finally waking up to the fact that their own community might be more valuable than the influencers they’re chasing.
Everyone’s trying to get into the hands of the same 20 people in their niche. And sure when influencer marketing is done well, it can be great. But let’s be honest: it’s also gotten crowded, repetitive, and kind of expected.
Meanwhile, there’s a group of people that brands are sleeping on: the ones who already buy the product, tag it, talk about it, and recommend it without being asked, who aren’t posting because they got a check, but because they genuinely enjoy it.
These are the people smart brands are paying attention to. Not just because it’s more authentic, but because it adds another layer to a successful brand strategy.
So, today we’re talking about:
→ Why your community is more powerful than you think and what it takes to build one
→ What brands like point of view, Cocokind, Elwood, and more are doing differently
→ Tactical ways to turn your community into an effective marketing channel
A Quick Word
Everyone says they want “community,” but most brands don’t actually know what that means or what it takes. They’ll say they want to “do gifting” or “launch an ambassador program,” and next thing you know they’re drowning in spreadsheets, chasing down addresses, and manually tracking who’s even active. It’s a mess. And eventually, the towel gets thrown in.
I get it. Seeding at scale can spiral fast. Getting hundreds of creators and customers into one program with codes, links, commissions, restocks, and communication? Sounds stressful even just reading that last sentence back.
But here’s the thing: it doesn’t have to be this hard. That’s why it’s my goal to introduce you to the tools I’ve lived by, have helped me and continue to help me stay sane whether I’m a one person show or working within a team.
If you're serious about turning your followers and favorite creators into actual ambassadors (online and offline), meet your new secret weapon (and today’s sponsor): Superfiliate.
If you’ve been reading this newsletter, you already know Superfiliate is one of my go-to tools when it comes to community and creator programs. It’s the hub I used to scale Graza’s influencer and affiliate program into a multi-six figure channel without crashing out.
If you’ve been looking for:
A) An easy solution to find and discover new creators who can join your ambassador program or creator program over time
B) A seamless way to recruit said creators without having to send hundreds of DMs manually and spend time you don’t have
C) A way to manage all communications with your influencers and creators in one spot
D) Handle product seeding in less than 2 clicks and have access to them along the whole gifting journey
E) A solution to creating custom landing pages for the people in your programs so you can increase conversion and give a customized experience
F) Track and report on your top creators, data, revenue driven, traffic, etc. all in one view
G) An easy way to pay out your creators for their hard work and commission they earned
H) A tool that makes your life easier by integrating with your tech stack (Klayvio, Attentive, Recharge, Shopify, etc)
I) A streamlined way to push top-performing creator content directly into paid media, track results, and easily see what’s live, pending, or paused
J) All of the above.
Superfiliate is everything you need and nothing you don’t. To see it in action (and get a free month on me), you can click the link right here and tell them I sent ya. A huge thank you as always to Andy, Anders, and the rest of the team.
Now, let’s get back into our normal programming.
Why Community is Becoming More Influential than Influencers
The Definition of Community
I cannot start writing this without hitting on one thing: the definition of community. When we talk about “community” in marketing, we’re talking about groups of people who share a common interest around your brand whether that’s the product itself, a lifestyle, or a shared mindset.
A strong community isn’t just about customers only interacting with your brand, it’s about them connecting with each other as well. A strong community in this day and age for a brand may look like getting tagged in content frequently, being referred whether on social media or by word of mouth, giving feedback to better inform the steps your brand might need to take, etc. A strong community allows everyone to feel like they belong.
When done right, community builds trust, loyalty, and long-term relevance. Your job as a marketer is to give them a reason to keep showing up whether it’s through valuable content, IRL events, an exclusive chatroom, or just creating a space where they feel seen.
Too many brands are so focused on getting more followers or customers that they forget about the ones who already bought in and show up for them on a daily basis. If you’re not going to retain the people you’re working to acquire, what’s the point?
Community: A Channel for Influence
When it comes to community-led marketing vs. influencer marketing, it isn’t an either/or convo.
