Category Archives: B2B

Everyone knows that ChatGPT can generate content on nearly any topic you can imagine (some information might be made up, but that’s a story for a different article).

So, while I’m not a fan of using it to create articles, I must say that I’m impressed with how helpful it can be for SEO.

In this post, I put together different ways you can use ChatGPT to improve your search rankings – whether it’s through keyword improvements, proper linking, or other tactics. Let’s dive in.

Table of Contents

• How to Use ChatGPT for SEO
• Benefits of ChatGPT for SEO
• Limitations of Using ChatGPT for SEO
• Tips for Improving SEO With ChatGPT

How to Use ChatGPT for SEO

What exactly is this AI tool capable of? Here are some of the most impactful ways you can use ChatGPT for SEO.

1. Classify keywords by intent.

Correctly understanding your readers’ intent is key to ranking high in Google. After all, if they land on a page and see that the content doesn’t relate to them, they’ll leave your site, negatively affecting your SEO efforts.

So, how can you make sure you apply each keyword to the right landing page or blog post? ChatGPT can give you a hand.

To give you an example, a while back, I worked with a company that wanted to verify how much of their existing content targeted readers at the top and bottom of the funnel. I downloaded the keywords from the brand’s Google Search Console and asked ChatGPT the following prompt:

“Classify the SEO keywords in the Excel spreadsheet by intent. Categorize them into informational, navigational, transactional, general, and commercial categories. Next, generate a pie chart showing the percentages of each intent type.”

Here’s what I got.

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As you can see, ChatGPT can give you a quick, high-level understanding of what types of phrases are bringing in organic traffic.

Now, as AI isn’t an oracle, I did go back to the Excel file and verified the automatic intent categories for phrases that were in the top 10 in SERP. While ChatGPT didn’t get 100% of them right, it did a decent job overall.

2. Come up with a potential topic for each keyword.

What I like about ChatGPT is that it’s a good idea generator. If you have a list of keywords that fit your offer, you can ask it to suggest topic ideas for blog posts.

Let’s take the keyword “data management consultant” to see what ChatGPT will suggest. To make it easier, I’m going to give it a bit of context on what the topic idea is for:

“I run a software agency and would like to rank for the term “data management consultant.” Data consultancy is one of my company’s services. Please suggest three topic ideas for a blog post we could write.”.

Here’s the output:

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Notice how I’ve asked just for three topics, and ChatGPT gave me that and some more? When you use ChatGPT for content generation ideas, you should always treat it as a starting point.

If you like any of the suggested topics, you can review what other brands that rank in the top 10 search results are writing on – and how you can do better.

3. Suggest content clusters.

If you’ve been reading the HubSpot Blog for a while, you’ve probably noticed how strongly we advocate for content clusters as an SEO-boosting strategy.

Yet, it’s not always easy to choose clusters, let alone decide what articles to create for each of them.

While this is a strategic decision that shouldn’t be left to ChatGPT without any oversight, the AI engine could help point you in the right direction.

Here’s an example of a prompt I used and the results I received:

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These results and suggestions can be a good starting point as far as cluster topic and structure are concerned.

However, remember to verify the cluster’s SEO potential in a dedicated tool – ChatGPT doesn’t have access to search or keyword difficulty data.

4. Write meta descriptions.

To many, meta descriptions often seem like an unimportant detail, especially since they’re not officially a ranking factor. Still, as they provide a summary of what’s on your website, they’re a great opportunity to persuade a prospect to visit your site.

Ensuring that at least your key landing pages have a meta will positively impact SEO as they tend to improve CTRs and reduce bounce rates.

I often turn to ChatGPT for creating meta descriptions. I asked ChatGPT to write one for a HubSpot article I wrote.

Here’s the prompt that I used:

“Create an SEO meta description of no more than 120 characters for the following article https://blog.hubspot.com/service/chat-gpt-customer-service. Include the primary keyword ‘ChatGPT customer service,’ along with a call to action.”

Here is the result:

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You can follow this approach with all your landing pages and articles. It will save you an awful lot of time.

5. Optimize keywords.

I write a lot of SEO content. While my main focus is on creating high-quality pieces packed with unique insights that help prospects tackle their problems, I never ignore SEO.

But, the more keywords you want to rank for, the more time-consuming it is to optimize your article for them.

Unless you ask ChatGPT for help.

That’s what copywriter and digital marketer John Paul Hernandez, does.

“I do a few things with ChatGPT to improve SEO optimization. One of them is asking the AI to insert keywords within my human-written article. It’s not perfect, but it gives me an idea of keyword placements to save me time during my final edit.”

