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In the age of social media, most brand communities exist mainly online via social media platforms like Reddit, TikTok, Facebook, or X.

So, when you think of community management, you might think the person in charge of that is a social media manager.

However, that may not be the case. There are actually significant differences between social media and community management, though the two can go hand-in-hand. What are those differences? Well, keep reading to find out.

Community Management vs Social Media Management

Here are some key differences between community management and social media management.

1. Different Goals

Community managers aim to boost brand visibility and engagement. They also work extensively toward a long-term goal of crafting a strong, supportive community around the brand—which can take years.

Conversely, social media managers often have sales-related goals and are concerned with social media ROI. They usually create or post content to redirect followers to the brand’s website, where they can purchase or perform a specific action.

Social media managers often measure their success by tracking conversion and click-through rates.

2. Different Responsibilities

HubSpot’s Principal Marketing Manager of Community, Erica Finley, says, “The biggest distinction between community management and social media management is that community is peer-to-peer and social media is one-to-many.”

She mentions how she used to work for a brand with an excellent social media presence.

“The rapport was great between the brand accounts and the fans, and it created a very positive brand affinity,” she explains.

There was just one problem.

“The drawback, however, was that the fans didn’t have a place to congregate without us — to share their enthusiasm, exchange best practices, ask their questions, and strengthen their networks,” Finley says.

“Giving them a dedicated community space with specific guardrails and special rituals that we developed over time allowed them to flourish personally and professionally.”

In other words, community managers don‘t just manage specific platforms; they create a culture around their brand that benefits the brand and its consumers.

On the other hand, social media managers are mainly concerned with growing a brand’s presence on digital platforms.

3. Different Skills

Social media managers must be knowledgeable about social media trends, strategies, and the current landscape.

They must also be able to track social media metrics as they apply to each platform and use their findings to create or improve a strategy.

Community managers require a different skill set. They must possess excellent interpersonal skills to build and facilitate relationships between the brand and its audience.

Community managers must also be problem solvers who can quickly, professionally, and seamlessly resolve conflict or issues in the brand’s community.

4. Different Measures of Success

Social media managers measure their success concerning the company’s overall yearly goals.

So, if a company wants to boost sales by the end of the year, a social media manager would check metrics to see if their social media posts convinced people to make a purchase.

If a company wants to boost web traffic, a social media manager will analyze data to see how many website visitors came from platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok.

On the other hand, measuring success for a community manager can be less clear.

“Community efforts are not hard to quantify, but there will still be leadership teams who ‘don’t get it,” Finley says. “Community isn’t new, but it’s newer and less strictly defined in business settings than sales or digital marketing.”

Community managers often focus less on how their work led to direct sales and more on brand awareness and how often people talk about the brand online (and if the chatter is positive).

Success is measured by how the brand’s community grows in the long run and how users interact with the brand.

How Community Managers and Social Media Managers Can Work Together

Community and social media managers can work in tandem to build your brand’s representation, bridge the gap between the organization and its target audience, and drive sales.

Social media managers ensure a fun and engaging line of communication via digital platforms, while community managers build rapport. Mix them both, and you have a dream team.

Social media managers can help keep community managers informed about what social media platforms work best when communicating with target consumers and what best practices on those platforms are.

From there, community managers can facilitate space for consumers to engage with the brand, network, and grow.

Community management helps you build trust, loyalty, and connection with your audience. It’s also how you make sure your audience gets the most out of what you offer them.

Given its importance, I understand why engaging with your own communities can feel daunting—you likely don’t want to mess it up.

Not to fear. I did some online digging for this piece and found some excellent community management examples to share with you. They’re great inspiration, and give you an idea of how other brands have cultivated their own successful communities.

Community Management Examples

1. The Spot

The Spot is HubSpot’s online community dedicated to supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion among underrepresented professionals. All Black Collective is a community within The Spot for Black professionals.

In the image below, Kyle Foster, Senior Marketing Manager at HubSpot and member of The Spot Community Team, shares a post that asks members what they want to see in the community.

This kind of direct communication is a great example of community management.

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Why I Like This Community Management Example

I think Foster’s ask is a great example of audience-centric community management. He asks for explicit feedback, so any replies are a direct insight into what members want.

Any feedback he puts into action shows members that they’re listened to, their presence in the community is valued, and that community managers want members to get value from being in the community.

The Spot is also advertised as a supportive community for people traditionally left out of conversations, so Foster’s post only furthers the community mission by including people in the conversation.

How to Make This Your Own: The Spot’s audience-centric community management strategy bolsters member satisfaction. To do this yourself, I recommend exactly what Foster did: ask your members about their preferences and how you can help them and act on their feedback.

2. Spotify Ideas

Spotify Ideas community is a place for Spotify users to submit ideas and recommendations for future Spotify features.

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This forum is an excellent example of using community management for audience-led growth.

Why I Like This Community Management Example

Spotify’s Ideas community is meant to help drive product innovations based on the experience of people who use the product daily.

It also does a great job of generating excitement and encouraging participation with gamification-like rules. Members can vote for and comment on ideas they like, and ideas with more traction and activity are more likely to be sent to Spotify teams to review and incorporate into product updates.

How to Make This Your Own: Spotify is a big brand, so it can create a community specifically for pushing product innovation. I know this isn’t an option for everyone, but you can still create opportunities to solicit feedback about your product or service.

A few methods I recommend are asking for feedback on a website forum (if you have one), sharing feedback surveys in email newsletters, and soliciting feedback in comment sections — these are all ways to get the information you need to drive innovation.

3. Topicals

Topicals is one of my favorite skincare brands.

Its products help and I appreciate its commitment to helping people understand the science behind its products and why they work.

It’s very active on social media and does a great job of using comment sections to provide support. The image below is an example of one of those interactions.

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Why I Like This Community Management Example

In the image above, Topicals answered a question in the comments, a good example of support as a community management tool.

First, it showed that it’s committed to helping people succeed with its products and will answer questions when asked.

Second, its response helps the original asker and anyone else browsing its profile with the same question get closer to a purchase decision.

Even if people don’t have that same question, they’re learning that the comment section is a great resource for information and probably a quicker way to get support before potentially reaching out via DM or filing a help ticket.

How to Make This Your Own: To get like Topicals, do exactly like Topicals. Actively engage with people in your comment sections and try to answer questions. I recommend keeping your responses live (unless you make product changes) so anyone who browses can benefit from the support you’ve already offered.

4. Hunter Harris

Hunter Harris is a journalist, screenwriter, podcaster, and pop culture connoisseur. Her newsletter, Hung Up, is essays, interviews, reviews, gossip, recommendations — anything she’s hung up on.

She also offers the Hung Up chat for real-time conversation about newsletter content and trending topics. In the email pictured below, Harris expertly draws attention to the chat and converts people with a sense of urgency: the latest episode just came out; let’s talk about it.

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Why I Like This Community Management Example

I think Harris’ Hung Up chat is a great example of cultivating engagement within a community based on a shared interest, which happens to be Harris’ takes on pop culture, television, news, etc.

Yes, reading a personal newsletter can feel like a conversation, but the chat lets people have actual conversations and engage with other Hung Up fans and Harris herself. Everyone participating in the conversation has a shared interest and is eager to hear more of what Harris has to say.

The chat also helps Harris keep people coming back. Most TV shows have weekly episode releases, and pop culture moments are fleeting, so the only way to stay current is to be active in the chat.

How to Make This Your Own: To follow in Hariss’s footsteps, create opportunities for your community to engage and have real-time discussions. You can create chat rooms like she did, encourage interaction on your social media channels (like a Facebook group), or use any of your branded channels that allow for discussion.

My top tip is to encourage engagement if you’re looking for it. As Harris does, set the topic of conversation and tell your audiences that you want to hear their takes, too. When people interact, they’ll deepen the connections they have with you, as well as the other members they communicate with.

5. Apple

Apple Support Community is a place for people to submit questions about Apple products and services and for extremely knowledgeable brand enthusiasts to answer them. People can vote on the helpfulness of solutions, ensuring that the forum is filled with genuine help for those who need it.

It’s a great example of community-led community management.

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Why I Like This Community Management Example

Interaction between members is critical to any online community, which is why I like Apple’s approach.

People are already passionate about Apple’s products, and it leverages that passion to create a self-sufficient community of experts eager to have conversations about Apple and support others who have questions about their products.

