Build Community With Your Audience

Building a real community starts with listening. Not just to what people say about your brand, but how they use it, experience it, and show up around it. The goal isn’t just to reach your audience, but to invite them in.

At Pop & Awe, we think about community as something you build with your audience, not just for them. Here’s what that looks like in practice.

Make connection personal (even at scale)

Fanmail is a big part of how kids connect with brands they love. For Tinkercast, we created a system to respond to hundreds of letters each year in a way that still feels personal. It made things easier to manage behind the scenes, while making each fan feel seen.

Let things build over time

The best communities don’t happen all at once. The Tiny Desk Contest started as a single concert at NPR's HQ and grew into a multi-city tour and major platform for new artists to get discovered. With the right strategy and partnerships in place, it became both a cultural moment and a meaningful revenue driver.

Keep the conversation going

For Add Passion & Stir, we created social content that helped extend each episode beyond the podcast itself with behind the scenes moments, ways to get involved fighting food insecurity in neighborhoods nationwide, and ways to connect with the hosts and guests.

Make people feel PART of something

With Tinkercast’s W.O.W. Membership, we focused on making the experience feel ongoing, not one-and-done. By adding more touch points throughout the year, we helped kids (and their grown ups) feel like they were part of something bigger. These touch points included quarterly mailing, birthday cards, secret easter eggs in episodes, and members-only virtual and IRL experiences. The result: stronger retention and more positive feedback from both kids and their grown-ups!