Let’s see it in action. I asked ChatGPT to optimize a few paragraphs of the same article I used previously. Here is the prompt:

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As requested, it came up with a list of LSI and NLP keywords. Here it is:

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Then, it incorporated them into the draft:

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I think it did a pretty good job. While it might not be perfect, it gives you a good idea of where you could place the keywords.

6. Create catchy headings.

Sometimes when you write content, you get stuck. The heading or title that you wrote isn’t as appealing as you’d like it to be. Sometimes, changing one word can make a big difference.

Instead of spending hours trying to come up with a more catchy title or heading, you can turn to ChatGPT. Here’s an example:

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Here is the result:

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You don’t have to use the ChatGPT title as is — you can simply borrow that one word or phrase you like and edit it into your original title. For instance, I quite like the phrase “supercharge productivity,” so I would work that into my title.

7. Suggest a content structure to cover a topic in detail.

I never start writing an article without creating an outline. It helps structure my research and ensure I cover a topic in detail.

While I like having a quick look at what the competition wrote to get a good idea of the expected standard, I never simply copy their structure. I come up with my own outline. Or I ask ChatGPT for assistance.

Let’s see what it can do.

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This is the output:

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I must say – this is a really comprehensive outline. It’s a good starting point that can guide my research, and it took ChatGPT 30 seconds to create it. Good job!

Benefits of ChatGPT for SEO

Why should you consider using ChatGPT for search engine optimization? Here are a few reasons.

Saves Time

If I were to pick one benefit of using ChatGPT for SEO, it would undoubtedly be saving time. The AI tool can come up with an answer in just seconds. And the better your prompt (i.e., the more detailed), the better the result.

At first, when ChatGPT launched, I was a bit skeptical and treated it like competition. But the more I use it, the more I appreciate how much time it could save me – you just have to know how to use it.

I recently read an article by Eric Holtzclaw, who talks about how using ChatGPT has helped him save 40 hours of work and $7,500 in costs. He uses it for research and SEO optimization.

To make the most of generative AI like ChatGPT (genAI), you need to decide which tasks you will do, and which can be automated.

Boosts Productivity

Saving time also means that you can dedicate your attention to other parts of your SEO work that need a human touch.

For example, ChatGPT could suggest an article outline and then check your human-written piece for correct SEO keyword use.

Similarly, you could have it check your URL structure in bulk, and decide on an action plan based on its findings.

As someone who began working in SEO before the start of the AI era, I truly recognize it as a productivity game-changer.

Helps Analyze Data and Draw Conclusions

Many SEOs don’t have a technical background, meaning they might not be the biggest experts when it comes to writing regular expressions (RegEx) or using complex Excel formulas.

At the same time, sourcing and analyzing information from different sources lies at the heart of their work.

ChatGPT can help out with both. You can ask it to create RegEx formulas for your website analytics tools, or Excel formulas, by giving it a prompt that specifies the end goal.

For example, you could upload an Excel file and ask it to match keywords that have a search volume of 500 or higher with URLs where you use these keywords but have a CTR lower than 5%. This would show you pages that are currently underperforming and require some work.

Limitations of Using ChatGPT for SEO

There are two types of ChatGPT SEO limitations – those that stem from AI shortcomings as a whole, and those that depend on whether you’re using a free or paid version. Let’s take a deeper dive into this.

It can’t generate truly creative, unique content.

When ChatGPT was launched, brands went crazy for it. Many writers got laid off as companies began using it to create content at scale. I lost a couple of clients because they decided to switch to ChatGPT – a decision I believe was wrong.

While GPT is a great assistant, at least for now, its capability is limited to producing copycat content. This is no longer acceptable; people want to read helpful, unique content written by experts, not AI.

You can use AI to edit your content and make it sound more polished, but relying on it to write an entire article from scratch is not recommended.

Here is proof that readers prefer content written by humans. You can see that from the first month, human content generated more views than its AI counterpart.

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You can’t remove the human from the loop.

ChatGPT shouldn’t be a replacement for human competencies anywhere – not just in content. Some areas like search engine data analysis will let you automate the majority of the work, while others will call for more human supervision.

The bottom line, though, is that you can’t fully entrust anything to AI without regularly verifying the output.

For example, let me refer back to content cluster topic suggestions. Some of the AI-generated ideas might seem promising, but once you pop them into an SEO tool to check search potential, you’ll see that the main term only gets 10 or 20 visits a month.

So, while helpful, remember that “it still takes time to use AI.”