Influencer marketing still matters, especially when it’s thoughtful, aligned, and actually creative. There are creators who can move product overnight, build serious credibility, and tell your story better than you can. Getting your product into the hands of a bunch of the right people, big or small, can make it feel like your brand is everywhere and get serious awareness. It works. I’m not here to argue that.
But more often than not, what we’re seeing is that the content that feels the most genuine, the most believable, and the most likely to drive action is coming from regular people. There’s a reason brands invest in User Generated Ads after all.
That’s where community comes in. And lately, it’s becoming the more influential channel, not because it has the biggest reach, but because it has the most trust.
The tension point lately is that a lot of brands say they want to build community. They want the User Generated Content. They want thousands to talk about them for free. They want to say that they are consumer-centric, buuuuuuuut they don’t want to do the work it takes to do it or they just view each person with multiple dollar signs behind them.
But here’s what the best brands are doing:
They’re treating community like a long-term strategy and not a “moment.”
What Does This Look Like In Action?
The shift has been happening for a while, but it feels like this year, I am seeing more and more brands put out posts that favor their followers or have shifted their tone on social to talk with their followers versus at them.
Here’s what it looks like when brands don’t just talk about community and actually stand on business. Sorry, I had to.
The Community Casting
Elwood and Topicals have all opened up casting calls to their community inviting real customers to be the face of their campaigns.
Early Access To Launches
Brands like Dieux are doing this right with their community platform to give their followers early access to launches, samples, and intel. It creates hype and a sense of ownership. People want to be first, and they want to feel in on something. This same reason is why we actually launched a slack channel for point of view. I am lucky to work on an account that has such an insane community thank to Mikayla, but we wanted a place where Meta didn’t own what we’re in the process of building.
I also love how Dieux highlights thoughts and feedback from their community channel to give that FOMO effect, but also that they are showing real results, thoughts, and more to their audience who can trust that it wasn’t #sponsored.
Exclusive Events
I am going to chat about a client on this one. I have had the honor of working with the point of view team since before launch. One thing that has always been key in how we build out the brand is the community. With that said, a franchise called pov labs was created internally, which would be a dedicated community event series put on by the brand around the country. Why? Many beauty brands will drop 100K+ for influencers for brand trips, events, and more, but won’t do the same for the people who show up and show out. This event is a masterclass about skin prep and make-up with the make-up side being brought to life alongside some of the best brands in the world.
Our first one was in Boston with Rare Beauty with fifty folks coming to spend the day with us and get their glam on.
You can watch Mikayla’s video here to understand a bit more about pov labs and our mindset (worth a watch!) and you can see our recap here so you can see exactly what I mean.
Sending PR Boxes + More
Brands like Cocokind aren’t replacing influencer marketing. They’re complementing it by giving their community a seat at the table. Let’s look at Cocokind, who quite literally has “a community brand” in their Instagram bio.
Cocokind has always been a brand that I have admired over the last 7+ years. They truly do mean it when they say they are community-first. This year, the brand has launched multiple mini customer-oriented activations from the PR Mailer Program to bringing together customers in local cities to support launches like they did here to having Priscilla, the founder, pick up customers from the airport instead of sending them a car to getting box seats for their highest LTV customers and long-time creator friendlies for the Beyonce concert. I could literally keep going.
They are writing the playbook for community-led marketing right in front of your eyes.
Plus, it’s a solid reminder that doing things that don’t scale is cool.
How to Actually Leverage Your Community
As you can already get from the above, building community is about giving the people who already love your brand more ways to show up and making it easy for them to feel seen, valued, and part of what you’re building.
You got some examples from brands in the space, but here are ways that you can start putting it into practice:
1. Start with who’s already here for you.
Before you build anything, audit what you’ve already got. Who tags you often? Who’s a repeat buyer? Who’s sending DMs, replying to emails, or commenting with real feedback? Take note.
Start a simple tracker with usernames, engagement touch points, and purchase behavior. You don’t need to start from scratch, you just need to start noticing. If you’re balling on a budget, just use a google sheet.
