We go to a doctor for our physical health.

We go to a therapist for our mental health.

Who do we go to for our social health?

https://twitter.com/DavidSpinks/status/1670791259894456324

I've been building and researching communities for two decades.

Here are the 11 pillars of my community philosophy: 1. Communities are defined by who doesn’t belong

Exclude the people who make your members feel unable to have the important conversations they need to have.

Exclude with intention, exclude with empathy, but exclude you must.

I've spent the last 20 years studying how communities work.

Here's the 6-step process I use to bring a flatlined community back to life: Step 1: Zoom out - Identify potential macro issues

Three common macro issues:

1. Shifts in technology (eg. facebook changes algorithm)

2. Shifts in culture (eg. web3 trends down)

3. Shifts in economy (eg. members can't afford community

99% of communities look the same today.

The communities that stand out create what I call an "Alternate Reality".

All you have to do is change ONE of these five things... 1. Change the Rules

Remove something members usually use as a crutch but that doesn’t serve them.

- A biz event where you’re not allowed to ask, "What do you do?"
- A dance party with no drugs (@dybrkr)
- A parent’s dinner where you can't mention your kids (ht @priyaparker)

If you're struggling to build a community, here's some advice: All community builders take one of two approaches:

🌳 Emergent Community Building:
Bring a loosely-defined identity together and let goals+structure emerge organically

🎯 Precision Community Building:
Target a very specific identity and be highly prescriptive in goals+structure

Very excited to announce that the 2022 Community Industry Survey is now open!

This is @CMX's annual research into key trends and benchmarks in the community industry.

Please take 15 mins to fill out the survey and help us spread the word!
survey.alchemer.com/s3/6654648/93d… This year’s survey covers a range of topics like:

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Community team size
🛠 The community technology stack
🎈Event data and trends
📊 Metrics and reporting
💸 The business impact of community
💵 Careers and compensation
🤝 DEIB
🪙 web3 communities
And lots more!

A FOUNDERS GUIDE TO COMMUNITY

Should your startup invest in building community?

It's a big question... one that deserves a thorough answer.

I worked with @lennysan for the last 3 months on a 6,400-word guide published today in his newsletter.

Here are the highlights... 🧵 Step 1: Define community

It's impossible to know whether or not it's a good investment if you don't know what it is you're investing in.

Here's a good way to define it:

📣 To build an audience, you help people.

🔄 To build a community, you help people help each other.

COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY THREAD

I love geeking out on community and social psychology.

Here's a thread of some of my favorite community psychology concepts and theories, explained in 280 characters or less.

Reply with questions, or suggest your own favorites!

🧵… SENSE OF COMMUNITY THEORY

One of the most influential definitions of the experience of community.

SOC has 4 elements:
1. Membership
2. Influence
3. Integration and fulfillment of needs
4. Shared emotional connection

(David McMillan & David Chavis, 1986)

I get asked this question a lot so:

Here's the exact process I would follow if I just got hired to lead community for a new company...🧵 Note: The most common mistake new community pros make is skip right to tactics: launching forums, sending emails, hosting events...

As a result they spend months building community, but spread themselves thin and struggle to prove their value.

This process solves for that.

Here are 10 things you can do to improve how you onboard new members into your Discord (or any community platform)...🧵 1. Teach the 101 first (somewhere else)

Discords are great for learning what's relevant *now*, but bad for baseline education.

Before inviting people to your space, send them to a page where they can learn about your community's backstory, FAQs, jargon, inside jokes, etc.

THREAD

Remote companies are still *struggling* to build belonging without the serendipity and proximity of the office.

I thought I'd share some proven community-building techniques you can use to meaningfully connect your remote team members... 🧵 FOCUS ON SUBIDENTITIES

It's tempting to try to connect all of your employees at once.

But your company is made up of MANY subidentities based on their:

- roles
- locations
- hobbies
- seniority
- length of employment
- ethnicity

Try creating experiences for specific groups.

I have the best team in the world.

In the middle of the book launch party, they surprised me with a Business of Belonging CAKE.

Thank you @annmarpawdink for throwing an epic virtual party and always bringing that extra special touch. Huge thank you to @iambethmcintyre for hosting an incredible show as always, and to @DerekjAndersen for grilling me.

y'all really got me

One year ago, @mkobach tweeted that he "wanted to take what he knew about community building and apply it to his personal Twitter."

Well, it worked. Today hes become a "lighthouse" for 100k people on Twitter.

I asked him what that cmty building model was. Here's what he said... Be Unbelievably Niche

Today Matt tweets about all sorts of topics, but when he started he honed in really specifically on just tweeting about social media marketing.

He didn't talk about anything else. No sports. No news. Just his topic.

Followers always knew what to expect.

Want to publish a book one day?

A lot of aspiring authors have been asking me about my experience of publishing The Business of Belonging.

The book world is confusing and opaque. I was lucky to have some incredible advisors.

Here's a thread of the inside secrets I learned 👇🧵 Publishers work a lot like VC funds.

They invest in a lot of authors but only need one book to take off to get a return on their investment.

If they think they have a winner, they'll put more weight and promotion behind it.

I've built online communities since I was 14, and have interviewed 100's of successful community builders and founders.

Here's what I've learned about building great communities:

🧵 There's always an opportunity for community. 

Even if a community for a topic already exists, you can always bring a new angle.

Find that angle by building the community that you wish existed for yourself.

A huge lesson I’ve learned in business and community building is to always ask, “what is a more active approach I can take to achieving this goal”. 1/ For example:

Passive community management: ask a question and wait for responses

Active community management: ask a question then privately message 10 people asking them to answer it 2/

🤝 My biggest lessons in how to build your professional network...

1. Build community. There's no better way to improve your reputation in a field than to be the one bringing people together.

Offline is key: Host events. Big or small. Conferences, meetups or dinners all work. 2. Do great work. If people recognize the work you do before they meet you, they'll respect you a lot more.

The best connections you'll make are with the people you work with directly. Choose them wisely.

🎉 Ok, here are my 2019 predictions for the community industry / community management...

1. The social media backlash will continue. Big platforms will offer more private community features, but this will clash with their business models. New players will emerge to fill the need 2. As people leave large platforms, and seek new options for community, businesses will capitalize by offering their own niche branded communities around their products and missions.

We'll also see a lot more founders launch new, niche community companies/brands.