There’s a risk of AI hallucinations.

A few months ago, I wrote an article about different ways to use ChatGPT. To test its abilities, I asked it to create an article on perfume-making, featuring tips from beauty experts.

It generated one and even included citations from experts. However, when I asked about their source, it provided a list of links that weren’t working.

In short, it appears that ChatGPT fabricated quotations and sources. This is a striking example of AI hallucinations – you can’t fully trust it; you always have to verify the results yourself.

There are differences in capabilities between paid and free ChatGPT.

Finally, let’s discuss the limitations that relate to the version you’re using. There are some differences in the Plus (paid) and Free plan, and I decided to ask about them straight from the source. Here’s what I got:

You can probably get even more out of the paid plan if you use custom GPTs available through the ChatGPT marketplace.

Tips for Improving SEO With ChatGPT

1. Write formulas and build custom functions in Google Sheets.

You can use ChatGPT to write formulas and build custom functions for SEO in Google Sheets – it will help you automate workflows and enhance efficiency.

This tip comes from Vishal Dave, senior digital marketer at Meetanshi.

“You can ask ChatGPT to ‘Create a Google Sheets function to get PageSpeed Insights score of a URL.’ It will provide an app script code. Go to Google Sheets > Extensions > App Scripts and create a new script. Paste the app script code into the editor and replace the API key placeholder with your PageSpeed Insights API key. Then save the function.”

Now, you’ll be able to use the custom ‘=pagespeedinsights(URL)’ function to get PageSpeed insights score directly in your Google Sheets. You can use it to build a visual page speed report using conditional formatting.

Dave adds that marketers can also use ChatGPT to fetch HTML tags, build custom integrations, check HTTP response codes, etc. It seems like it can be of great help when it comes to technical SEO.

2. Improve content structuring and formatting.

Content structure has a significant impact on SEO. It’s important to balance making content engaging to the reader while not ignoring Google recommendations.

You can use ChatGPT to outline and format blog posts to increase their readability and make them SEO-friendly.

Here is how Casey Meraz, CEO at Juris Digital, approaches this task:

“We started by feeding the AI a detailed brief, which included the key topics, target keywords, and user intent behind the search terms. This step ensured that the AI understood the context and purpose of the content.”

They instantly noticed a consistent use of headings and subheadings. Structuring content with clear, keyword-rich headings improved their on-page SEO and readability.

“In one campaign, we restructured 50 existing articles using ChatGPT for headline generation and internal linking suggestions. The result was a 35% increase in organic traffic within three months. We also saw a 20% improvement in time on page, which indicates that better-structured content kept users engaged longer,” says Meraz.

Juris Digital also used ChatGPT to create content that met Google’s featured snippet criteria.

They applied formatting techniques suggested by ChatGPT, including the use of bullet points, numbered lists, and concise summaries at the beginning of articles.

This strategy led to several of their clients’ pages earning featured snippets. One of their clients experienced a 15% spike in CTR after implementing these changes, which they directly attributed to enhanced content structuring and formatting.

3. Generate ideas for internal linking.

Since ChatGPT does a good job of analyzing semantic relationships between phrases and can put them into categories, it can also suggest ideas for internal links.

That’s what Derrick Askew, founder of Savvy Gents, Inc., did for an ecommerce client he worked with.

“By using AI to generate related keyword phrases and content topics, we built a comprehensive internal linking strategy that connected relevant pages more organically.”

By boosting the site’s topical relevance and interconnectedness between different URLs, Askew wanted to make it easier for search engines to crawl and understand the site’s content.

He told me that after implementing this strategy, the ecommerce company saw a 37% increase in organic traffic within four months. This approach gave Askew proof that ChatGPT can help drive traffic and user engagement.

4. Analyze your competitors’ content.

Not everyone realizes this, but ChatGPT can help you run a thorough content gap analysis. You can ask it to review the content on your identified competitors’ sites and tell you which keywords and topics yours doesn’t rank for yet.

Kevin Watts, founder and president at Raincross, told me how they used this capability to understand why their competitors frequently had their content appear in featured snippets, and why they didn’t.

“Using ChatGPT, we generated a list of potential questions and longer-tail keywords our audience was searching for. We then created new content focused on these queries, formatted specifically for featured snippets (e.g., concise answers in bullet points or tables).”

Within three months, this approach has helped Raincross boost its featured snippet appearances by 35%.

Watts also says that the optimized pages received an average organic traffic boost of 28%. This clearly illustrates how ChatGPT ideas can be used to get tangible SEO results.

