| name | iblai-marketing-community-marketing |
| description | Build and leverage online communities to drive product growth and brand loyalty. Use when the user wants to create a community strategy, grow a Discord or Slack community, manage a forum or subreddit, build brand advocates, increase word-of-mouth, drive community-led growth, engage users post-signup, or turn customers into evangelists. Trigger phrases: "build a community," "community strategy," "Discord community," "Slack community," "community-led growth," "brand advocates," "user community," "forum strategy," "community engagement," "grow our community," "ambassador program," "community flywheel." |
| globs | null |
| alwaysApply | false |
| metadata | {"version":"1.0.0"} |
/iblai-marketing-community-marketing
Design, launch, and grow a community that creates real value for members
while delivering measurable business outcomes.
Step 0: Context Check
Read .agents/product-marketing-context.md (or .claude/product-marketing-context.md
on older setups) first. Only ask for what isn't there.
Pin down before recommending anything:
- Product or brand — problem solved, who uses it
- Platform(s) — Discord, Slack, Circle, Reddit, Facebook Groups, forum
- Stage — pre-launch, 0–100 members, 100–1k, scaling, or established
- Primary goal — retention, activation, word-of-mouth, support deflection, product feedback, revenue
- Ideal member — role, motivation, what they hope to get from joining
Work with what's available. Make reasonable assumptions and flag them when context is missing.
Strategy Principles
Build around identity, not the product
The strongest communities form around who members are or aspire to be — not your product. Members join for the product but stay for the people and identity.
Examples:
- Indie hackers (identity: bootstrapped founders)
- r/homelab (identity: tinkerers who self-host)
- Figma community (identity: designers who care about craft)
Always pin down: What identity does this community reinforce for its members?
Value flows to members first
Every touchpoint answers: What does the member get from this?
- Exclusive knowledge or early access
- Peer connections they can't find elsewhere
- Recognition and status in a group they respect
- Direct influence on the product roadmap
- Career opportunities, visibility, or credibility
The Community Flywheel
Healthy communities compound:
Members join → get value → engage → create content/help others
↑ ↓
←←←←← new members discover the community ←←
Design for the flywheel from day one. Every decision: Does this accelerate the loop or slow it down?
Playbooks by Goal
Launch From Zero
- Recruit 20–50 founding members manually. DM your most engaged users, beta testers, or fans. Do NOT open publicly until baseline activity exists.
- Set culture explicitly. Write guidelines that describe the vibe, not just the rules. What does great participation look like?
- Seed conversations before launch. Pre-populate channels with 5–10 posts that model the behavior you want — questions, wins, resources.
- Do things that don't scale at first. Reply to every post. Welcome every new member by name. Host a weekly call. You are buying social proof.
- Define your core loop. What action do you want members to take weekly? Make it easy and reward it publicly.
Grow an Existing Community
- Audit drop-off. Joining but not posting? Posting once and disappearing? Identify the leaky stage.
- Create a new member journey. Pinned welcome post,
#introduce-yourself, DM or email from a community manager, a "start here" path.
- Surface member wins publicly. Showcase user projects, testimonials, milestones. Reinforces identity and signals that participation has rewards.
- Run recurring rituals. Weekly threads ("What are you working on?"), monthly AMAs, seasonal challenges. Rituals create habit.
- Invest in power users. 1% of members generate 90% of value. Give them recognition, early access, moderator roles, or direct product input.
Brand Ambassador / Advocate Program
- Identify candidates. People who already recommend you unprompted. Check reviews, social mentions, community posts.
- Make the ask personal. Don't send a generic form. Reach out 1:1 and explain why you chose them specifically.
- Offer meaningful benefits. Exclusive access, swag, revenue share, or public recognition — not just "early access to features."
- Give them tools and content. Referral links, shareable assets, key talking points, a private Slack channel.
- Measure and iterate. Track referral traffic, signups, and engagement driven by advocates. Double down on what works.
Community-Led Support (Deflection + Retention)
- Build a searchable knowledge base from top community questions
- Recognize members who help others — "Community Expert" badges, leaderboards, shoutouts
- Close the loop with product. When community feedback drives a change, announce it publicly and credit the members who raised it
- Monitor sentiment weekly. Watch for patterns in complaints or confusion before they become churn signals
Platform Selection
| Platform | Best For | Watch Out For |
|---|
| Discord | Developer, gaming, creator communities; real-time chat | High noise, hard to search, onboarding friction |
| Slack | B2B / professional communities; familiar to SaaS buyers | Free tier limits history; feels like work |
| Circle | Creator or course-based communities; clean UX | Less organic discovery; requires driving traffic |
| Reddit | High-volume public communities; SEO benefit | You don't own it; moderation is hard |
| Facebook Groups | Consumer brands; older demographics | Declining organic reach; algorithm dependent |
| Forum (Discourse) | Long-form technical communities; SEO-rich | Slower velocity; higher effort to post |
Health Metrics
Track weekly:
- DAU/MAU ratio — Stickiness. Above 20% is healthy for most communities.
- New member post rate — % of new members who post within 7 days of joining
- Thread reply rate — % of posts that receive at least one reply
- Churn / lurker ratio — Members who joined but haven't posted in 30+ days
- Content created by non-staff — % of posts not written by the company team
Warning signs:
- Most posts come from the company team, not members
- Questions go unanswered for >24 hours
- The same 5 people drive 80%+ of engagement
- New members stop posting after their intro message
Output Formats
Produce one of:
- Community Strategy Doc — Platform choice, identity definition, core loop, 90-day launch plan
- Channel Architecture — Recommended channels/categories with purpose and posting guidelines
- New Member Journey — Welcome sequence: pinned post, DM template, first-week prompts
- Community Ritual Calendar — Weekly/monthly recurring events and threads
- Ambassador Program Brief — Criteria, benefits, outreach template, tracking plan
- Health Audit Report — Current metrics, diagnosis, top 3 priorities to fix
Be specific. Generic advice ("be consistent," "provide value") is useless. Give something the user can act on today.
Task-Specific Questions
- Platform you're building on (or considering)?
- Stage — pre-launch, early, growing, established?
- Primary business goal — retention, activation, word-of-mouth, support deflection?
- Ideal member and what motivates them?
- Existing users or customers to seed from?
- Hours per week available for community management?
Related Skills
- iblai-marketing-referral-program: Structured referral and ambassador incentive programs
- iblai-marketing-churn-prevention: Retention strategies that pair with community engagement
- iblai-marketing-social-content: Content creation across social platforms
- iblai-marketing-customer-research: Understanding members' needs and language
