Community has lost its meaning in marketing—and it’s time to find our way back

Twitch CEO Dan Clancy recently said something that might make modern marketers squirm: audiences are not the same thing as community.

His argument is that brands have started calling anything with comments, followers, or views a “community,” even when there’s no real participation or connection between members. And, because of that, brands have lost many of the benefits (e.g., retention, loyalty) that communities are uniquely positioned to create.

This article breaks down the mechanics behind real-world communities and how brands can successfully recreate those dynamics online.

What makes a community… well… a community?

Research on belonging and social identity suggests that people have a fundamental need to feel connected to others and identify with groups. Group membership helps shape how people see themselves, where they fit in, and the values they share with others.

Consider Swifties. Millions of people listen to Taylor Swift's music, but listening alone doesn't make someone a Swiftie.

The Swiftie community is built around active participation. Fans gather online, decode Easter eggs, create theories, trade friendship bracelets, and take part in traditions that outsiders don't understand. Eventually, those shared experiences create a collective identity and a sense of belonging.

Twitch CEO Dan Clancy argues that the same principle applies to every community. "If you think of real-world communities—churches, running clubs—it all comes from shared experiences in real time," he said.

Communities aren't built through attention alone. They're built when people come together around shared experiences, relationships, and a common identity.

And, that's what brands should aim for when building online communities of their own.

Brands getting online communities right

The best online communities have a few things in common that can act as a checklist when building your own. They:

• Create a shared identity: Members feel like they're part of something larger than themselves.
• Give members ways to participate: Communities thrive when people contribute, not simply consume.
• Establish rituals and traditions: Recurring activities create familiarity and strengthen bonds between members.
• Encourage recurring interaction: Relationships develop through repeated engagement over time.
• Develop insider language and cultural references: Shared jokes, terminology, and stories reinforce a sense of belonging.
• Recognize and reward contributions: Members are more likely to stay engaged when their participation is acknowledged.
• Create shared experiences: Communities form around things people do together, not content they consume separately.
• Provide consistent touchpoints: Members need regular opportunities to gather and reconnect.
• Foster emotional investment: The strongest communities become something people genuinely care about and want to support.

Here are some examples of brands that are getting it right, along with what we can learn from them.

1. LEGO Ideas encourages fans to participate in building the products

LEGO Ideas has built its community around the principle of participation. The company offers fans a chance to submit their own set concepts, gather support from other members, and potentially see their ideas turned into official LEGO products. Anyone who submits a concept becomes a Fan Designer, a title LEGO uses on the platform and when showcasing top contributors.

Participating in this community places members in a much smaller, more exclusive group than people who simply buy LEGO. They belong to a group of like-minded individuals who put creative time and energy into building something they all care about.

What’s more, LEGO encourages ongoing and thoughtful participation by investing in a reward structure. If you reach 10,000 supporters, LEGO will review your concept for production. If it's selected, you receive a 1% royalty on net sales, your name on the box, and the opportunity to work alongside LEGO's design team to finalize the set. Fan Designers even attend launch events and sign autographs alongside LEGO's professional designers.

Its three-tier participation model (Product Ideas, Challenges, and Activities) creates entry points for every level of commitment. Someone can spend five minutes completing an Activity or dedicate months to building support for a Product Idea. That variety keeps participation accessible while still rewarding deeper involvement.

The community is also designed as a mechanism to grow the brand. To reach 10,000 supporters, creators have to rally friends and fellow LEGO fans. Every submission becomes its own marketing campaign, turning contributors into advocates and expanding LEGO's reach far beyond the platform itself.

What to take from LEGO

• Build a tiered participation structure: Give casual fans and superfans different entry points so a five-minute activity and a months-long project both feel worthwhile, instead of forcing everyone through one high-effort funnel.
• Attach a real payoff to top-tier contributions: Revenue share, name credit, or an actual shipped product makes the incentive tangible instead of symbolic, which is what separates genuine buy-in from a badge system nobody cares about.
• Bake growth into the participation mechanic itself: A vote or support threshold means contributors have to recruit their own audience to succeed, turning the community's ambition into the brand's distribution.
• Run lightweight, recurring prompts between big wins: Low-stakes activities keep the community active in the gaps between major launches, so engagement doesn't spike only around prizes.
• Make the selection process visible: A named review board or clear criteria helps members trust that winners are chosen on merit, not whim, which matters more as the community scales.
• Spotlight individual contributors, not just participation numbers: Naming specific creators and their stories signals that the brand sees people, not an aggregate audience, which is the difference that actually builds belonging.