One of the main reasons it’s so successful and requires little intervention from Apple employees is that members earn points based on their activity. Helpful answers and solutions earn more points. Points rank people at different levels, and higher levels mean more trusted experts.

For example, a Level 10 member with more than 200,000 points (like the profile pictured below) is a trusted source of information.

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Earning points and leveling up also guarantees engagement, as people seeking expert status are excited to return, answer questions, and earn points that give them access to exclusive perks.

How to Make This Your Own: Yes, Apple has dedicated fans like no other, but most brands still have loyal supporters (even if it’s a smaller group). I recommend identifying your most loyal customers and creating opportunities for them to support other customers.

If you have the means to create a separate forum for community-led support, you can replicate Apple’s exact strategy.

However, I also recommend something as simple as asking a loyal customer for their top tip and circulating that in your marketing materials or creating case studies/customer stories that spotlight fans and their advice for getting the most out of your product.

6. Popheads

Popheads has a subreddit dedicated to pop music discussions. It occasionally invites artists to the forum to host AMA (Ask Me Anything) sessions to interact with fans and generate excitement.

It’s a great example of using exclusivity and engagement as a community management tool.

Why I Like This Community Management Example

Chappell Roan is an artist who did an AMA session on the subreddit.

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Given that she has a large fan base that was likely eager to interact with her and build connections, the exclusivity of an AMA and the potential to have their questions answered drew people in.

The session generated excitement, especially for people who got responses, and also built loyalty as people were likely eager to come back to take advantage of any other exclusive opportunities to interact with famous artists.

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How to Make This Your Own: If you offer something that could benefit from exclusivity, use it to your advantage when cultivating your community. I know that having a budget for celebrities isn’t common, but they’re usually not needed.

For example, you can host exclusive events or opportunities for select members or work with micro-influencers to create unique moments for community engagement.

Hype gets people talking and can encourage people who haven’t been able to take part to do what they can to be chosen next time.

7. Canva Communities

Canvassadors is Canva’s community-led management strategy.

Every community has Canvassadors responsible for moderation, facilitating events, educating members, and inspiring conversation. Canvassadors are elected, which gives them legitimacy among members.

Why I Like This Community Management Example

I like Canva’s approach to community management for the same reason I like Apple’s: it’s a community for Canva users and enthusiasts to talk, help each other out, and get more use out of the platform.

True fans who love the product advocate for it and, since they use it themselves, know how to educate people on how to use it.

How to Make This Your Own: If it makes sense for your brand, my top tip for making Canva’s community-led management strategy your own is creating an ambassador program for your business.

Your ambassadors can act as brand champions, and you can work with them to advocate for your brand, initiate discussions, and build your community.

Over to You

I’ve just reviewed a few great community management examples from brands that I like. Taking inspiration from them is a great way to get started managing your own community.

Pick what you like best from what they’ve done, relate it to your own business, and start engaging; your loyal fans are eager to interact with you.

The headlines tell us SEO is dead. The podcast bros tell us AI will make blogs obsolete. Google tells us, “It’s Tuesday, so there’s another algorithm update, suckers.”

If I could boil down the content rhetoric over the last 12-18 months to one phrase, it would be “Evolve or die.”

So we’ve evolved. And I bet you have to.

My name is Meg, I oversee HubSpot’s full portfolio of English language blogs. And, I’m tired, y’all.

The HubSpot Blog Team is made up of 23 incredibly talented and experienced writers, editors, and strategists. We work with a world-class Content SEO Team. We have the domain authority of being the HubSpot Blog. And … we’ve been challenged to keep up with the rapid pace of the change demanded from us over the last year.

If we’ve found it challenging, I know there are probably a few others feeling the same. So, I thought we’d share some of our playbook with you. It might be similar to yours or it might have a few nuggets you find helpful.

Regardless, it’s rough out there. So the more knowledge sharing we do, the better, right?

In the beginning, there was an update.

The month was March. The year was 2023. The update was Core.

For the uninitiated, Google rolled out an update to its Core Algorithm in March 2023 (what we refer to internally as the “M23 update”). This is nothing new. Google rolls out updates a few times a year. They fix bugs, ensure high-quality SERP results, and move the search-driven world merrily along.

But this algorithm update was different. The impact it had on many publishers would be felt over the following months.

Here’s a snapshot of the organic traffic HubSpot’s blogs saw before the M23 update:

Pre-M23 update: Were we ever this young?

And here’s what things looked like once the M23 update finished rolling out:

Post-M23 update: Trust me, it got worse.

Our Content SEO Team flagged a few areas in which our blog properties were hit hardest:

• Page Experience: The blogs were negatively impacted by our technical page experience, specifically page speed and performance.
• Content Freshness: Content freshness also negatively impacted our performance, specifically posts that had not been updated in 571+ days.

We have a lot of graphs showing the sharp declines in page experience, but they all look pretty much like this:

This was fun to explain to leadership.

Our Technical SEOs immediately dug into page experience. But what did the Blog Team do?

Well, first we panicked, re-evaluated our career decisions, and pondered the end of the written word as we know it. You know, the sorts of things introverted English majors-turned-marketing-writers do.

Then, we looked at the data, and immediately began to overhaul our approach to content on the Blog. This really hinged on the increasing value Google appeared to be putting on experience-driven content (i.e., the new ‘E’ in E-E-A-T)

Wait, what’s E-E-A-T?

If you work in content, you’re probably familiar with Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines. These are the criteria Google uses to evaluate what content it surfaces to users in the SERPs. The E-E-A-T acronym stands for expertise, experience, authority, and trustworthiness.

In 2022, Google added an additional ‘E’ for ‘Experience’ to this acronym, and after the M23 update, we felt the effects.

The publishers most impacted by experience-driven content were:

• Trying to rank for a wide range of topics.
• Providing no evidence the author has proven experience with the topics they’re writing about.
• Product reviews/roundups based on what others have said.

The HubSpot Blog was guilty on all counts. Our library spanned hundreds of topics across multiple industries. Our writers were expert researchers and generalists, but they didn’t always have direct, lived experience with every single topic they wrote about.

Who was winning in the experience era? It was publishers who:

• Provided ample evidence of real experience (like writing in the first person).

• Added original images, screenshots, and video.
• Included unique anecdotes you wouldn’t have unless you actually tested the thing yourself.

Armed with this information (and more than a little humility), we got to work.

The HubSpot Blog’s E-E-A-T Case Study

Is there anything a marketer loves more than running a case study (except for becoming a moderately successful LinkedIn influencer)? HubSpot Content SEO Strategist Ivelisse Rodriguez ran our E-E-A-T case study and built the playbook for how the HubSpot Blog approaches “E-E-A-T-ified” content (i.e., content that’s less susceptible to AIOs and more likely to rank).

The case study focused on E-E-A-Tifying/historically updating our 17 Best Free Website Builders to Check Out in 2024 [+Pros & Cons] blog post.

Why this post? Well, it was a top driver of traffic, leads, and signups for the business, but demand had become volatile after the M23 update:

This is totally fine, right?

And here’s the massive boost in traffic the post enjoyed after Rodriguez’s successful E-E-A-T-ification:

Go on, Ivelisse.

Signups alone increased +251% and CVR followed at +26%. How did Rodriguez do it? Simple, she made (E)xperience Soup. Here’s her recipe:

She infused lived experience with her personal opinions and balanced it all out with an objective observation. Boom, a tasty soup packed with leads, traffic, and signups. Everything a growing marketer needs.

She used this recipe as a framework for structuring the entire piece. Take a look:

• Personal Anecdote: “I Can’t count the number of WordPress.com sites I’ve built for fun. It’s easy to sign up, it’s free, and its included domain name is not as ugly (and more recognizable) than others on this list. “Brandname.wordpress.com” has a nice ring to it, right?”
• Subjective Opinion: “The themes are modern and mobile-optimized. I was surprised to find that I liked quite a few of the designs. When I’ve used WordPress in the past, I found the themes lackluster, but it seems to have updated its library.”
• Objective Observation: “Keep in mind that the site is still in the bare minimum stages. You still need to go into the dashboard and add pages and content. Unfortunately, on the free version, you can’t install plugins, including the HubSpot WordPress marketing plugin.”

