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Let's discuss Community Led Growth.

⭐️ Intro

Figma, Airtable, Notion, ConvertKit, Zoom, InVision, Gong. What do they all have in common?

“Community”.

More and more companies realize that they need a community of raving fans to continue their growth. So Community-led growth acts as a multiplier on top of their product or sales-led growth engine.

And here is what we will discuss today:

👉 11 marketing channels to build a community (it’s not just a newsletter)👉 10 predictions about a community-led GTM strategy👉 why you need a Chief Community Officer👉 35 tools that will help build a community👉 5 job boards for community managers👉 5 stats about communities👉 3 types of communities

🤔 Predictions

1. Community-Led Growth will help newborn startups compete with well-known industry leaders:

   1. Lemlist made community a big part of their growth

   2. Clubhouse and TikTok are community-first products

2. Raise of Chief Community Officers and/or VPs of Community

3. Community-Led Growth will be an additional go-to-market strategy for well-established brands. E.g:

   1. Zoom Community (160,000 members)

   2. ConvertKit Community (70,000+ creators)

   3. Airtable Community (45,000 users)

   4. Pipedrive Community (50,000+ professionals)

   5. Typeform Community (15,000 creators)

   6. Gong Community (3,000 members)

4. Community-Led Growth will strengthen other go-to-market strategies like product-led growth as they both influence product growth. E.g. roadmap prioritization, and user feedback management based on community feedback. Community-led growth “acts as a multiplier on top of product-led growth,” wrote Corinne Marie Riley, an investor at Greylock

5. Cheif Community Officers will lead company’s community-centric go-to-market strategy

6. Community-Led Growth will help increase LTV:

   1. customers will become brand evangelists and they will refer their friends to use a product or service

   2. they will stay with the product longer

   3. product teams will ship features that which community actually wants

   4. community will be a strong brand deferenciator

   5. communties decrease customer support volume

7. Community-Led Growth starts with building a community and will require more marketing and community channels later. Commsor has built community club that includes:

   1. podcast

   2. job board

   3. Q&A forum

   4. Slack group

   5. merch store

   6. mentorship program

   7. topic-focused newsletter

   8. webinars and virtual events

   9. content library and tools directories

   10. education program for community professionals

   11. 1-on-1 intros and community members matching

8. There are 3 types of communities:

   1. community of product (built around a specific product)

   2. community of practice (built around a profession or skill)

   3. community of interest (built around hobbies or passion projects)

9. Community Analytics Tools like Common Room and Orbit will help overcome one of the biggest challenges of the Community-Led Growth: data collection and insight-mining

10. Integrations is the next big issue of community building. Zapier and community-focused platforms like Orbit should will help fix this issue too

11. Web3 will play a huge part of the community-led future:

    1. Rally.io helps creators and their communities build their own independent digital economies

    2. uuki is more like Circle, Ghost or Commsor, but for web3

    3. Chiliz is a blockchain fintech provider for sports & entertainment 

📈 Trend Chart

📊 Statistics

1. Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian predicts that “more than half of the top-500 publicly traded companies are going to have a chief community officer in 5 years”

2. On average, community teams use 13 tools to run their community

3. The 2020 Community Industry Trends Report says that 88% of community professionals believe that community is critical to the company’s mission

4. According to Inversofts’s research, 77% of companies believe that an online community significantly improves brand exposure, awareness, and credibility.

5. According to GlobalWebIndex report, members of community sites prefer online communities in comparison to social media sites for the following:

   1. Meaningful conversation (36% higher)

   2. Getting respect from others (28% higher)

   3. Feeling own self (24% higher)

   4. Being appreciated (21% higher)

   5. Getting voice heard (19% higher)

   6. Developing a sense of belonging (18% higher) 

🏢 Products

👥 Community PlatformsTribe > A customizable community platform for businessesCircle > The all-in-one community platform for creators & brandsCommsor > Discover the extraordinary impact of Community-Led GrowthInfluitive > The market-leading advocacy, community, and engagement platformOutverse > A community platform built for real connectionDots > Scale your community while keeping it personalhivebrite > Hivebrite provides tools to build, manage, and engage their communityUbu > Unleash your brand’s community of true fansPodia > Everything you need to sell courses, webinars, downloads, and communityBackspace > Online communities made simple

👋 Intros and MatchingsHi Right Now > Empowering communities to form meaningful connections, 1:1 video conversationlounjee > Lounjee connects the members of your community based on their goals and interestsIntros > Build meaningful connections in your community with introsOrbit > Orbiit brings communities together through 1:1 and group connections

💬 Community CommunicationsCommunity > Connect instantly with your audience through conversational text messaging at scaleBurb > Bring your creativity and communitytevent > Grow your community in personalised Spaceslowdown > Auto-deliver the best content shared in your community direct to members, guiding them back to engageWaves > Create your Slack community's knowledge basethreado > Activate members, provide support, and automate workflows across community tools and platformsBevy > Build, grow and scale your global community with community-led eventstulula > Build, grow and engage your communities with events, hackathons and interactive gamesbutter > The best way to plan & run highly engaging sessions

💳 Paid MembershipsGhost > Turn your audience into a businessScaleGrowth > Grow, engage, monetize your community-driven businessPatreon > Let your most passionate fans support your creative work via monthly membershipKlyk > Host better online events, turn your passion into profitMemberful > Monetize your passion with membership

📊 Community AnalyticsCommon Room > Instantly connect community engagement across all channels to unlock intelligent insights and actionsAhoyConnect > Community DataIntelligence PlatformOrbit > Build relationships, not spreadsheets

3️⃣ Web3 Community Platformsuuki > Build meaningful relationships with content, discussions, events under your own brandrally > Crypto for Creative CommunitiesChiliz is a blockchain fintech provider for sports & entertainment

👔 Services

👥 AgenciesAscendant > agency that helps build a community

💬 CommunitiesMakerpad > A Global No-Code Communitycommunity club > The community for community buildersIndie Hackers > connect with developers who are sharing the strategiesLaunch MBA > paid communy for no-codersUserdome > a community of early adoptersCapiche > a community of people who care about softwareNewsletter Crew > a community of expert newsletter writers

💼 Job BoardsCommunity Jobs > Discover community jobs at companies all over the worldCMX Community Job Board > Check out our recent listings below or add a job listing nowThe Community Roundtable > Find Your Next Job In CommunityCommunity Manager Jobs > Find, build, and grow your next communitySwipe Files Job Board > The best marketing jobs in tech

🔗 Useful Links

1. community club > The community for community builders

2. Community OS > Create, grow and scale a community with this actionable Notion workbook and resource

3. The Community-Led Report > We’ve come so far in the past decade — but we’ve reached a critical point for the community industry

4. State of Community Tools > The community tooling trends and insights you need to know about

5. +50 Slack Community Tools (2022)

6. How lemlist’s community is playing a big part in their rapid growth > An interview with Guillaume Moubeche, co-founder of lemlist

7. Community-Led Growth: The Product-Led Growth Expansion Pack > Corinne Marie Riley on Community-led growth

8. Community-Led Growth Is Taking Tech by Storm > These startups encourage connections — not just transactions

9. Let's find the best community solution based on your needs

10. 40+ Online Community Stats You Must Know in 2022

📰 Recent News

1. Circle.so comes around again with fresh capital, led by Tiger Global, for $200M valuation

2. Commsor Raises a $50m Community-Led Series B

3. Commsor acquires Caravel, a tool that analyzes customer feedback

4. Spotify is developing ‘Community,’ a new place to see your friends’ activity in the mobile app

Thanks for reading. See you next time 👋

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