The collective effect: 6 levers driving successful community growth

Opinion

Brands still need to be noticed, easy to buy and emotionally relevant. What has shifted is the collective’s role in where growth and value take root, writes SocialChain’s group strategy director.

Social sits at the centre of how most people spend their attention. Feeds, group chats and creator spaces shape what people notice, talk about and buy.

Mobile fills the small gaps of the day and then stretches into the big ones. Ad budgets have followed that behaviour, with UK growth in 2025 being driven by online display and, within that, by social.

What feels out of step is how many brands still think about influence. A lot of marketing infrastructure is built for a broadcast world, where messages travel in one direction and meaning stays relatively stable. That logic struggles in environments where ideas are passed around, reshaped and sent back out again by thousands of people at once.

Brands still need to be noticed, easy to buy and emotionally relevant. What has shifted is where those things are formed.

They take shape inside the interactions between everyone, from creators to customers, who give brands their tone, their reach and often their credibility.

That collective layer is where growth really takes root.

Lever 1: The collective builds value across the whole funnel

Creator marketing has moved beyond its old role as a bolt-on. The latest IPA econometric work shows that it now rivals TV for short-term return on investment while delivering stronger long-term brand impact than most other channels.

That combination matters because it means creator activity is no longer just driving response; it is shaping memory and future preference.

In practice, this reflects how people actually move through feeds and platforms. Awareness, consideration and purchase no longer sit in neat stages. They blur together, with discovery, reassurance and purchase all happening at different moments within the same platforms.

The collective carries brand meaning across that whole journey in a way a single media placement never could.

Lever 2: Create a value exchange

System1 and TikTok’s research shows that entertaining ads lift memory by 39%, double brand awareness and can increase conversion by up to 50%. Those numbers are less about spectacle and more about how people choose to give their time.

Content that offers something back, whether humour, emotion, or relevance, earns attention rather than forcing it.

In social spaces, attention often turns into sharing, remixing or simple word of mouth.

The work becomes something people use with each other, which is where brands start to travel further than their media spend alone would allow.

Lever 3: Creator-led attention must convert to brand memory

Creator-made ads attract 39% more attention than traditional TV spots. That advantage only holds when the brand is woven naturally into the story. Attention that never attaches to a recognisable cue fades quickly, even when the content itself lands.

The strongest creator work builds branding into the narrative through product moments, visual signals or sounds that appear early and feel part of the flow.

When people remember both the content and the brand behind it, attention starts to turn into mental availability.

Lever 4: Creative variety keeps brands fresh

Repetition still builds memory. Social also rewards novelty. Seeing the same execution too often leads to fatigue, even when the underlying idea is strong.

The collective offers a way through that tension. Different creators and communities can tell the same brand story in their own voice, keeping it familiar without letting it feel worn out.

Brands get consistency at the level of idea, while the expression keeps shifting with the culture around it.

Lever 5: Communities sustain growth

Seeing a friend use a product makes someone three to five times more likely to try it, and 93% of marketers say user-generated content builds more trust than traditional advertising.

At the same time, around half of brand sales come from light buyers, which means reach and shareability still matter.

Communities bring those forces together. Fan groups, subcultures and employee networks spread brand stories through their own circles, extending reach while keeping the message grounded in real behaviour. That is how participation turns into scale.

Lever 6: Collaboration beats control

The final shift is about how brands work with people. Creator-led ads with natural brand integration can drive engagement up to three times higher than heavily scripted ones. The difference lies in the degree of freedom to interpret an idea.

Brands still need to set a clear direction and provide strong assets. What they need less of is rigid control over every word and frame. When creators are trusted to translate a concept into their own language, the work feels more credible and travels further through the networks that now shape influence.

Taken together, these principles point to a quieter change in how brand growth works.

The collective is not a tactic to layer onto existing plans. It is the environment in which attention, meaning and memory now form.

Brands that learn to guide it with intent stand a far better chance of staying present in the places that matter most.

Ric Hayes is the group strategy director of SocialChain