Co-Creation and Community Voting
Invite your audience to make decisions and shape your brand so they feel ownership
Co-Creation and Community Voting is a strategy for transforming active audience members into a deeply connected community by giving them genuine influence over your brand's direction. When people participate in decisions, from choosing a logo to suggesting product features to voting on content topics, they develop a sense of ownership and investment that passive consumption can never create.
The framework draws on the principle that communication derives from the Latin word communis, meaning sharing or common. Without two-way communication, there is no community. By asking your audience to vote, contribute ideas, and help shape what you create, you transform a one-sided broadcast into a collaborative relationship. The decisions you present do not need to be consequential; even small choices like which font to use for an email header can generate massive engagement.
LEGO exemplifies this at scale through their LEGO IDEAS platform, where fan-designed creations that receive 10,000 community votes can become official products. But the same principle works for a solo entrepreneur posting two logo options on Facebook and asking their audience to vote. Both create the feeling that the audience's voice matters.
- Without communication, there is no community
- People who participate in decisions feel ownership of the outcome
- The decision itself does not need to be consequential; participation is what matters
- Co-creation turns passive consumers into active contributors and advocates
- Not all the best ideas come from inside the company
- Start with Simple Binary ChoicesPost a side-by-side comparison on social media and ask your audience to vote. It could be two logo designs, cover options, color schemes, or topic ideas. The lower the stakes, the easier it is to start and the more people will participate.
- Expand to Open-Ended Idea SolicitationAsk your audience what they want to see next from your brand. What topics should you cover? What features should you build? What problems should you solve next? Use surveys, polls, or open comment threads to collect suggestions.
- Implement and Acknowledge Their ContributionAct on the most popular suggestions and publicly credit your community for the decision. Saying 'You voted, and here is the result' closes the feedback loop and reinforces that their participation has real impact.
- Build Ongoing Co-Creation MechanismsEstablish regular touchpoints for community input: quarterly surveys, ongoing suggestion boxes, beta tester groups, or advisory boards made up of your most engaged community members.
LEGO created the LEGO IDEAS platform where anyone can submit original designs. If a design receives 10,000 community votes, it becomes eligible for official manufacturing. Fan-designed sets including a Minecraft set, Women of NASA collection, and a Back to the Future DeLorean have all been produced and sold worldwide.
Flynn was inspired by LEGO's turnaround story, going from 800 million dollars in debt and near bankruptcy to the world's largest toy company by opening up product development to their fan community through LEGO IDEAS. He also learned from Amy Porterfield's brilliant use of a simple Facebook post asking fans to choose between two email header fonts, which became one of her most engaged posts in months despite the trivially low stakes.