Some brands, like The Annuity Expert, also use AI to run a granular, semantic content analysis. Shawn Plummer, the company’s CEO, decided to ask ChatGPT for some ideas as to why their website’s content wasn’t ranking highly in Google.

“I provided ChatGPT with a competitor’s content and used the prompt: ‘Create a semantic analysis of this content: [copy-paste content URL of competitor].’” As a result, Plummer received an extract of key entities and concepts, which highlighted some areas that made their competitor’s content rank higher in search.

Plummer then decided to cross-reference the findings from this analysis with their own content.

“I gave it the prompt: ‘Compare your semantic analysis to the competitor’s article to my article [my URL]. Are they semantically close?’ This comparison revealed the semantic gaps in our content”, he says.

To dive even deeper, Plummer suggests using a follow-up prompt: “Create a table listing common semantic concepts/entities and those missing from our article.”

He says that, ever since they’ve started using this method, the company saves a lot of time and gets more intricate insights than by using traditional analytics tools.

As for the SEO results from ChatGPT-inspired changes, Plummer said that they “saw a 25% improvement in our content’s ranking for target keywords.”

Pro tip: Not sure who to shortlist as your competitors for your content gap analysis? Use ChatSpot to get a list of the top ten competitors in under ten seconds. All you need to do is add your domain.

5. Optimize content for voice search.

This might be one of ChatGPT’s lesser-known SEO capabilities, but it’s an extremely powerful one.

Optimizing content for voice search can not only help meet legal accessibility requirements but also secure interest from those who don’t engage in text-based browsing.

“Given the rise of virtual assistants like Siri and Google Now, focusing on voice search has become essential for enhancing local SEO,” says Rex Liu, chief revenue officer at GoSite.

Liu adds that while working with local businesses, the company used ChatGPT to generate conversational content that aligns with how customers speak.

They prompted ChatGPT with questions that indicated high intent, such as “Where can I find a reliable plumber near me?” They then built content around these conversational queries, improving the chances of appearing in voice search results.

“This particular strategy was applied to a local home services business. Over three months, the implementation led to a 20% increase in click-through rates from voice search and a 17% rise in local customer inquiries.”

Liu says these results underline the importance of matching questions with conversational search habits.

6. Boost your website accessibility.

Some of you might not know it, but accessibility matters for SEO. While Google doesn’t have a specific ranking factor for it, it values user experience. The more accessible your website is, the better the experience for the user.

This is something that Guy Leon, founder and CEO of betterweb.ai, recognizes, so they use ChatGPT to enhance inclusiveness.

“Working with a client’s e-commerce site, we used ChatGPT to rewrite image alt texts and implement semantic HTML. This ensured that screen readers could properly interpret the content. Additionally, ChatGPT helped us identify and adjust areas of poor color contrast to meet accessibility standards.

The outcome was striking: within four months, the client saw a 35% increase in organic traffic, a 40% boost in visitor engagement, and a notable uptick in mobile traffic by 53%”.

Not only did this help their client meet legal accessibility criteria, but it also enhanced their page‘s load speed and search rankings.

By integrating web accessibility with SEO using ChatGPT, bettwerweb.ai transformed their client’s user experience and significantly improved the site’s performance metrics.

ChatGPT Has a Great Analytical Skill for SEO

If we look at all the ways ChatGPT can help with SEO, we can safely assume that it will become a long-term companion for marketing teams.

That said, you need to be smart about how you use it — the quality of the insights depends on your prompt and its informational value.

Also, remember that ChatGPT can’t make decisions or craft entire SEO strategies. It’s a tool, and, as such, it will always be prone to error.

That’s why, while I encourage you to use ChatGPT for SEO, I also strongly recommend verifying all of its output before you use it for decision-making.

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.

So, you want to hire a community manager to help raise brand awareness for your company and better connect with your consumers. There‘s just one problem: You’re not sure how to hire a community manager.

What qualities should you look for when hiring? Where can you find a community manager? Why do you even need one? Well, you‘ve come to the right blog because I’m about to explain all of that and more.

Keep reading to learn everything you need to know about how to hire a community manager.

Why hire a community manager?

81% of consumers need to trust a brand to consider buying. The primary function of a community manager is to build rapport, trust, and community with a brand’s audience.

Naturally, a community manager will help your brand forge trust with your consumers, leading them to purchase your products and services.

“Consumers make decisions based on opinions from people they know, like, and trust,” says Erica Finley, HubSpot‘s Principal Marketing Manager of Community.

