*** This case study, featuring one of our favorite brands, Mid-Day Squares, is purely conceptual for illustrative purposes. While we admire the Mid-Day Squares approach, please note that this post is not in partnership with them.

The app images here are not real screenshots from the Mid-Day Squares site; they're our mockups to show how our app could potentially look and function. A huge shoutout to the Mid-Day Squares Team for their exceptional community-building strategies - some of which we reference here as educational examples to guide and inspire. ***

In our Community Case Studies series, we delve into the examples of successful e-commerce brand communities. Our goal? To discover the strategies of what makes a community thrive so that you can replicate this success. Today, we spotlight Mid-Day Squares, a company combining the benefits of a protein bar, and the satisfaction of a chocolate bar.

What Sets Mid-Day Squares Apart?

Mid-Day Squares (MDS), founded in Montreal, Canada by siblings Jake and Nick Karls along with Lezlie Karls, is redefining the snack bar market. They've created a unique product - a delicious, nutritious chocolate square that's perfect for that mid-day hunger pang. Their commitment to using high-quality, real food ingredients and creating a product that's both healthy and indulgent has carved out a niche in the competitive snack industry.

Their goal?

Change the chocolate industry.

Each square is certified non-GMO, Fair Trade, Kosher, and vegan and is gluten, soy, and dairy-free. They do not use any artificial preservatives.

And my favorite part: No "natural" flavors.

Snack dreams coming true!

Find them in the refrigerated section of your local supermarket. (Warning: you might earn yourself a new addiction, sorry!)

The most remarkable thing about the brand?

The founders are so real. And that has built an authentic brand community.

Let's break it down.

MDS Brand Values

• Product quality: MDS redefines healthy whole foods snacking by constantly experimenting with natural, high-quality ingredients to create the perfect blend of functional nutrition and taste. It is fun to watch their behind-the-scenes posts about how much work and how many attempts it takes to create the perfect flavor.

• Transparency and trust: The brand builds trust through transparency, openly sharing its ingredients, production process, and even business and personal challenges with its community. And that's exactly how one creates a genuine connection - by being a human.
  
  

• Improving through feedback: The brand places great importance on different types of feedback, especially constructive criticism, and engages actively with it to improve and grow. The founders stress the importance of learning from their customers, with feedback and interactions significantly influencing business strategies and decisions.

  
  

• Human connection: Personal interactions, like posting personal videos and engaging in thoughtful conversations with customers, are a foundation of their "Crew Love" community. Check their socials and you will see that even though they have many great things to say about their products, their posts are all about human connection.

  

Community Engagement Strategies

1. Storytelling: MDS @middaysquares uses storytelling to share their journey and challenges, creating HIGHLY personal content that resonates with any human. Yes, they are building a successful brand, but they don't show this as always glamorous. They are all about sharing real-life experiences, triumphs, and setbacks. They talk about mistakes that made them lose money, personal relationship challenges, raising funds, therapy, impostor syndrome, depression, and more.

   This authenticity creates connection and belonging among their community members, making the brand relatable and approachable. There always be haters out there, but the lighthearted way the team handles the 'mean' comments deserves a shoutout.

   

2. Feedback-driven product development: The founders place significant emphasis on using customer feedback to adapt and refine their products. This strategy ensures that the brand remains in tune with its community's needs and preferences, leading to products that resonate with its audience.

   They actively seek out constructive feedback, showing that they value customer opinions and are committed to continuous improvement. You will see the team respond to all constructive feedback on their socials. Not many brands do.

3. Customer centricity: Mid-Day Squares demonstrates a strong focus on customer needs, often prioritizing them over immediate profits. They actively answer customer comments on social and so customers feel valued and heard, knowing that their preferences and feedback directly influence the brand's decisions and product offerings.

4. Real human connections: Unlike many e-commerce brands, Mid-Day Squares stands out for its humanized approach to customer interaction. The social media strategy focuses heavily on building human connections, not just promoting their products. Their platforms are filled with fun, engaging posts that build a rapport with their audience, interspersed with occasional product highlights. They openly talk about their challenges and mistakes, offering a transparent and real perspective that is rare in the e-commerce space. MDS creates genuine conversations, making each customer feel personally attended to.

