Why Every Creative Organisation Needs to Rethink Community in the Age of AI

Written by Tommy Danvers, Founder of TokenTraxx.

For years, the creative industries have relied on a familiar formula.

Create something people care about. Build an audience. Promote it on social media. Buy advertising to reach more people. Build a mailing list. Repeat.

But the ground is shifting.

AI is transforming search, advertising and content creation. Social platforms are increasingly unpredictable. Algorithms change, organic reach disappears and audiences are being hit with more content, more noise and less reason to trust what they see.

So perhaps the question isn’t simply: How do we reach more people?

It’s: How do we build stronger relationships with the people who already care about what we do?

At TokenTraxx, we built CNKT around this challenge. CNKT is a fully customised community, membership and loyalty platform that helps organisations turn followers, fans, customers and members into connected communities they understand, reward and activate. It sits within your own branded ecosystem, helping build direct relationships rather than relying entirely on third-party platforms.

Your community is already an asset

Most creative organisations already have a community.

They might call them audiences, customers, members, supporters, subscribers or fans.

The problem is those relationships are often scattered across Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, mailing lists, ticketing platforms and CRM systems.

You built the audience.

But somebody else often controls your access to it and is charging you for the privilege.

This is why I think organisations need to stop focusing solely on how big their audience is and start asking another question:

Your community is already an asset. What is it worth?

This isn’t only a CNKT idea

The wider marketing world is arriving at the same conclusion.

McKinsey has described community as the “big idea” in 2020s marketing, arguing that leading brands are moving beyond large social followings towards actively engaged communities.

Edelman’s latest research shows why. 88% of consumers say trusting a brand is important or critical when deciding what to buy, almost identical to quality and value.

Look at Gymshark. The British brand has built a global business around events, athletes, content and a shared identity. Its philosophy is refreshingly direct:

“Without our community, there is no Gymshark.”

LEGO has gone even further with LEGO Ideas, turning fans into participants by inviting them to submit ideas that could ultimately become real LEGO products.

These aren’t audiences simply being marketed at.

They’re people being given a role in the brand.

More followers and more likes don’t automatically create stronger organisations.

Trust, belonging and participation do.

What charities are already learning

This shift isn’t limited to consumer brands.

The charity sector provides an interesting example.

Traditional fundraising often follows another familiar formula. Find donors, launch an appeal, raise money and then start again.

The problem is the relationship often ends with the donation.

What happens if the donation becomes the beginning instead?

How do you turn a donor into a member? A member into a participant? A participant into an advocate?

This thinking is behind BeeGen’s decision to select TokenTraxx as its technology partner for a new platform using CNKT as its basis, designed to turn everyday donors into a more connected and rewarded community.

The aim is to recognise participation, deepen engagement and give supporters more reasons to remain involved over time.

It’s a shift from fundraising to belonging.

And the same thinking applies across the creative industries.

From followers to advocates

A festival shouldn’t have to rebuild its audience every year.

A theatre relationship shouldn’t end when somebody walks out of the building.

A creative network should be able to create more value by connecting its members.

A music organisation should be able to recognise someone for attending a show, buying something, referring a friend or supporting another artist.

This is where community and loyalty start to come together.

The journey becomes:

Follower → Participant → Member → Advocate

And instead of constantly spending more money finding new people, organisations start creating more value with the people already there.

And guess what. This has been shown to increase profits by up to 25%.

What if loyalty became connected?

We think there is an even bigger opportunity.

Most loyalty programmes operate in isolation. You earn with one organisation and redeem with the same organisation.

Our Liquid Loyalty concept explores what happens when communities connect.

Imagine a creative network where individual businesses, venues, studios, festivals and partners maintain their own communities but rewards and opportunities flow between them in a controlled way.

Participate with one organisation and unlock something with another.

Suddenly loyalty helps communities grow together.

Why now?

AI isn’t a problem somewhere over the horizon.

The changes are already happening.

Organisations are competing with unprecedented volumes of content while trust and consumer confidence are increasingly difficult to earn.

The answer isn’t to abandon social media or advertising.

It’s to make sure they lead somewhere.

Towards a relationship you own.

Towards people you understand.

Towards a community with a reason to participate.

A community owned and controlled through your website.

Because the next era of growth won’t simply belong to whoever attracts the most attention.

The future belongs to communities that CNKT.

Your community is already an asset. Discover what it could be worth at ttcnkt.com using the CNKT Growth Engine.