community management

Every community manager eventually faces the same question from stakeholders: Do we really need a community? It’s a fair question, and one you should be ready to answer. Communities don’t survive on goodwill alone; they depend on continued support from the organizations that fund them. Also, knowing how

I recently spent forty minutes searching through Slack trying to find a technical decision — made eight months ago — about an app that 60% of my creative life depends on. I knew the conversation had happened. I remembered participating in it. I could picture the rough time frame and vaguely recall

Every time someone emails Discourse support asking to extend the free trial on one of our hosting plans because “14 days isn’t long enough for the community to take off”, a tiny part of me dies.  A decade ago, community builders recognised that 6 months probably wasn’t long

Modern communication is built for the scroll.  Think: Slack and Discord chats, disappearing messages, DMs, and social feeds where the stream moves too quickly to be reliably referenced later. The goal is speed and informality.  Over the last decade, many communities and companies have followed the trend, moving from long-form

Only the most privileged of community practitioners will make it to retirement without experiencing the stress of chasing growth targets at least once in their career. The majority of us have had a close relationship with engagement statistics at some point, and what a fickle friend they can be. During

AI has turned search into answers. People ask a question, get one synthesized response, and see a small handful of cited sources. If your community is one of those sources, you win trust, traffic, and pipeline.  But how do you get there? How do you become a trusted destination for

Social media and instant messaging fundamentally changed how we talk to each other. The paragraph has ceded power to fast moving and ephemeral chat that inevitably leans toward the shallow and reactive. Easy and immediate access to information, has replaced depth with speed in both digital and offline conversations. We

Sometimes, knowing what not to do is a good way to get better at something. We’ve put together a list of the common missteps that community managers make when attempting to measure the ROI of their community.  Avoiding the usual pitfalls of calculating the ROI of your community early

We are at a point in the evolution of online behaviour where privacy and safety are finally getting the attention they deserve. Around the world, new laws and standards are changing how online spaces operate, especially when it comes to protecting children and other vulnerable users. Community managers and site

A community rarely changes their platform lightly. The motivation is often to improve the experience, enhance functionality, and ensure the platform evolves alongside the community. Still, change is hard. When you announce to your online community that you’re moving to a new platform, you can almost feel the collective

Understanding the language of community metrics gives you a leg up when communicating your community’s value to stakeholders. It also helps you identify what’s working, where to improve, and how to make data-driven decisions that strengthen your strategy. That starts with knowing the right metrics—what they measure,

How do you know if your community is having a positive effect on the broader organization it represents? Where do you turn when you have to defend the existence of your community? Metrics. They tell the story of your community’s impact.  If you are unsure where to begin, identifying

A community’s data is more than just numbers and names; it reflects the community’s pulse—what members care about, discuss, and engage with. This data includes all of the  knowledge generated through those discussions which should be a lasting resource, always accessible to your community. However, many platforms

Everyone loves good swag, but the key to motivating the behaviours you want to see in your community is focusing on intrinsic rather than extrinsic rewards. Intrinsic motivation is based on internal incentive such as pleasure or interest, so the key to rewarding appropriately is to support those behaviours. Humans

While push-button solutions are quick and simple, they prevent us from really understanding the landscape in front of us, identifying how to drive improvements, and exploring the optimal pathway to success. When I trot that title line out to people, it inevitably gets an intrigued look in response, but there