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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Like a person, a community will have a personality, and the right people will feel drawn to that personality.