| name | 38-community-seeding-global |
| description | Use when the user wants to show up in OTHER communities without astroturfing — Reddit, Facebook Groups, Discord, Slack, LinkedIn groups, Quora, and niche forums: a prioritized community list with the rules of each space, a named participant roster, post types written in full, reply scripts, a participation calendar, and red lines. Trigger on 'community marketing', 'Reddit marketing', 'seeding plan', 'post in Facebook groups', 'answer questions on Quora', 'we got banned from a group'. Not for — building your OWN paid or private community, see `28-community-building-global`; monitoring mentions across the web, see `15-social-listening-global`; briefing paid creators, see `06-ugc-egc-brief-global`. |
| metadata | {"version":"1.0.1","category":"content"} |
| license | MIT |
| triggers | ["community marketing","Reddit marketing","seeding plan","post in groups","community strategy","forum marketing","Discord communities","Quora answers"] |
| output | File .md — prioritized community list with rules, named participant roster, 4 post types written in full, response scripts, participation calendar, measurement table, compliance and red-line checklist |
| related | ["product-marketing-context-global","09-customer-insight-global","15-social-listening-global","35-brand-voice-global","37-social-caption-global","06-ugc-egc-brief-global","39-content-audit-global"] |
Community Seeding (Global)
Community marketing done properly is participation, not placement. A brand earns the right to mention itself by being useful first, under a real name, in communities whose rules it has actually read. Manufactured engagement — sockpuppets, brand-written reviews, coordinated voting — is both against every major platform's rules and, in the US, against FTC rules. Getting caught is a bigger loss than never posting.
Full per-platform rules, disclosure mechanics, and cadence limits: read references/platform-rules.md.
Information gathering
Read .agents/product-marketing-context-global.md and the insight file (09-customer-insight-global) first. If information is missing, ask up to 4 questions:
- What is being marketed, and which communities does the target audience actually spend time in? (subreddits, Discord servers, Slack groups, Facebook Groups, LinkedIn groups, Quora topics, niche forums)
- What is the objective? Awareness / qualified leads / traffic / genuine social proof / product feedback
- Who on the team will participate under their real name, and how much time per week can they give?
- Has the brand posted in these communities before — what happened, and was anything removed or banned?
Principles
- Real people, real names, one account each. Every participant is an actual member of the team using a single account with their own identity. No personas, no second accounts, no purchased or aged accounts.
- Value first, at roughly 9:1. For every promotional or self-referential post, contribute nine genuinely useful ones. This ratio is Reddit's long-standing self-promotion norm and travels well to every other community.
- Read the rules before the first post. Every subreddit, server, and group has its own self-promotion policy. Many require flair, a specific thread, or a minimum tenure. Rules override this plan.
- Disclose the material connection every time. If the person works for, is paid by, or holds equity in the brand, that must be clear in the post itself — not buried in a bio. This is FTC 16 CFR Part 255.
- Never write a review as if it came from a customer. Brand-authored or employee-authored reviews presented as independent are prohibited under the FTC fake-review rule (16 CFR Part 465) and carry civil penalties. Customer stories must come from the customer, with permission on file.
- No vote manipulation or coordinated engagement. No asking colleagues to upvote, no brigading, no cross-account replies to your own posts. Platforms detect this reliably.