Of course, it’s easier to make (E)xperience Soup when you have experience with the product or subject matter you’re writing about. But how do you take an E-E-A-T-ified approach on a subject you have limited experience in? Let’s take a look at how Rodriguez approached this challenge:

• Personal Anecdote: “I was surprised to see that Webflow includes different workspaces, something I didn’t run across in other tools (except CMS Hub, which allows you to have access to different portals). This makes Webflow an excellent choice for large teams where you might have different workspaces depending on permissions or job function.”
• Subjective Opinion: “Webflow’s page builder is complicated and the learning curve is steep. While the tool does include a setup checklist, it’s not as simple to follow as others on this list.”
• Objective Observation: “You can add HTML elements such as sections, containers, divs, lists, buttons, headings, and so on. The tool does include more technical language, so you’ll encounter terms such as “V Flex,” which refers to a vertical flexbox.”

Rodriguez is transparent about using the product for the first time. She’s also open about what she liked and didn’t like about Webflow’s functionality — something pre-E-E-A-T HubSpot bloggers would never …

The full E-E-A-T treatment for this piece focused on a few areas:

• Demoing the products, focusing on a beginner’s perspective. Gone are the days where publishers could round up the top product reviews in the SERPs and build upon them for a skyscraper-type listicle. Real-world insight and experience with the products are non-negotiable.
• Truncating the list from 17 to seven items, using personal preference and an un-scientific method. We can talk about those Google leaks in another post, but even before that peek behind the curtain, we knew shorter lists would allow us to go deeper into our topics — an important E-E-A-T factor.
• Writing the article in first-person point of view, creating (E)xperience soup by mixing in personal anecdotes, subjective opinions, and objective observations.
• Incorporating personal opinion and personal experience into the post. Rodriguez states her experience in the first paragraph of the piece. And she’s clear about what she likes and doesn’t like about each product.

The success of Rodriguez’ case study led us to overhaul our approach to blog content. We threw out the organic strategy that worked so well from 2017-2022 and embraced a new HubSpot style that would help us write the best-possible content for our audience and remain competitive in the SERPs.

Don’t call it a glow up.

We’re certainly not out of the immensely convoluted Google woods yet. But I’m proud to share that the portion of HubSpot blog posts our team has E-E-A-T-ified over the last nine months have stabilized and, in some instances, seen increases that rival our original case study.

I see you.

Maybe it’s been a minute since someone said this to you, but your written work is so important. Your content strategy is valuable. And the words you string together for email copy, blog posts, and YouTube scripts are appreciated.

Content folks are a scrappy bunch, and I think we’ve all become a bit better over the last year. I’m excited to see us continue to evolve, and I hope to share more of how the HubSpot Blog is changing with you soon.

As of 2024, 86% of social media marketers say building an active and engaging online community is critical to a successful social media strategy.

If your company wants to build or expand its social media community, you’re probably wondering which approach is better—in-house or outsourced community management.

Fortunately, I have years of experience in both and can give some advice based on what I learned working in-house and later for an outsourced marketing firm.

Here’s what you need to know.

Table of Contents:

In-House Community Management 

Outsourced Community Management

How to Choose Between In-House and Outsourced Community Management

In-House Community Management

In-house community management is when an internal employee or team manages community relations between a brand and its audience, especially on social media.

For example, when I was a journalist at First Coast News in Jacksonville, I was a part of the team of reporters that managed First Coast Weather Watchers, a Facebook Community page the station started to better connect with its audience.

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As was the rest of my team, I was already an internal employee with First Coast News, so we would be considered in-house community management.

Outsourced Community Management

Outsourced community management is when an organization has its online community managed by an outside source, such as a freelancer or marketing firm.

Before working at HubSpot, I worked for a marketing firm that would write content for clients’ web pages.

We also had a team to manage our clients’ social media pages and communicate with their community. This would be outsourced community management since our team was employed by the marketing firm rather than the clients.

How to Choose Between In-House and Outsourced Community Management

Here’s what I notice most companies consider when deciding between in-house and outsourced community management.

Budget

Let’s go back to my TV station example. Most local television news stations have a very tight budget, so it made sense for leadership to keep community management in-house.

In contrast, the companies I worked with at the marketing firm had a bigger budget and could afford to outsource community management. So, when choosing between in-house or community management, consider your budget.

According to ContentFac, outsourcing social media marketing (which includes community management) can cost anywhere from $3,000 to $20,000 per month, with an average of $4,000 to $7,000 per month.

If that sounds like a stretch for your budget, consider hiring in-house.

Expertise

First Coast News easily formed a community management team in-house because we already had the needed expertise.

Most journalists have already honed the skill of connecting with their community and are pretty social media savvy (that’s often how they get the scoops for their stories).

On the other hand, my clients at the marketing firm typically consisted of business owners unfamiliar with social media marketing and didn’t have the time to build their online communities from scratch. So, they outsourced to my firm.

Ask yourself if any employees or positions within your organization can easily lend themselves to social media community management. Is there anyone who is social media savvy?

Do they know the intricacies of Facebook, X, Instagram, TikTok, or other platforms?

Can you hire someone to work in-house?

If not, consider outsourcing.

Control

Finally, you will want to consider how much control you will relinquish. Okay, back to the news example. Trust and a positive reputation are gold for any news outlet.

Their audiences need to know the information is accurate, reliable, and coming from a trustworthy source.

Outsourcing our social media community management would have meant entrusting our reputation and our audience’s trust to another organization, and those factors were simply too precious for us to gamble with.

So, we stayed in-house.

However, my clients at the marketing firm were not news outlets, and they did not have to strictly adhere to the tenets of journalism. Again, they were not very savvy with social media and could use the extra help to bring their vision to life.

So, they entrusted the firm I was working for with their vision and community management goals. This meant collaborating with writers and marketing managers and trusting our process.

If you’re comfortable placing some control in the hands of a marketing firm, freelancer, or outsourced manager, then outsourcing could work for you. If that seems too big of a risk, then consider in-house community management.

Both in-house and outsourced community management have their perks, but it’s up to you and your organization to decide which approach is best for the success of community management.

Now that you know the differences between the two approaches and what factors to consider, you’re one step closer to deciding which way to go in your online marketing campaign. Good luck!

In a perfect world, my car would run on starlight and dreams, fries would taste good reheated, and we would never be asked to prove the ROI of community management.

Unfortunately, that’s not the world we live in — so I reached out to 3 different community management experts and asked how they show the value of their community.

Below, I’ll share their best tips for communicating ROI to your stakeholders. (We’ll tackle the fries thing another day.)

But first, it helps to know what you’re up against…

Table of Contents

• Why is it so stinkin’ hard to show the value of community management?
• Tips for Proving the ROI of Community Management
• Drawing a Line from KPI to ROI

Why is it so stinkin’ hard to show the value of community management?

If you run a community (or have been a part of one) the value is self-evident. So why isn’t it as easily stakeholder-evident, too?

As you take on reporting for your community, you need to keep these challenges in mind.

The benefits aren’t always monetary.

Direct access to your customers is priceless. Unfortunately, that means it’s also hard to put a price tag on it.

And how do you measure the value of a user who didn’t file a support ticket because they found the answer in your community?

The benefits aren’t always visible.

Brand awareness, advocacy, sales acceleration, and increased product usage are all very real, very tangible benefits of a thriving community.

Unfortunately, unless a member comes right out and says it’s because of your community, those benefits are usually happening behind the scenes.

Tracking attribution is tricky.

Even when the benefits are both visible and monetary (like leads, signups, or sales) it can be difficult to show that your community was the interaction that caused that conversion.

It’s likely that your members go through several touchpoints (blogs, videos, events, etc.) before even reaching a potential conversion event.

It often spans multiple channels.

Finally, as your community grows, it will likely live on some combination of forums, Slack, social media, etc.

That’s great for growth, but a challenge for analytics.

But hope isn’t lost. Behind every successful community is a leader who figured out how to report on its value. Below, you’ll hear from three experts who’ve done exactly that.

Tips for Proving the ROI of Community Management

Ultimately, the only way to show ROI is to draw a straight line from your community’s actions to the stakeholder’s goals.

Of course, we know from the challenges above that it’s not always that simple in the living. Here are some actionable ways to make that happen.

1. Get buy-in before you build.

Showing a return on investment is a lot easier when your stakeholders understand what the potential value is. Without buy-in, you’re not actually reporting on progress toward that value; you’re trying to justify your existence.

“In theory, if your company is launching a community you already have executive buy-in,” says Jenny Sowyrda, HubSpot’s very own manager of community strategy and operations.

“If you don’t, pause here and go back to find an ally who wants you to have a community,” she adds.

(Seriously. Stop reading and go book a meeting.)

“A very blunt way to say this is that if you aren’t building your community, your customers and prospects are already building one somewhere else,” Sowyrda says.

“And when you don’t manage the community where your brand is being discussed, you lose control of the narrative, you lose direct access to your audience, and you’re going to be running an uphill battle of trying to build trust with a group of people who don’t need you.”

But how do you get that buy-in if you don’t have anything to report on yet? Jenny has your back in our next tip.

2. Start with a small pilot.

“I would call out the importance of experimenting and testing before going all in on a community effort,” says Sowyrda. “Start small and simple and then scale.”

In other words, start with a small pilot that can serve as a proof-of-concept for larger community efforts. That may look like a simple Facebook group, a product forum, or a single, dedicated channel on Discord or Slack.

“This gives you time to identify what your success metrics are, see if there is a positive correlation, and then scale,” she adds.

If you find that positive correlation, you’ve now got the data you need to make your case to leadership. And if you don’t find the correlation, your program is still light enough to try something new.

3. Set clear expectations for timeline.

You’ve presented your pilot and gotten buy-in; the next most important thing to talk about is timeline.

“There are no quick wins in community,” cautions Jenny Sowyrda. “Yet it is such an important part of building a trustworthy and valuable company.”

That may not be immediately clear to business leaders who are used to the relatively fast turnaround of paid ads and traditional marketing. It’s part of your job to set expectations for the timeline — and you need to set them early and repeatedly.

“Make sure your stakeholders know that building a strong community is a marathon, not a sprint,” says Alyssa Martin, community manager at HeyOrca. “It takes time to build trust and advocacy.”

4. Ask stakeholders about their goals and what metrics define success.

While you’re having those initial conversations anyway, go ahead and ask your stakeholders what they care about.

“Get to know them, get to know their pain points,” says Max Pete, community engagement program manager at Square. “What are their goals and what are they looking for in terms of success metrics?”

Another great question is how they define “success”—both in terms of data and outcome. Other questions to consider are:

• What metrics do you use to measure your goals?
• What would a meaningful impact look like to those goals?
• What outcomes do you need to see from this project?

“It is super important to have those early conversations with key stakeholders on what is important data for them,” Max adds. “[Proving ROI is] difficult if you don’t know what you should be reporting on.”

5. Approach reporting as problem solving.

One of my absolute favorite takeaways from talking with Max Pete: To approach reporting not as simply presenting data — but as how community helps to solve stakeholder problems.

Now that you know their goals, pain points, and definitions of success, tailor your reporting to tell a story about how the community addresses all of that.

As a bonus, this mindset will also help you focus your reporting on only the most important community management metrics.

6. Connect your community to other teams.

Finally, consider that stakeholder goals aren’t the only way to show value. By connecting your efforts to other team’s goals, your community increases its own ROI.

“I am very biased but I’m pretty sure you can apply community to every element of your business,” Jenny says with a smile.

Max Pete gives the example of using Square’s community reach to bring attention to a new marketing campaign.

“Because our cross-functional partner and I had a common goal of increasing engagement, we came up with a month-long activation campaign for members to participate in the community,” Pete says. “The idea was to drive conversation around specific topics and use a CTA to drive members to read more.”

In the end, the collaboration boosted traffic to the marketing campaign while also increasing engagement among the community—a win-win for both teams!

And both of those successes will look great during stakeholder meetings.

Drawing a Line from KPI to ROI

So now you’ve established goals. You’ve set expectations. You’ve defined success. It’s time to choose what metrics will combine all of that into a cohesive story.

We’ll go deeper into how to measure these KPIs in our blog about community management metrics, but for now, here are some options to consider based on what your stakeholders value.

Brand Awareness

Social Mentions

“This is probably one of my favourite ways to prove how a community is building trust,” says HeyOrca’s Alyssa Martin. “Always take screenshots of these posts! It’s great to have to help prove your point.”

Share of Voice

Share of voice compares your portion of brand awareness against competitors. In addition to social mentions, it can include paid ads clicks or keyword traffic.

Referral Rate/Advocacy Rate

If your stakeholders are focused on brand awareness, referral rate is a great metric to highlight. Communities are uniquely effective in turning customers into promoters.

Event Participation Rate

This can refer to in-person events as well as online events like courses or webinars. Community members often have a higher participation rate than non-member audiences.

Conversion/Revenue

Conversion Rate (CVR)

This can be a tricky metric, because communities made up of existing customers may have a lower conversion rate. You’ll have to define what conversion means for those cases.

Community Attributed Leads/Signups/Sales

This is another area where cross-functional campaigns can help. Other teams may already have access to downstream reporting on their own success metrics. If you can show that your community is a source of traffic for those teams, that can help you connect their conversions to your community campaigns.

Cost Per Conversion (CPC)

You’ll need to calculate the total cost of running your community in order to find your CPC. That can be a big ask, but it’s likely worth the effort.

You’ll probably find that community-attributed conversions are much more cost-effective than other forms of marketing.

Customer Service/Customer Support

Traffic to FAQ Pages or Knowledge Base Articles

Remember above when we asked how to show the value of a customer who doesn’t file a support ticket? This is one way.

If you can show that your community is a major source of traffic to self-service resources, it indicates that your community is saving your company money.

Average Response Time

Since you’re spending so much time with your community, you may find that your response time is quicker than officially filed tickets.

Response Rate

While this typically refers to the number of queries that receive a response, Jenny Sowyrda explains that it can also refer to the percentage of responses that come from your company (versus other members).

That can be a good indicator that your members are receiving accurate information from trustworthy sources.

Resolution Rate

This metric is like response rate, but specific to members who bring up issues or complaints.

Product or Company Feedback

Surveys and Polls

Direct access to customer/prospect opinions is one of the unique benefits of community management, and you should be tapping into it often.

“If you want to know what they want, you can just ask them!” says Sowyrda. “If you want to know what they don’t like, they’re probably already telling you (but you can also just ask them!)”

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

You may not know it by name, but you’ve definitely encountered NPS surveys before.

NPS is based on some variation of the question “On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend our brand/product/service to a friend or colleague?”

Sentiment Analysis

Sentiment analysis refers to using software to analyze the emotional tone of content. A good community management tool can help you analyze how your members feel about your company, product, or service.

Feature Requests

Your members can be one of the best sources of new ideas for improving your products and services.

And, in return, fulfilling feature requests can be one of the best ways to delight your community members.

Product Feedback

“You can give the microphone to your community and let them speak about their experience and expertise,” says Jenny.

If you follow the tips from our experts, you should be able to quickly narrow down which of these metrics are right for your community.

Soon, you’ll be the expert who’s figured out how to prove the ROI of community management. Next stop, french fries.

If you‘ve seen other posts I’ve written about community management, you know I used to manage a Facebook community for a TV station where I worked as a digital journalist.

My experience gave me first-hand knowledge of why community management is important and why brands should invest in it.

Don’t believe me, well consider this: 86% of social media marketers believe having an active community is critical to brands’ success on social media in 2024. Furthermore, 60% say their companies are already building such communities.

Still not convinced? Keep reading, and I‘ll share five reasons community management is integral to marketing based on my experience and that of HubSpot’s Principal Marketing Manager of Community, Erica Finley.

Let’s get into it.

My Experience in Community Management

For context, my experience in community management stems from my time as a digital reporter for a television news station called First Coast News.

The station has a popular Facebook Community page called First Coast Weather Watchers, where viewers can speak to the station’s meteorologists in real time, discuss local weather, and share interesting photos and videos of weather phenomena.

My responsibilities included engaging with our audience, answering questions, facilitating discussions, keeping the online community safe and welcoming, and gathering user-generated content.

Now that you know my credentials, we‘re ready to learn what I’ve learned!

5 Important Reasons for Community Management

1. Community management builds trust and brand loyalty.

When I managed First Coast News’ Facebook community page, I noticed a rapport being built between our audience and our meteorologists.

We often saw the same faces popping up on the page, sharing content, asking questions, and welcoming new members.

And that trust lent to higher viewership for our weather segments and visitors to our website.

“Consumers make decisions based on opinions from people they know, like, and trust,” says Finley. “Word of mouth has never been more powerful, and seeing real-life use cases, being able to ask questions, and hearing earnest reactions to products and services are no longer just ‘nice-to-haves.’”

Building trust via dedicated community spaces can be intimidating for companies because it means yielding some power to audience interactions.

Still, Finley says the conversations are happening anyway, so why not join in the fun and use it to your advantage?

“You may as well carve out dedicated spaces that folks can lean into for inspiration, advice, entertainment, and more,” she says.

2. Community management creates a valuable feedback loop.

Finley says that with community management, “You’ll get a bird’ s-eye view of what’s working and what’s not, what people love, and what they’d like to change, and you can use that insight to improve your product or service.”

And I can attest to this in my own experience.

One of the things I enjoyed most about managing First Coast Weather Watchers was getting feedback from our audience in real-time.

For example, we noticed our community loved the candid explanations one of the meteorologists gave about weather phenomena and how he’d often post photos of himself analyzing weather patterns with coffee in hand.

So, we took this feedback and added a segment to our weather forecast called “Science with Steve,” which turned out to be a hit with our television viewers.

3. It humanizes your brand.

This all goes back to the first point I made about trust. 81% of consumers need to trust a brand before they consider buying. One of the most tried-and-tested ways to build trust is to humanize your brand.

Replying to consumers, engaging in authentic conversations, and throwing in a little humor when appropriate will show the human side of your business.

According to Kristen Baker, who put together our Ultimate Guide to Social Community Management, these interactions make audiences “feel like they’re interacting with real people rather than a faceless entity.”

An example that comes to mind is DuoLingo’s TikTok account.

The account frequently engages with its audience by replying to comments under its videos and trading jokes with its followers.

The company’s close relationship with its followers was beneficial when its account mysteriously lost its verification badge.

Followers were so distraught that they made Duolingo trend on TikTok, demanding that its badge be returned. They even came up with theories as to why it was removed in the first place.

Dedicated followers brought visibility to the issue, and after the company had contacted TikTok, the badge was returned.

4. It can generate unique user-generated content.

Another aspect of community management that I enjoyed was the amount of unique user-generated content we received from viewers in the community.

From videos of tornado spouts to photos of a purple sky after intense storms, the station garnered so much unique content that could be found with our competitors.

We’d then share the content on all our social media platforms and include them in our weather segments on TV while shouting out the senders, encouraging more community members to send in content.

So, if you want to gain more UGC for your social media, website, or marketing channels, starting and managing a community around your platform is the way to go.

Still not convinced? A recent HubSpot survey of 500+ marketers found that 92% say user-generated content increases brand awareness of their products.

5. It drives traffic and conversions.

While managing the Facebook community page, I noticed that organically directing our audience to our website was easy.

For example, I’d often post updates saying, “If you want to learn more about why the sky turns purple after a severe storm, go to the First Coast News website.”

As a result, our posts linked in the community would see higher traffic than posts that weren’t.

The fact is organic interactions with followers create natural opportunities to direct them to your website, blog, or landing pages.

As social media and digital platforms become more integral to marketing and consumers’ experiences, brands must build and leverage online communities to connect with their audiences.

Community management ensures your brand is humanized to your consumers to build trust and a loyal customer base. I see community marketing staying strong for a while, so start building your community now.

When I started thinking about the different types of online communities that exist, I felt like the possibilities were endless.

After all, new communities pop up every day. Some are free, some are paid. Some are public, some are exclusive.

However, based on what I know about community management, there’s a smart way to categorize these communities based on your brand’s engagement goals.

Here’s a list of the main types of online communities for your inspiration.

Top 6 Types of Online Communities

Disclaimer: Some communities may overlap across categories or share similarities with each other. For example, a brand community can also be a social community, and vice versa.

However, there are nuances to keep in mind for each type, and I think that makes all of this worthwhile.

OK, now that I got that off my chest, let’s get into the top six.

1. Brand Communities

A brand community is a place where like-minded customers can come together and talk about how much they love what you do, create, or value.

From my perspective, these communities can help you strengthen the relationship between your brand and your biggest supporters. For that reason alone, just about any type of community could be considered a brand community.

How brand communities work:

• This community is typically cultivated from the people who follow you on social media and/or actively buy (and enjoy) your products and services.
• They have an emotional connection to your brand which inspires brand loyalty and advocacy to other potential customers.
• Often, companies who leverage this community type offer incentives for sharing or creating brand-related content (e.g., showing others how to use their favorite products).

Best for: Brands of all sizes and across industries, especially those with a strong brand identity

Example: Canva Design Community (Brand Community for Canva Designers)

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What I like about Canva’s Design Community: I absolutely love Canva, and I’m always looking for inspiration for my next project. This community is easy to join. Plus, I get all the best advice from users who enjoy the platform as much as I do.

2. Social Communities

Naturally, these types of communities live on social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and X (formerly known as Twitter), LinkedIn, and Reddit.

The goal of a social community is to create a virtual gathering space where your followers can chat, have fun, and make connections.

How social communities work:

• You’re building engagement around audience interests, your brand campaigns, or industry events. The first example I think of is an interest-based Facebook Group (my millennial is showing).
• They can be as big or small as you’d like — from larger interest-based groups (like Nike Run Club), to smaller discussion-based forums (like this Supernote subreddit).
• While conversations are generally led by the community members, brands can encourage engagement through user-generated campaigns and targeted conversation starters.

Best for: Brands who have a strong social media presence, emerging businesses who are looking to increase brand awareness

Example: Instant Pot Community (Social Community for Instant Pot Users)

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What I like about the Instant Pot Community: Instant Pots are SO versatile. This community inspires diversity. It allows people from all walks of life to share their favorite recipes with each other — from family recipes to cultural staples.

3. Networking Communities

Be honest, was LinkedIn the first thought that came to mind for this one? It was for me.

LinkedIn is one of the largest professional networks that exists. This makes it a great channel for networking communities — like professional organizations and advisory committees — that promote collaboration.

How networking communities work:

• Networking communities are typically discussion-based and designed to help connect members to new opportunities.
• You can connect your members with industry professionals for advice, mentorship, or training — as well as people seeking those services if your community holds the expertise.
• In addition to LinkedIn, you can use free platforms like Zoom or Microsoft Teams for virtual meet-ups, real-time forums, or community events.

Best for: National businesses with local hubs, educational institutions, brands in specific niches (e.g., career development)

Example: Chief (Networking Community for Women Executives)

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What I like about Chief: Outside of the fact that Chief supports women in power positions, I like that the network of women executives is vetted. This positions the community as trustworthy which is attractive to prospective members.

4. Content Communities

When I say content communities, think of this blog, forums like Reddit, and chat platforms like Discord. Multimedia communities like YouTube are also in the mix.

Content communities rely on shared contributions from its members. Your favorite subreddit is nothing without threads, and the HubSpot Blog would be nothing without our writers.

How content communities work:

• People join content communities because they share a common interest. It could be professional, recreational, or based on lifestyle.
• The community thrives off of its members who regularly contribute, consume, and share content.
• Guest content opportunities, user-generated content campaigns, and quizzes/polls are all great ways to get members involved and facilitate growth.

Best for: Businesses with limited resources who would benefit from external contributors to round out their content strategy 

Example: Chewy (Content Community on YouTube)

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What I like about Chewy’s YouTube Community: Chewy makes great use of the poll feature in YouTube’s Community tab. They ask targeted questions like “What’s on your pet’s summer wish list?” which gives them the insights to tailor their offerings to their customers’ preferences.

5. Support Communities

If you’ve ever contributed to a knowledge base or shared an FAQ, congrats! You’re an important part of a support community.

Support communities are ideal for brands who benefit from offering technical guidance or strategic insights to their customers.

How support communities work:

• Support communities are usually focused on peer-to-peer conversations with support from technical experts and customer success specialists.
• Resources like how-to articles and discussion forums for common challenges and solutions live in these communities.
• They rely on first-hand experience using a particular product or service along with tips, tricks, and best practices from fellow users (or developers).

Best for: Businesses with a dedicated customer support department, technical brands or brands with products and services that require guidance (e.g., SaaS, internet providers, DIY, etc.)

Example: HubSpot Community

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What I like about HubSpot Community: OK, sure, I may be a little biased. But the HubSpot Community is jam-packed with helpful support resources. You can easily join in on top conversations, discover new forums, join community groups, and much more.

6. Learning Communities

Learning communities inspire education and knowledge-building, but they don’t have to strictly be academic.

A lot of these communities are either centered around building a skill (e.g., communication) or a specific topic or area of interest (e.g., candle making).

How learning communities work:

• Learning community members are all working toward a common goal — like improving communication skills or getting good at making candles.
• The community benefits from people sharing ideas, asking questions, giving feedback, and supporting their peers.
• Learning communities are often part of larger communities like brand, social, networking, content, and support.

Best for: Brands of all sizes and across industries, especially those in specialty niches (e.g., cooking/baking) or higher education

Example: CandleScience (Learning Community for Candle Makers)

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What I like about the CandleScience Community: If you can’t tell by now, I’m a candle enthusiast. And I actually make them in my spare time. I love how CandleScience uses their blog as a discussion forum for aspiring chandlers.

Before we wrap up, I highly encourage you to check this out if you’re new to community building: How to Build a Successful Online Community: A Step-by-Step Guide.

Deciding on a community type is one thing, but that will tell you how to really make it shine (with tips from the experts who’ve done just that).

Happy Community Building

Feeling inspired yet?

If I leave you with nothing else, just remember this: Focus on building the type of community that aligns your brand and supports what you want to accomplish.

With the right strategy, you’ll make it easy for your audience to meet you where you are.

Brands build online communities around their target audiences.

As consumer preferences change and technological advances offer more and more opportunities, community management strategies change alongside them.

In this piece, I’ll go over community management trends to be aware of in 2024 and how you can adapt them for yourself.

Community Management Trends in 2024

1. Hyper-Personalization

A community management trend I’ve noticed most often is hyper-personalization, and I’m not surprised by this:

Consumers’ expectations for personalized experiences have reached an all-time high, and this desire has grown within online communities.

Consumers, including myself, want to feel connected to the brands they support, and personalized experiences create a sense of belonging that keeps people coming back for more.

How to Adopt This Trend

My top tip for community managers looking to adopt this trend is to gather information about your ideal members and use that information to create a personalized experience. For example;

• Data about your community members behavior, interests, and preferences can help you generate personalized content recommendations and target messaging that is unique to individual users.
• You can create personalized onboarding experiences for each member with custom welcome messages, suggestion sections or community spaces to join, and resources to help them get the most out of their experience.

AI can be extremely helpful when providing personalized experiences, and I’ll touch on this below.

2. Leveraging AI in community management.

Community management helps you ensure your community runs as you want it to, enables you to build those relationships with members, and ensures your community is a safe and respectful space for all who use it.

As more and more people eagerly join online communities, it can become understandably more challenging for community managers to keep a pulse on everything.

To supplement their duties, a recent trend in community management is leveraging AI-powered tools as trusty sidekicks.

How to Adopt This Trend

My top tip for using AI as a community management sidekick is to choose a tool that is specific to your exact needs.

Some tasks that AI tools can be helpful for are:

• AI tools can scan through the content within your community to detect and remove harmful content in real time to keep communities safe and aligned with your community standards.
• AI-powered chatbots can use information about members to offer personalized experiences and direct them to the content most aligned with their interests.
• Sentiment analysis tools can monitor conversations and alert human moderators to any issues that need immediate attention.

If you want a general solution, look for community management tools with multiple use cases.

Pro Tip: Whenever I recommend using AI, I have to mention that it’s important to not become overly reliant on it. Use it as a trusty sidekick to bolster your efforts, not as the sole thing responsible for managing your community. Always look over your tool’s shoulders to ensure it performs exactly as you want it to.

3. In-person community events.

Online communities help you deepen relationships, but there’s no better way to build relationships than in-person connections.

Jenny Sowyrda, Manager of Community Strategy and Operations at HubSpot, had the same thought and told me, “It seems like 2024 is becoming the year of people wanting to find value in person. I believe that folks are saturated with online content and the curation that comes along with that.”

In-person events are an additional opportunity to offer immersive and interactive experiences that you can’t necessarily build online.

As a result, a community management trend I predict will grow is creating opportunities for in-person connection at in-person events.

How to Adopt This Trend

Sowyrda says, “There’s something fun about going to an in-person event, or meeting folks in person, because you don’t know where the conversation is going to go – you don’t know what you’re going to learn.”

I recommend looking for opportunities where it makes sense to offer in-person elements. They don’t have to be large-scale, expensive experiences — you can choose whatever works best for your budget and ability.

For example, if you’re launching a new product, you can invite a select few members to a small launch party where they can try out your new product.

However you adopt this trend, always make sure your in-person events are focused around building connections and allowing attendees to interact.

4. Niche interest communities.

Consumer desire for increased personalization gives way to this trend, as more niche communities let people join groups hyper-specific to their interests.

And, these more niche communities go a long way in building trust and genuine connection between community members and between you and your community members.

How to Adopt This Trend

Successfully offering niche communities comes from understanding your community members. Do they have any unique interests, hobbies, or identities that align with your brand? Any unique interests can be used to create them.

You can create niche interest communities that are standalone, or even create sub communities within your main community, so long as you share content and offer engagement opportunities that members would expect to find.

This is an extremely general example, but it explains what I mean: if you’re a t-shirt company and you create a niche community for red t-shirt lovers, you want to share red t-shirt related content. Talking about purple t-shirts isn’t of interest to your members.

Pro Tip: Micro-influencers (between 10K and 100K followers) can shine in helping you attract people to your niche communities. They bring marketers the most success because they have a smaller group of more loyal and engaged followers.

If you find an influencer that fits with the niche community you want to create, they likely have a trusted group of followers who are a good fit.

5. Humanizing your brand.

Consumers want the brands and businesses they support to let their personalities shine. They want conversational tones that show there are real people behind the brand that add an air of humanized authenticity that people crave.

I think Viktoriia Khutorna, communications specialist at Promova, puts this well:

“People are likely to go to a company that not only sells at a reasonable price but also communicates humanly, jokes, supports, or honestly admits mistakes and goes to fix them.”

This consumer desire runs over into online communities as well: people want to know that there is a real, human community manager that engages with them.

How to Adopt This Trend

My tip for community managers is to be conversational when you share content with the community and in any interactions you have with members.

Canned responses can be the baseline templates, but further humanize them with each interaction you have.

You can also share behind the scenes content that show the day to day of your brand, display your unique personality and humor

Sharing behind the scenes content is also a great way to humanize your brand.

You could, for example, have a community manager give a behind the scenes look into their day to day as a community manager. It gives a face to a username, and shows members that there is a real human behind the screen.

6. Data security.

A trend we uncovered in our Consumer Trend Surveys is that consumers are more concerned than ever about privacy and data security, and this is relevant for community management as well.

Members expect the communities they’re part of are safe and secure, that information they share about themselves to join the community and while they’re in the community is protected, and any personal data and information is secure.

How to Adopt This Trend

If you’re building your community, I recommend having data and privacy protection measures in place. For example:

• If you collect credit card or banking information for subscription payments, it must be stored securely or deleted after one-time payments. I highly recommend using secure payment processors built to help you prioritize financial security.
• If you collect personal demographic information (like email or addresses), it needs to be stored securely so bad actors can’t access it.

For whatever kind of data you collect, always let members know you’re collecting it, how you store it, and how you plan to use it. Transparency is key; consumers are more likely to trust you if you give up-front explanations.

Consumer preferences are always changing.

The community management trends I mentioned above are the most recent developments I’ve discovered, and they stem from consumer preferences and technological advancements.

I recommend leveraging those most relevant to your online community and reading the HubSpot Blog to stay on top of evolving trends.

A key decision when creating an online community is whether it’ll be free for members to join or if they’ll have to pay to access it. And, the model you choose can have a significant impact on how you end up running your community.

This piece will be all about free vs. paid communities — I’ll explain what each one is, the pros and cons to each model, and dive into expert tips for choosing between the two.

Table of Contents

• Free vs. Paid Online Communities
• Free Online Community
• Paid Online Community
• Owned Online Community
• Freemium Online Community
• How to Choose the Right Community Business Model

Free vs. Paid Online Communities

The two main types of online communities are free and paid. Within each, communities can also be owned and use the freemium model. Let’s start with free vs. paid online communities.

Free Online Community

A free online community is, well, a free-to-join online community.

It can be owned and run by your business (more on owned communities here), like a forum you create on your website or a social media profile you make, like a Facebook Page.

