COMMUNITY IS A TEAM SPORT The pandemic gave new meaning to a truth that has always been there - people have a fundamental need for authentic, personal connection. Whether at work, at home, or with hobbies, we have seen communities that bring people together thrive. We have seen companies that are community-first, with users that love their product, set a new standard for how to build and innovate. We have seen the rise of community-led growth and we’ve learned that community is more than a place that people gather to learn and share—it is how companies today build, grow, and create loyal, happy users.
Demystifying the community function A few months ago, we posted a popular poll on Common Room’s Twitter: Where should the community team sit in an organization? Many respondents believed that community should be its own function, and we’ve seen many communityled companies bringing on Chief Community Officers this past year. Marketing organizations came a close second. Ultimately, community is a team sport. Every community team performs 5 essential functions: They quarterback, they nurture, they amplify and educate, they report, and they support and triage. Quarterback: We’ve seen community managers and developer advocates be the quarterbacks from the community to internal teams—whether by being the voice of community for feedback to the product, sharing a community report of a product launch, or routing visibility to the right teams (sales, customer success, product, support, and more). Nurture: Healthy communities are self-sustaining, but they don’t become that overnight. Community managers and dev advocates build relationships with individual community members, making them feel heard, seen, and appreciated. Great community leaders understand where members are in their journey and create nurture and champion programs to start the flywheel of advocacy.
The time to invest in community is now: The Community Maturity Curve
Amplify and educate: Community is about skilling up. This might mean creating content like YouTube videos and blogs that help your community learn, or finding and amplifying content that is community-created.
Just as community members have a distinct maturity curve—from joining a community to get questions answered, to participating, to becoming advocates, we see that organizations also follow a community maturity curve.
Report: As community-led growth accelerates, community teams need more concrete, qualitative ways to measure and show the impact of community on the business. It’s the new imperative, and it’s one of the key reasons we’ve built Common Room.
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Triage and support: Communities 10 years ago started out as a place to get questions answered. They have evolved so much since then, but support is still a key function that we see across teams.
Organizations typically build their community on one channel to start. We call this the seed stage of your community. At this stage, nothing matters other than giving to your community. If you have an available or open-source service, providing
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COMMUNITY LEADERS
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Phase 1: Seeding the community Phase 2: Facilitating growth and sustained engagement Phase 3: Showing community impact on the business
Phase 1: Seeding the community
