How to Grow a Community
Not a subscriber? Click here to sign up to the Change Notice Newsletter (A link will open in a new tab.)In 2014, when I started working at the creator start-up Niche, one of our key objectives was to grow our community of creators. As a two-sided digital marketplace that paired brands who needed content with social media creators who could both make the content and promote it to their audiences, we needed to ensure that our network had enough diverse creators across mediums and genres (hence the name Niche). In just under a year, we successfully scaled our network from a few hundred creators to 6,000+ creators. This helped lead to some big brand partnerships – with advertisers like HP and Coca-Cola – and ultimately to Niche’s acquisition by Twitter in 2015.
Years later, I find myself working with another two-sided marketplace –Journey Clinical. On one-side, therapists administer ketamine-assisted psychotherapy sessions, and, on the other end, patients are seeking these types of treatments from well-trained clinicians. As a community, therapists are very different from the stop-motion animators, comedians, and parenting bloggers on social media that made up Niche’s creator community; however, the tactics we used to grow both communities were very similar. They bubble down to Ambassadors and Evangelists.
Ambassadors are folks within your community who are incentivized to promote your product.
Within weeks of working with Journey Clinical, I launched an ambassador program. This entailed selecting thriving Journey Clinical clinicians and incentivizing them to deeply engage with the community both virtually on the member forum and in-person at member meet-ups. The ambassadors are ultimately tasked with shaping the culture of the Journey Clinical community, with the hopes of enriching it and expanding services to new members. So, how did we get started?
Select ambassadors with intention: I have made the mistake of choosing ambassadors on a volunteer basis. Don’t do this! Reach out to folks one by one, and focus on individuals who want to do the job and who will make great hosts and facilitators for online and offline events and discussions. For Journey Clinical, I recruited ambassadors based on geo-location, but you can also select them based on other criteria such as level of expertise or, in Niche’s case, the type of content they create.
Incentivize your ambassadors: Whether it’s a discount on membership, features on your brand’s social media platforms, the ability to beta test new products, donations on their behalf to non-profits, or cash/gift card incentives. Building a community is a job. If you don’t compensate them, they may eventually tire of it.
Support your ambassadors: Develop a clear strategy for your ambassadors and arm them with information and support. For Journey Clinical, our community ambassadors host one quarterly live event and facilitate two monthly discussions on the virtual member forum. We created event hosting guidelines, conducted trainings over Zoom, and did quarterly virtual check-ins with all the ambassadors.
Measure your impact: Pull your data from Slack, Circle, Discord, etc. and see if there is an increase in posts, comments, and new members in your online community. Is your community hosting more virtual and in-person events? Measure those too! In just under three months, the usage of Journey Clinical’s member forum and new therapist sign-ups increased tremendously, and we tripled the amount of events that were being hosted. Ultimately, we want more therapists signing on with Journey Clinical and existing customers administering more KAP sessions with their clients, so it’s important to see how community engagement impacts those KPI’s.
Unlike the community of digital creators we built at Niche, the therapists we chose to be Journey Clinical’s community ambassadors didn’t necessarily have strong social media followings, but they were leaders in their respective communities of clinicians. You don’t have to be an “influencer” to have a sphere of influence.
Evangelists or superfans are individuals in your community who purchase and love your product so much they tell everyone about it whether they’re incentivized or not!
These folks are the building blocks of your community. They don’t always make good ambassadors, but they should be the first people you look to when you start your digital community.
Identify your evangelists: Many will leave reviews. If you don’t know who they are or don’t think you have any evangelists, email a group of your customers or followers to find out if they adore your product.
is a fragrance creator and co-hosts a fantastic podcast called Nose Candy where she eloquently analyzes different fragrances in addition to discussing pop culture, art, and life’s ups and downs. She calls her superfans “frag heads,” and I think it’s adorable. If you’re obsessed with perfume and people who talk about it, wouldn’t you want to be a frag head too?
Feature their comments on your websites and social: Free, heartfelt endorsements! What could be better? This encourages other folks to join in on the conversation and become part of a dynamic community.
Include evangelists in an affiliate program: An increasingly popular tactic to incentivize your evangelists to spread the word about your product is by launching an affiliate program. Affiliate programs allow your superfans to use a unique link to promote your product to their friends and receive a small percentage of the revenue when someone uses the link to purchase the product or service.
Just remember, a flawless community growth strategy cannot mask a mediocre product.
What are some products, businesses, or creators that you can’t live without? You’ll continue to see many of my favorites throughout this newsletter.
Lastly, if you’re a creator, business owner, or just curious about growing your community hit reply, and let’s find a time to chat!