We have a formula, which has been tried and tested, and it’s the way things have worked forever. A brand develops a product or service - whatever it may be, it doesn’t matter - and takes it to market with the aim of appealing to its target audience(s). Simple.

It’s the blueprint Apple used in 1976 when it bounded into our lives with the launch of the Apple I. Amazon came onto the scene in ‘94 with its ecommerce site ready to take orders and Coca-Cola - way back in the late 19th century - entered the fold with a product available for purchase straight off the shelves.

It would’ve seemed strange to think that this model could ever be any different, but fast forward to 2017 and things look quite different.

“If you build it, they will come”, goes the famous phrase adopted from 1989’s ‘Field of Dreams’. Spoiler alert: skip to paragraph three if you plan on watching this movie any time soon.

Still with me? Cool. Well, the lead character - played by Kevin Costner - continuously hears a voice when walking through his corn field which says: "If you build it, he will come".

Later he sees a vision of a baseball field, and eventually builds one on his land. Before long, a deceased professional baseball player turns up and asks to play catch - which makes everyone happy before a few other things happen and the credits roll.

Long story short, the quote has been adapted into a business cliche and often means, if you build / make / produce something, then people will come to buy it.

For so long this was the case, but things are changing and the proliferation of ‘viral’ channels, such as Viral Thread and LADbible, are prime examples of this.

Build it, by all means, but will they still come?

Now, rather than building / making / producing a product or service and hoping consumers will pay for it, publishers are leading a new charge down another route. They’re producing and curating quality and relevant video content to create an expansive and highly engaged community.

Channels like these are popping up all over platforms like Facebook, which cater to an ever-growing number of consumers, covering a huge breadth of topics and hobbies, as well as general lifestyle.

With many of us beyond fatigued by the much-maligned ‘pic of my lunch’ or endless photos of friends’ children, we welcome these videos and the entertaining content they provide.

Buzzfeed’s Tasty channel influences billions of people across the world with its snappy, fun recipe videos which encourage people to try cookery for themselves. So now it has this huge, active audience of more than 100m followers, what next but to monetise it?

Which is exactly what it’s started to do with the launch of a cookbook and, more recently, a connected kitchen appliance. The model’s not entirely dissimilar to the what we see happen a lot in the old-media industry.

A book’s released - let’s use Harry Potter, for example - which receives incredible fanfare. So, naturally, with an engaged consumer group there’s scope to create more; we begin to see a movie franchise, theme parks, merchandise etc. They’re capitalising on the presence of a hungry community.

It’s not just publishers exploring these new social media avenues, but companies from all walks of life.

At One True View (OTV), we work with the world’s top brands, including McDonald’s, Netflix and SkyScanner to create and curate content that will appeal to their target market and push these out through both of our social channels - and others - which have tremendous reach.

It’s an incredibly impactful way for a company to reach a massive number of people who will share the content with their friends.

Social channels have enormous audiences

Rapper and musician, Fortafy, has a huge fanbase and found out first hand the power of an engaged community recently. Being a relatively high-profile character, he had 13 million or so followers on Facebook and knew there was an opportunity; so he built an app, called Color Switch, with some other industry veterans.

When it came to promoting the app around its launch, he posted the news alongside viral videos on Facebook and received more downloads from this pre-existing community than from any other marketing activity.

Whether publishers are building dedicated communities to monetise, or brands are working with these publishers to push content that inspires, informs or entertains their following, the traditional marketing model’s being turned on its head.

It’s no surprise to learn then, that social content creators are among the fastest growing businesses in the world today, which is why I sense a new cliche on the horizon: ‘build an engaged community, and the opportunities are endless’.