2. Invite them in.
Don’t assume people know they’re welcome to participate. You have to ask. This could be as small as adding a certain call to action on a post or e-mail. Remember: Talk with and not at those you want support from.
Inviting them in also allows you to create content that they actually want to see based off certain data points. For example, I just put this into work with a reply series for D.S. and Durga on TikTok. You don’t always need to get original. Some of the easiest content for you to create is right in front of your face.
3. Create moments to connect.
Sometimes, the best content comes from experiences. That’s why IRL or digital gatherings matter. A dinner, a co-working session, a casual Q&A with the founder, all of it builds trust and connection that shows up later in content and retention. Sure, dinners might seem overdone, but if that’s what you can do, then do what works and makes the most sense for you.
4. Build a lightweight system to track and engage.
If you want this to scale, you need structure. Create a system where you can track key community members, what they’ve engaged with, what you’ve sent them, and where they’re most active. This makes it easier to follow up, send thoughtful gifts, or tap them for campaigns when it actually matters. This is also why I have used apps like Superfiliate (sorry, perfect plug).
5. Feature their content like it matters.
Don’t just repost to Stories and call it a day. Put community content on your product pages, in ads, email flows, landing pages, and even packaging. Show that their content has value and that it shapes how you show up. When people see themselves reflected in the brand, they’re more likely to keep showing up for it.
6. Let them shape what comes next.
This is where most “community efforts” fall short. If you’re only asking people to post, you’re missing the point. Ask for feedback. The data is at your fingertips. Let them be part of building what’s next vs. just reacting to what already exists.
Ahead of the Trend
I have been hearing that many of you love this section. If you’re new here, Ahead of the Trend is a quick, snappy ode to the fun things I’m seeing online across creators, social, and brands. Sometimes, it’s a trend. Sometimes, it’s just a tip I want to share about marketing. Sometimes, it’s about snacks. TL;DR: just cool things I’m loving right now or things you should know.
In no particular order, let’s dive in:
Eating: Truthfully, it’s been one of those weeks where I just don’t have an appetite. So, Glaze Teriyaki has been coming to the rescue if you’re in NYC, but otherwise, you’ll usually find me with a Koia in hand because #protein.
Drinking: Hate on me all you want for saying this, but an ice cold Strawberry Banana Electolit Zero is refreshing in this weather. I never saw myself as someone who adventured that much flavor wise, but this one opened my eyes and my mind.
Influencer of the Week:
Social Announcement of the Week: I think it’s pretty impossible to work in social and not acknowledge that David, the protein bar that quickly took over your feed, launched Frozen Cod due to the constraints with EPG. What are you thoughts? Good stunt? Bad stunt? Pretty smart to also team up with a well-known face in the fish space, Kyle, who is the founder of the Alaskan Salmon Company as their help in sourcing the fish.
Resource of the Week: It’s almost the end of the month so you know what that means! Monthly Reporting is almost due. HERE’s a free template for you to make a copy of. If you’re trying to highlights the wins and learnings of your work in an easy and efficient way or just want your team to even start, this is for you.
News You Should Know About:
For the 15th time, get on Threads if your brand as the voice and capacity to do so. Meta is pushing it as they just literally hired a Chief role for the platform [via Social Media Today].
Youtube has officially started rolling out their A/B Testing feature (Test and Compare) for headlines and thumbnails. If only Instagram could give us more features that help with data and insights like Youtube does. One could dream.
That’s A Wrap
Alright, alright, alright. That’s it for this week.
As always, thank you for taking a few minutes from your Sunday evening and spending it with me.
If you know anyone who you think would enjoy this newsletter, it would mean so much if you could share it as we try and get acclimated to Substack.
Want to catch up on past editions of No Filter? Read them all for free right here.
See you next week. If there’s any burning questions that you want to ask that you want to see a deep dive on, you know where to find me.
Peace, love, and KPIs,
-KD
This edition of No Filter is brought to you by Superfiliate:
