The Business of Belonging: How to Make Community your Competitive Advantage

Activate community engagement by doing things that don’t scale, giving members a say in what happens, being funny, sparking debates, being authentic, and keeping your energy high and positive. Lead by example.

Keep your community guidelines simple, visible, and easily accessible.

Measure your community health with surveys that ask questions about identity, feeling welcome, onboarding, and achieving goals.

All community experiences are either synchronous or asynchronous – most great communities have a combination of both. When your members can experience your community in a consistent, repetitive way, it will make it easier for them to develop a habit of coming back. Set rituals and be repetitive.

Create a compelling onboarding experience by knowing and translating your vision to new members, making them feel welcome, and being clear about what you want them to know.

Communities work best when members are intrinsically motivated, but external rewards can be effective when used wisely.

Community programs should focus on creating value and belonging for members, while also creating value and results for the business. A good way to structure and measure your community strategy involves three levels: business, community, and tactical. Each of these will have distinct goals and measures for tracking success.

The 7 Ps of community design: people, purpose, place, participation, policy, promotion, performance.

To identify key business objectives and revenue drivers, use the SPACES model: support, product, acquisition, contribution, engagement, success. Start by focusing on one or two primary objectives you can measure and expand from there. Good measurement frameworks consist of the goal you’re trying to achieve, the measures that will tell you if you ac... See more

Your community is not your software platform. Your community is your people.