   

   
   

5. Dedicated Instagram account (Crewlove): In a brilliant move to grow community participation and belonging, Mid-Day Squares highlights user-generated content (UGC) on a separate Instagram account - @mdscrewlove. This dedicated account for UGC gives community members a platform to express themselves and feel a part of the brand's journey.

6. Mid-Day Squares Podcast - Raw and Real Entrepreneurship: It's an unfiltered look into their journey of building a leading chocolate company. The podcast covers everything from the intricacies of running a family business to the raw truths of entrepreneurship. People don't connect to brands, they connect to other people. And this podcast is one more way to show customers the people behind that brand they can connect to.

In one of their podcasts focused on community (make sure to check it out here) they share insights on building a community. Their advice?

"Stop trying so hard to build community and focus on your customers: listen to them and engage with them in a proper way"

They point out that in your brand community you have 3 types of humans:

• The Supporters: The cheerleaders saying, "You guys are incredible!"

• The Mean People: Not pleasant, but can't get away from them.

• The Amazing Ones: These are the gems - offering constructive feedback, and pushing your brand to new heights.

Those Amazing People are the exact people who will help you build a lasting brand.

What brand is a lasting one?

The one that cares about what their best customers have to say.

And HouseParty creates a dedicated space right on the website to let those amazing humans speak their feedback and vote for their favorite ideas.

HouseParty will be perfect for Mid-Day Squares Community Feedback:

• Centralized feedback platform: Integrating HouseParty can provide MDS with a community feedback board where their 'constructive feedback' customers can post their ideas, upvote for favorites and discuss upcoming changes and updates.

  It will simplify feedback collection for the founders since all the ideas will be kept in one place instead of being scattered across various social media platforms and there will be quantitative data behind each piece of feedback.

  

  *** This is not a real screenshot from Mid-Day Squares' website; it is our mockup to show how our app could potentially look and function with its seamless integration into the Shopify theme and customization.

  
  

• Streamlined product development: HouseParty's upvote feature can highlight the most popular customer suggestions, giving Mid-Day Squares clear insight into what their customers truly desire. And instead of them having tons of replies in the IG post (like in the below example) they will be able to quantify the demand and not only their Instagram audience will be able to upvote for their favourite flavor, but EVERYONE who comes to their website.

  

  
  

• Polls! With the polls feature they will be able to have their customers vote, whether it's for what flavor to release next, what colors to use on packaging, collaboration ideas, choosing donation incentives, preferred discounts and more! There is no doubt that the MDS team will have many more creative uses for the polls :)

*** This is not a real screenshot from Mid-Day Squares' website; it is our mockup to show how our app could potentially look and function with its seamless integration into the Shopify theme and customization.

• Identifying engaged community members: With HouseParty's admin dashboard analytics, MDS can recognize and perhaps reward their most active community members.

  

  
  

• The two-way conversation around feedback: The comments section will allow for meaningful discussions between the brand and community members, deepening connection and understanding regarding certain product update requests and ultimately leading to better product developments. And the best part? These conversations won't get buried in the IG comments section.

  

  *** This is not a real screenshot from Mid-Day Squares' website; it is our mockup to show how our app could potentially look and function with its seamless integration into the Shopify theme and customization.
  
  

• Account creation: to contribute to the board community members will have to create a Shopify account, opening a new channel for the brand to capture email addresses. The feedback board becomes a fully-owned UGC platform that will guide the brand's decisions, build trust with new site visitors, and be a place for customers to engage with each other.

Bottom Line

Mid-Day Squares stands out in the snack bar industry with its unique products, transparent business practices, and strong community focus.

Incorporating a community platform like HouseParty could further solidify this bond, offering a new owned channel for engagement and fan-driven product innovation.

This integration shifts from scattered social media interactions to a centralized, on-site community forum, delivering an unparalleled user experience and enabling fan-driven product decisions for the brand.