✶Explainer03:30
The Three Types of Community: Product, Practice, and Play
Patrick Woods separates communities according to what members expect when they participate. Communities of play provide enjoyment, communities of practice help people improve a discipline, and communities of product help users become more effective with particular tools.
- Classify communities by the value members expect
- Communities of play bring people together for fun
- Communities of practice develop skills and professional connections
- Communities of product help members master tools
- Businesses usually focus on product, practice, or a blend
“There's communities of product, practice, and play.”
“And for me, it's it's important to think about what do the members of this community expect when they show up.”
#community#community strategy#member value#go-to-market
✶Explainer06:00
Why Community Is More Than a Growth Channel
A healthy community can accelerate go-to-market, product development, recruiting, and concept testing. Treating it only as a source of leads or support-ticket deflection understates its potential as a company-wide force multiplier.
- Community can support several business functions
- Community-led growth can imply an overly narrow funnel role
- Community can provide an R&D testing ground
- Go-to-community deserves consideration alongside go-to-market
“a healthy community, a thriving community for a business actually it de-risks and accelerates every part of a business.”
“almost like a power up for the whole company.”
#community-led growth#go-to-community#growth#business strategy
✶Explainer14:00
Why Communities of Practice Are Harder Than Product Communities
Product communities benefit from built-in distribution because customers already use the relevant product. Communities of practice must attract, activate, and retain members before those people become customers, effectively creating another product that competes for attention.
- Product adoption supplies distribution for product communities
- Support deflection and retention offer familiar product-community metrics
- Practice communities precede the customer relationship
- Practice communities compete against more alternatives for attention
- A weak bridge to the core product can leave a company running two disconnected products
“The one that's really different for tech companies is community of practice, because community of practice puts community before the customer”
“I'm just building two different products.”
#community of practice#community of product#distribution#saas
✶Explainer21:30
How Product Communities Naturally Mature into Practice Communities
Product communities often begin by connecting power users around features and APIs. As participation broadens, conversations naturally expand into careers, events, techniques, and wider professional challenges, creating a community of practice.
- Start by connecting product power users
- Invite adjacent users as the community matures
- Expect conversations to expand beyond product features
- Professional peer exchange can emerge without forcing it
- The product-to-practice path is common and gradual
“we almost see this maturity curve of communities of product morphing in sort of naturally into communities of practice.”
“And then over time, as more people come in, you naturally see that conversation shifting to a community of practice.”
#community maturity#product community#community of practice#power users
✶Explainer23:30
How a Community Team Changes as the Company Grows
At an early-stage company, founders should act as the first community champions. As the organization grows, it can add frontline advocates, community operations specialists, content roles, and eventually a director or VP who commonly reports through marketing.
- Founders are the first community hires
- Early community managers often sit in marketing
- Advocates welcome and engage frontline members
- Community operations connects identities, platforms, and data
- Larger teams may specialize in content and social media
“Your first community hire is is you the the founders themselves”
“You might see a community ops person, the community operations is sort of a role we're starting to see more and more.”
#community team#organization design#community operations#hiring
✶Explainer27:00
How to Connect Community Activity to Business Results
Community measurement should start with observing where engaged members affect the business rather than imposing a lead target immediately. Teams can examine activation, retention, referral, adoption, awareness, and product behavior, then form hypotheses and back into meaningful metrics.
- Measure member value creation before demanding lead volume
- Identify cohorts of highly engaged members
- Observe their product and amplification behavior
- Map activity to relevant funnel or product outcomes
- Use discovered relationships to choose community investments
“you do have to have the connective tissue between the value created and the community and the value captured for the company.”
“It's a sort of an observation question first.”
#community metrics#measurement#roi#business outcomes