This article first appearance on Guild. It has been slightly edited and republished with permission from the author.
A periodic table is a simple way to get the fundamentals of a community strategy on one page.
Hope this is helpful for those of you new to a community. It’s also a useful reference and educational tool for those of you who have worked with communities for decades. It was also a great excuse to create something colorful and beautiful to share. Let’s take a look at the board, and I’ll explain my thinking along the way.
a template to help you plan, launch and maintain your online community by Michelle Goodall of Guild – to access the hi-res version of the chart, join Guild Community Collective, the free online community for community and media professionals social
How to Use the Community Strategy Periodic Table
I focused on 10 elements of community strategy, as follows:
Community Goals
All communities should support some sort of measurable goal.
If you’re investing in community as a brand or organization, community should support your primary business goals – whether that’s generating ideas and information, selling more, getting closer to your customers and prospects, to increase brand awareness, to drive meaningful change, to fuel customer support, to co-create things…and the list goes on.
I focused on aligning the community with goals that primarily apply to businesses and organizations. Hopefully this can help people make the connection between organizational goals and how the community can help you achieve them more easily.
Of course, you can just have a very simple set of goals for your community – like to learn more, have fun, and connect with amazing people around the world.
Community management roles
Depending on the size and complexity of your community strategy, your budget, and the platform you choose, there can be a number of different community roles.
From community sponsors to community owners, community admins, community hosts, community moderators, community analysts, and more.
I also impertinently added chief community officer because many of us believe it’s time to recognize how important strategic community specialists are – and the powerful role they play in creating value in organizations today.
In truth, most communities are designed, built, and managed by a single community manager. If that’s you, at least this element of the array highlights how many hats a person should wear. Maybe you can ask for a raise and show those who need to know that community managers are versatile professionals.
Community membership roles
Communities are not homogeneous. They are collections of many people – all with different needs, behaviors, motivations and roles.
Some of these member roles may be defined or assigned by community hosts, such as the VIP community or the beta tester community.
Some are naturally created out of a desire to support the community, for example the Community Defender or the Community Champion. Some roles simply evolve over time – from newbie to community elder, for example.
I deliberately omitted to include community stalker – ideally that word should be banned. There are much better ways to describe someone who is not actively engaged in a community – for example, community member, reader, learner, or explorer. More information here: ‘Why should the word “prowler” be banned in the community strategy‘.
Community platforms
Ok, this is where I know there will be debate and discussion. I decoupled social media platforms from community platforms.
If you are really serious about building a community, it is very risky to only consider ad-supported social media platforms. So I separated them.
Most community strategists don’t recommend building a community on social media if you respect member data and seek sustainability, longevity, and value…and certainly not if you want community content and discussion. community are visible rather than daily battle with social media algorithms.
So here you have Guild (of course) alongside other platforms designed specifically for different types of online community, or which measure insights from community data, for example Orbit.love and Commsor.
There isn’t enough space to add them all, so I spoke to other community strategists to get a shortlist.
Note: Inclusion does not constitute recommendation. You will have to do your homework. Start by joining other strategists in the community on this community for community managers.
Social media platforms
See above. There is not enough space for all social media platforms or the sub-categorization of these platforms into messaging/networking/aggregator etc. So I added six of the most popular platforms where community building takes place.
Community engagement techniques
I really had to stay here. These elements are content formats, triggers, rituals, currency in communities. And what works in one community may not work in another.
Whether it’s AMAs, guides, meetups, video, audio, frameworks, surveys, mind maps, or simple questions, think about the emotional drivers behind what engages people in your community . What drives them to open up, collaborate and share? Make sure the community you build and the techniques you employ make people feel valued.
These are based on the techniques and tactics of engagement that work well in guild communities. I’d love to hear from you if you have a successful engagement technique in your community that isn’t listed here. Remember that this is an iterative model.
Motivations of community members
The most successful communities create a culture of “we” and understand what generally motivates people to join, engage and stay. The Advanced Community Strategy examines distinct individual motivations and how to meet those needs.
There is a lot of behavioral and social science behind successful community building and management. Community science has its roots in anthropology, psychology, linguistics, and social psychology.
Just ask yourself “wWhat do my members want to achieve and what are their motivations?” is a good start.
Community member motivators include intrinsic and extrinsic motivators, collaboration, incentives, recognition, change management, and even good old-fashioned customer service.
Community Governance Checklist
These are some of the basic elements that will ensure the establishment, launch and sustainability of your community. Very few communities succeed without planning ahead.
Again, what you focus on will depend on the scale and complexity of your community, your goals, and the budget you have.
At the very least, your community should have a purpose, guidelines, and you should have a clear idea of what membership will require of people (e.g. is there a cost, commitment, barrier to entry?).
Organizations and businesses will need to devote more time to community governance than more informal communities. Most professional community managers will need to align their communities around business goals and data governance, internal and external communications, technology stacks, budgets, business intelligence, business metrics, and more.
Community checklist
This is your checklist for a successful community strategy. For those of you who don’t like the details, focus on answering the 13 points in this section.
- Define the goals/goals/objectives of your community
- Define your category/community type
- Define your audience(s) and their motivations
- Define member requirements to join the community
- Define the role of your organization/brand
- Set your community timeline and milestones
- Define your community resources
- Set your community budget
- Define your moderation model and process
- Choose your community platform
- Define your community metrics and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)
- Create a measurement framework
- Define governance requirements (e.g. data, backup, etc.)
Caveats: There will be obvious omissions on the board. I may have duplicate symbols. And that in no way diminishes the great work of Dimitri Mendeleev, inventor of the Periodic Table of Elements, and the countless scientists who put the chemical elements together in the modern format – I just pay homage using their brilliant visual format.
There will be future iterations, so if you have any suggestions, spot any errors, or just want to let me know your feedback, please connect with me on Guild and DM me.
michelle goodall is the Marketing Director of Guild, a platform for professional communities and networking. She has over 23 years of experience Over 23 years of experience in marketing, digital and communication on the client side, agency side and as a consultant.
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