Best For

I recommend free online communities for brands, businesses, or creators and influencers who want to build brand awareness, increase visibility, and attract a large and diverse user base with varying levels of engagement.

Free communities are also excellent ways to learn more about your audiences in an open forum.

Pros of Free Online Communities

• Free online communities have low barriers to entry, meaning it’s easier to attract new members and build larger communities with more diverse representation.
• You can build brand awareness and platforms your audience might already be on, lessening the work it takes to build a community from scratch.
• You can be more hands-off with a free community and let your community members create engagement opportunities for one another.

Cons of Free Online Communities

• Low barrier to entry means you might have larger communities that aren’t made up of well-qualified members. I’m part of a few communities but consider myself a casual user rather than a well-qualified lead.
• Engagement can be lower because users might join out of curiosity rather than being eager to engage with your business and other community members.
• If your free community is on a social media platform, you must follow its rules and have limited creative liberties.

Paid Online Communities

A paid online community is a space you create that members pay to join, usually with monthly subscription fees, to access its content and features.

Most businesses create paid online communities to monetize offers, build loyalty, and deepen relationships with audiences.

The exclusivity of paid communities brings higher engagement and more dedicated users eager to interact with the premium offerings of your community.

Many paid online communities use platforms or tools meant for community building, but you have control over what you do with your community.

You set the rules and guidelines, customize it to your branding, and set prices. Most platforms take a percentage of your earnings.

I think Patreon is a great example of a paid online community platform. Users can offer exclusive content to subscribers and vary offerings with tiered memberships. The two plans it offers take a percentage of membership revenue.

Best For

I recommend paid online communities to those who want more control, guaranteed interest from members, and a steady stream of revenue. They’re also best for those who want to offer exclusive content and services.

Pros of Paid Online Communities

• You have complete control over the paid communities you build, from the visuals you use to who can access the content behind your paywalls to the privacy and security measures you use to protect the community.
• Members are willing to make a financial investment, so they’re typically more qualified and interested in what you offer. Users are eager to engage, which provides higher-quality engagement and gives you deeper insight into your ideal user.
• Membership fees are a source of recurring revenue for your business, and you can monetize the content you’re already used to creating.

Cons of Paid Online Communities

• Membership fees can deter people from joining, so paid communities are typically smaller.
• Paid communities experience slower growth, and you need to market the community to draw in users.
• Paying members want their money’s worth and will check in to make sure they’re getting value from your offer. You need to remain committed to providing high-value, exclusive content and keeping members engaged.

As I mentioned above, free and paid online communities are the two main models. Within the two, however, there are also owned and freemium online communities. I’ll discuss the two below.

Owned Online Community

An owned online community is one that you build and manage yourself. You have complete control over your owned community and the content you share, and you can monetize (or not) as you see fit.

This type of community can be as simple as a forum you create on your website or more advanced like a membership website you build or subscription tiers you offer on a community platform site like Patreon.

Be careful to view your social media profiles as an “owned” option. Yes, you create your profiles, but you have to follow the platform rules rather than make your functionality.

Best For

I recommend owned communities for businesses, brands, or creators/influencers looking to create a controlled environment, inspire engagement that helps you meet brand goals, and deepen relationships with members.

Pros of Owned Online Communities

The main pro to owned communities is that you have complete control, like the rules you set for members to follow, the branded color schemes you use, and whether you monetize your community to generate revenue.

You also get deeper insight into your community than you would on non-owned platforms, and you don’t have to compete with the noise of other communities.

Cons of Owned Online Communities

A con of owned online communities is that you create them yourself, which requires time and resources. Organic growth can be limited, and if your community is paid, you must provide ongoing value to keep members engaged.

Freemium Online Community

A freemium online community combines free and paid options. Casual users can stay casual, and people who want more can pay for more.

The paid options typically run on tiered models, where each step up includes the content from the previous tier plus additional exclusive perks.

Best For

I recommend freemium communities to those wanting to attract a large user base with basic offerings and exclusive content for the most interested users.

You’ll attract both those who don’t want to pay and those who do, giving you two separate groups of people to learn about.

Pros of Freemium Online Communities

I think Amy Porterfield, host of Online Marketing Made Easy, gave my teammate Caroline Forsey the best explanation of the benefits of a freemium community:

“When building your online community, your goal is always to leave your followers thinking, ‘If this is what they offer for free, I wonder what their paid content is like?’ So don’t be afraid to give your best stuff away for free.”

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You can continuously build brand awareness and engage with a general audience while also using the draw of premium content to entice interested members to become paid users (revenue generation opportunity).

You can also lower churn rates by downgrading those who cancel subscriptions to basic users that you re-engage and potentially inspire to restart subscriptions.

Cons of Freemium Online Communities

The biggest challenge with freemium communities is finding a clear balance for each tier. You want to engage your free users but not so much that you leave your paid users hanging.

Finding a balance is crucial because your paid members will be waiting for those premium offerings, and users interested in upgrading want to see a key differentiator and value-add for any payments they make.

How to Choose the Right Community Business Model

Now that you know about the different community models, it’s time to decide what works best for you.

To help you through your process, I asked community-building experts to share their top tips for choosing between free and paid communities. Let’s dive in.

Understand the purpose of your community.

In this piece, I discuss how to build an online community in depth, but the first step is determining your goals for starting a community, as these will impact what you create.

So, similarly, one of the most important steps to choosing between free vs paid online communities is understanding why you’re creating a community.

Robel de Jesus, Corporate Communications Group Head at SAFC, agrees with this and told me that this was one of his main considerations when he created an online community at his company.

He said: “At SAFC, when we launched the SAFC Heroes community, our aim was to engage with individuals interested in sustainable business practices and corporate social responsibility. We opted for a free community model because it aligned with our goal to maximize reach and inclusivity, which is essential for fostering widespread engagement and impact.”

He says paid communities are more appropriate for situations where, for example, you’re offering things like exclusive content or networking opportunities, which require more resources and efforts to manage effectively.

Here’s his tip: “Ultimately, the choice between a free or paid community should hinge on the strategic objectives of the community: reach and inclusivity versus exclusivity and specialized value. For brands looking to build a loyal, engaged community, consider how the structure supports your long-term goals and the perceived value you wish to provide to your members.”

Understand your goals for your online community.

Yes, goals and purpose are similar, but I’m separating them because they mean two different things for community building.

Your purpose is why you’re building your community, and your goals are what you’ll accomplish based on that purpose.

“Take it from someone who’s built quite a few successful online communities: Creating a thriving online community involves making a key decision right at the outset—should it be free, or should it require a membership fee? The right choice hinges on what you aim to achieve with your community,” says Jonathan Buffard, Digital Marketing Director at Bottom Line Marketing Agency.

A free community might be your best bet if your primary goal is to build engagement, brand awareness, and brand visibility.

You can attract a large number of users because there are no barriers to entry, and community members are eager to interact with people like them.

Buffard says that there are instances where a paid community might make more sense: “If your community acts as a crucial step within your sales funnel, or if it‘s the main product you’re offering, charging a membership fee could be advantageous.”

Before you decide to charge for access, Buffard recommends asking yourself these four critical questions:

• What unique benefits does your community offer?
• What would you pay for access to such a community?
• Could potential members find similar groups for free on social platforms?
• What exclusive advantages would they gain by joining yours?

Determine whether your audience is willing to pay.

Your goals for your community are important, but you’ll have trouble reaching them if you don’t consider whether your audience can help you meet them.

Given this, who your audience is plays a significant role in the community model you choose because you need to account for their needs, preferences, and willingness to pay.

For example, if you want to create an exclusive community but your audience doesn’t seem interested in more exclusive offerings, a paid community would be a waste of your time.

You’d likely find more success with a freemium model that lets you attract a large group of non-paying users and a smaller group more willing to pay.

Stefano Lodola, Owner of Think Languages LLC, told me he had to make this assessment during his process: “As someone who runs a language-learning website, I suggest carefully considering your brand‘s value proposition and, most importantly, your target audience’s willingness to pay.”

He adds, “In my case, I cater to language learners who need to see improvement in their language proficiency. A paid community may be more effective for them since they want to have access to useful and exclusive content. Ultimately, it really depends on your goals and objectives and whether it will be sustainable in the long run.”

Consider the level of engagement you’re looking for.

I assume you want to foster engagement within your community, so the level of interaction you want plays a part in the model you choose.

