A Founder’s Guide to Community

You’re not going to be able to measure exactly how community health equates to business ROI. There are going to be a lot of things you do to build a healthy community that don’t have measurable ROI. But if your team is aligned on the belief that what’s good for your community is good for your business, and you’re measuring what you can measure, the... See more

To build an audience, you help people. To build a community, you help people help each other.

Some of the operational tasks that a community professional might take on:

Success: Enable customers to teach each other how to better use your product and be more successful in their careers. Example: Salesforce’s Trailblazer program

-Creating processes for common community programs like running an event or recruiting new leaders

The number one thing I recommend looking for in your first community hire is a genuine curiosity for the topic that your community is built around. They don’t have to have a lot of experience in the topic of the community. I’ve seen many community professionals be successful at leading communities of engineers when they themselves weren’t engineers... See more

-Internal communications

-Optimizing the community journey and new-member onboarding

Engagement: Connect customers to each other around their common interests in order to increase customer retention. Example: Culture Amp’s Culture First

Product: Create spaces for customers to share product feedback and ideas with each other and with your team. Example: Atlassian feedback section