Social Media has been a great enabler for communities. It has allowed people with similar passions to share their thoughts and ideas with each other. This much, of course, we know.

For a brand, these shared passions and the communities formed around them provide an excellent opportunity. By facilitating these communities and the exchange of ideas within them, brands stand to gain a lot. This is being recognized in various sectors – many of which one would not expect to be new-media savvy.

Interested in solder, epoxy flux or metal oxides? Indium Corporation has a host of blogs talking about these very topics. People from across the industry – from within Indium corp. and from without now have a go-to place for conversation about these topics and many more.

Schneider Electric ran a petition campaign to raise awareness about the contribution of building (especially high-rises) to global warming. For a certain group of people, this particular topic is extremely important, and the petition reached its goal of having 500 people signing up for it. This included text and video petitions. Schneider, of course, has a building automation solution which can help reduce the adverse impact which buildings have on the environment – so raising awareness served a direct goal

Fair Enough. Brands are providing platforms on which likeminded people, passionate about a particular topic can gather. But how is it actually helping the brand? In many cases, the benefits are quite direct!

Take for example Gary Vaynerchuck. The community he addresses is that of wine drinkers. Not exactly a small niche (*hiccup*) – a large number of people are extremely passionate about wines. Gary understood this (his family owned a wine shop) and he utilized Social Media tools – largely online video – to help the community come together. Gary started Wine Library TV – a video blog – in 2006 and it recently crossed its 800th episode. And what has Gary achieved? Apart from being a Social Media superstar it has propelled his wine business to a completely new level. Interestingly, viewers of the video blog (called ‘Vayniacs’) have created the first ever community wine – the Vayniac Cabernet.

What are the numbers like, for Gary? He has over 80,000 viewers on WLT every day, over 847,000 twitter followers and over 24,000 Facebook fans. Essentially, what Gary did, was that he acted as a focal point around which a community could congregate.

Here’s one of Wine Library TV’s popular episodes:

This is a huge opportunity for companies and brands to tap. If your product or brand is built around an idea which people care deeply about, (or if your target audience cares deeply about anything in particular) give these people a platform. Allow them to assemble there, communicate with each other, and share. Be a part of their conversation. Don’t be pushy about your agenda – people will appreciate the fact that this platform is ‘powered by’ you. What is the idea which Gary speaks about, for example? That together, his audience and he are changing the wine world!

What platform can you provide to your audience? What do you think about this whole platform thing anyway? Let us know, in the comments.