She says, “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.'”

According to Finley, community managers “carve out dedicated spaces that folks can lean into for inspiration, advice, entertainment, and more.” And all this occurs while raising brand awareness.

So, now that you know the perks of hiring a community manager, you just need to find one. But where?

Where to find a community manager

The good news is there are multiple places to find great community manager candidates. Here are a few of my favorites:

• Community Club. This nonprofit offers an excellent resource for connecting with experienced community managers.

• CMX Hub. This website includes a job board where you can post and search for community management positions. It’s especially valuable for finding candidates who are specifically looking to grow in these roles.

• LinkedIn. LinkedIn allows you to explore potential community managers’ profiles, experiences, and endorsements. You can also post your own job openings and join numerous groups dedicated to community management where professionals discuss industry trends, share advice, and exchange job opportunities.

• Facebook Groups. Facebook is home to community management groups, some location-based while others are industry-specific. These groups are excellent for posting job openings, asking for recommendations, and connecting directly with potential hires.

• Upwork. Upwork is great if you are looking to hire a community manager on a contract or freelance basis. You can create a job post that outlines the project you’re hiring for and the qualifications you need.

Qualities to Look for in a Community Manager

“Community managers are often mediators for community conflicts and may be required to draft crisis communications,” Finley says. “They have to be curious and adept at conducting research, both online and via people-centric methods like focus groups.”

Community managers also sometimes act as content creators and may be called to create entire calendars based on a specific persona or theme concerning the brand.

“They are public speakers who often serve as emcees and facilitators for community events,” she says. “The list goes on/”

In short, community managers must have the following qualities:

• Public speaking skills
• Conflict and crisis management skills
• Curiosity and thorough research skills
• A knack for creativity and content creation

How to Write a Community Manager Job Description

All right, the two Ericas (Finley and I) explained why you should hire a community manager, where to find one, and what qualities they should possess. Now, we must dive into writing a community manager job description.

Essentially, your job description should include the following:

• Who/what your company is
• What your goals are
• How a community manager will help achieve said goals
• What qualities and experience does the manager need to be successful in the organization

Let’s look at this community manager job posting from Scale AI.

Scale AI starts by explaining the company’s goal and how the community manager fits into their vision:

“Scale’s Generative AI business unit is nascent and is currently seeing historic levels of growth. As a Community Manager, you will spearhead initiatives that will connect with the thousands of Contributors on our platform.”

In other words, Scale Ai is seeing unprecedented growth and needs a community manager to nurture its growing audience.

Then, the company explains what the community manager will do, such as:

• “Collaborate with the Operations, Support, Communications, and Marketing teams to create and execute community engagement campaigns and content.

• Develop and execute community engagement strategies to increase participation and satisfaction, including overseeing community platforms like Reddit and Linkedin and managing our internal Slack community.

• Be responsible for community support to answer questions, complaints, or comments on our platforms and social media channels.

• Organize virtual events to foster a sense of community, monitor community feedback and sentiment to proactively address concerns, and manage and grow our online presence across various platforms.

Finally, the job posting lists the skills and background experience needed to succeed, including:

• “Bachelor’s Degree in Business, Marketing, Communications, Finance, or related field and 2+ years Communications, Marketing Operations, Field Operations, Program Management, Project Management, or related experience

• Managed the social media presence of a technology product.

• Strong and clear communication skills, both verbal and written – able to synthesize complex details into accessible and digestible content.

• Ability to analyze quantitative metrics and adapt strategies accordingly.

• A strong orientation towards outcomes and a willingness to roll up your sleeves to get the job done.

• Passion for creating a positive and engaging community experience.”

10 Interview Questions to Ask Community Manager Applicant

Whether you‘re interviewing for community manager positions or you’re looking for a community manager for your organization, here are some interview questions to know:

1. What skills and qualifications do you have to prepare you for this job?

2. How do you measure your success as a community manager?

3. What strategies do you or would you use to strengthen our brand’s tie to our community?

4. How would you build our community from the ground up? What strategies would you use?

5. How do you stay up-to-date on the latest best practices in community management?

6. What has been your proudest accomplishment as a community manager?

7. What does community mean to you?

8. Do you have experience using social media to build or maintain a community? Explain.

9. How can you guide members of our community to our website to purchase a product or service?

10. How would you describe your management style?

Whew! We covered a lot in this post about community management, the skills it takes, where to find community managers, and how to create job postings for the role.

Now, you‘re ready to either level up your craft as a community manager or you’re prepared to hire one for your organization.

Either way, good luck!

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.