2. Midjourney uses Discord as a gathering place

Many brands use Discord as a customer support channel. Midjourney uses it as a gathering place for almost 19 million fans.

Members in this space spend time in the channel participating—sharing prompts, giving feedback, troubleshooting problems, discussing techniques, and showcasing their creations. It’s an active space where people learn from one another as much as they learn from the company.

The company also regularly invites members to participate in office hours, feature surveys, alpha testing programs, and community voting events.

In the lead-up to the release of its V8 image model, Midjourney ran a series of "rating parties" where members helped evaluate images and provide feedback used to improve the model. In one announcement, founder David Holz told members, "We're putting the finishing touches on V8 and need your help!"

These rating parties ran across multiple rounds over several weeks, with community members helping evaluate image quality, typography, personalization, coherence, and aesthetics. Weekly office hours gave members another recurring opportunity to ask questions, discuss ideas, and hear updates directly from the team.

These activities give members a shared purpose beyond using the product. They're helping test and improve the platform alongside thousands of other users.

What to take from Midjourney

• Build recurring opportunities for participation: Office hours, feedback sessions, voting events, and community challenges give members reasons to return regularly.
• Invite members into product decisions: Surveys, beta programs, and testing groups help people feel invested in the outcome.
• Create shared experiences around major launches: Community events turn product releases into something members experience together.
• Give contributors visibility into the impact of their participation: People are more likely to stay engaged when they can see how their feedback influences the final result.
• Facilitate conversations between members, not just between the brand and its audience: Communities become stronger when people connect with one another around a shared interest.
• Treat participation as part of the product experience: The strongest communities make contribution feel like a natural part of membership rather than an occasional request for feedback.

3. FantasyPL thrives on rituals and recurring interaction

Many online communities struggle because members have no reason to come back after their first visit. r/FantasyPL is different.

The subreddit is built around the official Fantasy Premier League game, but much of its appeal comes from experiencing the season alongside other managers. Throughout the year, members return to discuss transfer strategies, analyze player performances, debate key decisions, and react to breaking news that could impact their teams.

These interactions create a rhythm that keeps the community active throughout the season. During the 2026 World Cup Fantasy tournament, moderators hosted dedicated matchday discussion threads where managers could, in their words, "rant about how badly the game has been coded, all your players that have been benched, how stupid you were for picking Canada's backup goalkeeper, and share your score."

That comment captures exactly what makes the community work. Members are sharing the emotional highs and lows of the game with people who understand exactly what they're going through. Once matches begin, discussion threads fill with celebrations, frustrations, analysis, and collective reactions to the latest results.

Now, the community has developed its own language and cultural references. Terms like "template team," "differential," and "red arrow" are instantly recognizable to regular members but largely meaningless to outsiders. Those shared references reinforce a sense of identity and belonging.

Members also regularly create tools, trackers, statistical models, and analysis resources for one another. In fact, the moderators created a dedicated "I Made a Tool" thread after becoming "totally flooded" with community-built resources. That's a strong sign that members are actively creating value for other members.

What to take from FantasyPL

• Create recurring rituals: Weekly discussions, challenges, office hours, or community events give members a reason to return regularly.
• Give members a shared goal: Communities become stronger when people are working toward something together rather than simply consuming content.
• Develop consistent touchpoints: Familiar formats and recurring conversations create habits and strengthen relationships over time.
• Encourage member-to-member interaction: The strongest communities are conversations between members, not broadcasts from the brand.
• Let community language emerge naturally: Shared terminology, jokes, and references become powerful signals of belonging.
• Design for the long term: Communities thrive when members have reasons to return week after week, not just during launches or campaigns.

The question every brand building a community should ask

The examples above all look different on the surface, but they succeed for the same reason. They give people who care about the same things something to do together.

LEGO fans design products. Midjourney users help shape the platform. FantasyPL managers experience an entire season alongside one another.

That's the difference between an audience and a community.

An audience pays attention. A community participates.

If you're not sure which one you've built, ask yourself this question:

If your brand disappeared tomorrow, would members still have reasons to interact with one another? If the answer is yes, you're probably building a community. If the answer is no, you're probably building an audience.