Victor Hsi, Founder of UGC Creator, manages free and paid communities and said engagement is an important factor to consider. He says, “In free communities, most members join without contributing. They might join out of curiosity or to access free information and will likely not be actively participating.”

On the other hand, he says that a community with a subscription fee can “Encourage more active, value-adding participation. For example, by establishing a small $1 subscription fee, members are prompted to make a transaction, which inherently leads to increased commitment and participation in the community.”

He adds, “This simple act of pulling out their credit card and being invested in learning what the community has to offer them often makes members more driven to engage and network within the community.”

Consider how exclusive you want your community to be.

Casey Meraz, Owner & Digital Marketing Expert of Casey Meraz, shares his top tip with me: “When you’re deciding between a free or paid online community, think about the level of exclusivity you want to offer.”

Free communities allow for different levels of participation but faster growth.

Meraz says free communities also “Offer accessibility to a wider audience, including those who might be valuable contributors but are not in a position to pay. While free communities might not have the inherent sense of exclusivity, you can still create value through high-quality content and active management.”

Choosing between the two can come down to the exclusivity you want to offer.

You can build a more qualified group of actively engaged members with paid communities since everyone who joins is willing to spend money to reap the benefits. You can create larger communities with free options, but there’s no guarantee that members who join will participate in conversations.

Over to You

Free and paid communities benefit those who use them, but both allow you to meet different goals.

If you leverage the advice from the experts I spoke to, you can pick the model that works best for you and helps you meet your objectives.

Jenny Sowyrda, manager of community strategy and operations at HubSpot, shared a great analogy with me about community management:

“As the community manager, you’re hosting a party. At first you have to welcome everyone, take their jackets, and offer them food or a drink.

But once more guests start to arrive, you can make connections amongst guests who have things in common, and you can slowly pull back … to just being in the background.”

Love it.

It’s also worth noting that the party may look a little different based on the types of community management out there. So, let’s review the top six together.

Table of Contents

• The SPACES Model
• Types of Community Management
• Community Management Strategies

The SPACES Model

You can look at community management in many ways, but the easiest one is through the SPACES model.

No need to take my word for it because the experts agree that this is a pretty solid foundation.

“The SPACES model is a fantastic framework to help brands determine how the community can help the business with a specific focus …” says Christina Garnett, founder and fractional CCO at Pocket CCO.

“… Especially for non-community builders. It helps provide clarity about what the business wants the community to provide,” she continues.

The SPACES model, proposed by CMX, organizes community management strategies based on their primary function and the focus of the community in question.

Sowyrda adds, “The SPACES model makes sense in the fact that you really do have to focus on one thing at a time. It does a good job of highlighting the different ways your company can use a community.”

The acronym “SPACES” represents six distinct community management categories: Support, Product, Acquisition, Contribution, Engagement, and Success.

Now, onto the specifics.

Types of Community Management

Enter: the specifics. Here are the six types of community management to consider based on the SPACES model.

Pro tip: As you start building your community management strategy, Sowyrda recommends focusing on one (or two) of the elements below and mastering those before expanding your approach.

1. Support

Support communities empower members to help each other out by answering questions or solving problems. These communities can be organized as an online forum or discussion board, where members can ask and answer questions.

I’d also recommend offering other support resources like knowledge bases and FAQs, so people can find answers quickly on their own.

Benefits:

• Reduced customer support costs
• Lower workload for your customer service teams
• Quicker resolution of common issues
• A greater sense of community among members

Best for: Brands with in-depth product lines, like software or electronics, where users can benefit from sharing tips, tricks, and troubleshooting advice.

Example: Apple Support Community

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What I like about Apple’s Support Community: Honestly, the simplicity of search is really appealing here. You can type in a keyword or ask a question and connect with Apple customers around the world on related support topics.

2. Product (Ideation, Innovation, and Feedback)

Product communities allow you to create a safe space for your customers to provide feedback on your products and services. They can share thoughts on how to improve your products or ideas for innovation.

This way, you’re basically inviting members to participate directly in your product growth and development process.

For example, at HubSpot, Sowyrda explains, “We have communities of product (discussing HubSpot’s products) and communities of practice which are spaces to discuss professional topics.”

Benefits:

• Improved product-market fit
• Continuous product improvement based on user feedback
• Higher user satisfaction
• Sense of ownership and loyalty to your brand

Best for: Consumer-oriented software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies where user feedback is crucial for iterative product development.

Example: LEGO Ideas

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What I like about LEGO Ideas: They make it super easy (and fun) for LEGO lovers to submit ideas for new designs. Plus, people can see what winning ideas look like from their fellow customers.

3. Acquisition and Advocacy

Acquisition and advocacy communities are typically networks of ambassadors or advocates who help build awareness around your brand.

Members promote your products and services through word of mouth, affiliate programs, and social media.

Benefits:

• Increased brand awareness
• Lower customer acquisition costs
• Higher conversion rates

Best for: Almost every type of company can benefit from acquisition and advocacy communities, but it’s particularly effective for startups and newly-established brands.

Example: Sephora Squad

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What I like about Sephora Squad: The community isn’t officially live until August 2024, but Sephora is already creating some buzz. If you can get people excited before launch, you’re already one step ahead of your competitors.

4. Content and Contribution

Content and contribution communities encourage users to share content and ideas or participate in collaborative projects.

Contributions can range from guest blog posts and media submissions to involvement in open-source software projects on your website.

Dedicated team members typically curate the user-generated content to ensure it’s appropriate, meets quality standards, and aligns with your community guidelines.

Benefits:

• Increased member engagement
• A strong sense of ownership among contributors
• More valuable content for the entire community

Best for: Media companies, creative industries, and open-source projects that thrive from UGC.

Example: Adobe Lightroom

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What I like about Adobe Lightroom Community: I got this example from one of my best photog friends, and it really is great. You can see exactly how the contributor edited their photo in Lightroom — from start to finish.

5. Engagement (External and Internal)

There are two types of engagement communities: external and internal.

Internal engagement communities bring together a brand’s internal contributors. These communities serve as a hub to share internal news and resources with employees, partners, vendors, or suppliers.

These communities can also help align staff members with the company’s goals and values, improve morale and retention, and enhance collaboration.

By comparison, external engagement communities connect individuals who have a shared interest related to a company or brand. Like if I ran a cookie company and created a community for baking enthusiasts.

Benefits:

• External engagement opportunities
• A sense of belonging and stronger connections with your brand
• Organic increases in brand awareness via word-of-mouth

Best for:

• Internal: Beneficial for larger organizations with many departments or teams spread across different regions or countries.
• External: Great for lifestyle brands or companies with strong brand identities based on lifestyle or values (e.g., fitness or beauty).

Examples:

• Internal: HubSpot’s Slack community, which is a platform for employees to connect, share ideas, and ask questions.
• External: Nike Run Club

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What I like about Nike Run Club: This is a smart play for Nike. They emphasize physical activity through their products, and this club allows running-enthusiasts to connect with each other and the Nike brand.

6. Success Community Engagement Management

Success communities are designed to help customers use your product or service, well, successfully. They allow members to achieve desired outcomes by sharing best practices, user experiences, and success stories.

Benefits:

• Greater customer satisfaction
• Reduced churn rate
• Valuable testimonials to attract new members

Best for: SaaS, business-to-business (B2B), and service-oriented businesses where product success is closely tied to continued product use.

Example: Noom Circles

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What I like about Noom Circles: I love how personalized you can get with Noom Circles. You’re matched with communities that reflect your interests (e.g., food, exercise, hobbies, etc.) and the goals you’re working toward.

Community Management Strategies

The strategies you use to analyze your community performance will vary based on the type of community you’re building.

Here are some metrics to consider for each:

• Support: Conversation engagement (e.g., posts, comments), quantity of questions asked and answered, reduced customer support calls
• Product: New product ideas, new feature adoption, customer satisfaction
• Acquisition: Conversion rate, new leads/signups, new customers
• Content: Users creating UGC, new and active users, conversation engagement (e.g., posts, comments)
• Engagement: Conversation engagement (e.g., posts, comments), new member signups, event attendees
• Success: Net Promoter Score (NPS), customer retention, customer satisfaction

Want more? Get the full scoop on community management metrics.

Creating SPACES for Your Communities

Hopefully, this provided some clarity about the different types of communities and what they’re best for. If you’re still having trouble choosing one for your brand, I say start with your audience.

The best communities come to life when your goals align with their needs.