We Build Community Relations for Local Coffee Shop
In early 2021, I start to work on my client’s brand strategies, from offline to online media, especially Instagram. It’s an open-space coffee shop that has strong value: actively productive and community-friendly. Unlike the other local coffee shops in its area, my client wants to bring people to do their productive work at the coffee shop, not just to hang out or sip a glass of coffee.
When it comes to new brands, the goals are like a long run, not a sprint. We work together while feeling the atmosphere to know how to achieve that because we want to build an organic community and engage with people. For almost a half year, my client held several activities such as live music and workshops. We think that before we build an organic community, we have to invite many people to do something that we hold ourselves.
Holding workshops needs two ways of interaction. I want to be present in their experience and engage with their activities not only that day but also in the next event. We learned that they liked the interaction with each other and felt engaged in this coffee shop, not only as a customer, visitor, or anything else but as a close acquaintance.
As was the initial goal of my client, one of the purposes of having a coffee shop, apart from being community friendly, is to be a place for people to stop by for productive activities, whatever they may be. Of the various people who came to the workshop, they had various backgrounds. Some are artists, office workers, or even content creators.
After several workshops, my clients told me that the consumers who actively do various productivity increases. I guess the soft-selling of the workshop worked and its members came again to do some kind of activities. “Ah, it reaches them. Maybe the members who like photography or making vlogs,” I thought that but it turns out that not only the members of the workshop who came but new people with various backgrounds, such as graphic designers, writers, and movie community.
“Some people even doing a podcast,” my client said.
“Wow,” I said. I never imagine that kind of activity being held at this coffee shop. It’s an open space, after all, people are doing anything. The people who come with their productive activities look at our documentary and vlog about workshops and activities that are posted on social media, by our admin or other content creators then think it’s a good place to work on something freely. But to be honest, I never imagined a podcaster would come.
Building a community organically is indeed unique. While we initially targeted several markets to engage with, it turns out that we can even attract a much broader audience beyond our expectations.
We don’t just hold the same monotonous workshops repeatedly, but instead, we organize diverse-themed workshops with different participants each time. We don’t just meet on that day and forget; we stay in touch to build strong relationships. We build the foundation based on that workshop consistently.
The impact of this isn’t confined to just this community; it can create a wider, more extensive community that engages in various cool activities productively. I get excited for more achievements to come! ❤
