community-building

What this skill does

# Community Building

## Workspace Context

Read bootstrap context before asking questions: `strategy/brand.md` for brand, audience, offer, channels, tools, constraints, and metrics; `about/me.md` for personal voice; `content/ideas.md` and `content/calendar.md` for content planning. Use legacy product-marketing context files only as fallback. Save generated drafts to `content/<platform>/drafts/YYYY-MM-DD_short-topic-slug.md`, and route durable learnings back to `strategy/brand.md`, `about/me.md`, or `content/ideas.md`.

## Operating Contract

This skill is self-contained for its frontmatter scope: use its local instructions, references, scripts, and assets as the playbook; ask only for missing task-specific inputs; hand off to adjacent skills instead of expanding scope; and return an actionable artifact, decision, plan, draft, or diagnostic.



Build communities that turn members into believers and believers into advocates.

## Scope

**Covers**
- Community strategy (goal, members, value exchange, movement thesis)
- Platform selection: home base + outposts (Discord, Slack, Circle, Discourse, Telegram, Twitter/X, Reddit, Farcaster)
- Channel architecture, onboarding, and activation
- Programming/rituals and ambassador/champions programs
- Governance, moderation, and crisis management
- Holder psychology and retention engineering (crypto/token communities)
- Social community building across Twitter/X, Reddit, Farcaster, forums
- Measurement and community health

**When NOT to use**
- You haven't defined ICP/positioning (use `brand-messaging-and-positioning` first)
- You want paid acquisition (ads/creative) rather than community
- You want to spam/scrape DMs or manipulate members
- You need customer support ops overhaul (ticketing/SLAs) more than community

---

## Community Philosophy

Great communities are built on three pillars:
1. **Shared purpose** — Members need a reason bigger than the product
2. **Genuine connection** — People stay for people, not features
3. **Member empowerment** — The best communities run themselves

### Community vs Audience

| Dimension | Audience | Community |
|-----------|----------|-----------|
| **Direction** | One to many | Many to many |
| **Value** | From creator | From each other |
| **Ownership** | Creator owns | Members co-own |
| **Content** | Creator produces | Members produce |
| **Retention** | Content-dependent | Relationship-dependent |
| **Scalability** | Linear | Network effects |

---

## Core Frameworks

### The Community Flywheel

```
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                                                             │
│   ┌──────────┐    ┌──────────┐    ┌──────────┐             │
│   │  ATTRACT │───▶│ ACTIVATE │───▶│  ENGAGE  │             │
│   │ (Reach)  │    │ (Value)  │    │ (Habit)  │             │
│   └──────────┘    └──────────┘    └──────────┘             │
│        ▲                                │                   │
│        │          ┌──────────┐          │                   │
│        │          │ ADVOCATE │          │                   │
│        └──────────│ (Amplify)│◀─────────┘                   │
│                   └──────────┘                              │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
```

### Community Maturity Model

| Stage | Size | Characteristics | Focus |
|-------|------|-----------------|-------|
| **Nascent** | <100 | Founder-led | 1:1 conversations, manual everything |
| **Growing** | 100–1,000 | Early champions emerge | Systems, rituals, first programs |
| **Scaling** | 1,000–10,000 | Self-sustaining activity | Governance, moderation, delegation |
| **Mature** | 10,000+ | Community-led initiatives | Sub-communities, ecosystem |

### The 1-9-90 Rule

- **1%** create content (Creators)
- **9%** engage with content (Contributors)
- **90%** consume content (Lurkers)

Goal: Move people up the engagement ladder, not force everyone to create.

### Member Journey

```
Aware → Join → Lurk → First Post → Regular Contributor → Champion → Ambassador
```

| Stage | Goal | Key Metric |
|-------|------|------------|
| **Lurker** | First interaction | Post/reply count |
| **Newcomer** | Find value, connect | Retention D7 |
| **Regular** | Form habits, contribute | Weekly active |
| **Champion** | Lead initiatives | Content created |
| **Ambassador** | Represent externally | Referrals, reach |

---

## Inputs

**Minimum required**
- Product + category + ICP (who it's for)
- Primary community goal (pick 1): support, activation, retention, advocacy/UGC, product feedback, moving upmarket
- Target members (roles/seniority) and where they already gather
- Resources: owner, hours/week, budget, moderators/SMEs
- Existing assets: email list, social following, events, partners
- Constraints: compliance/privacy, brand voice, moderation risk tolerance

**Missing-info strategy**
- Ask up to 5 questions from [references/INTAKE.md](references/INTAKE.md) (3–5 at a time)
- Proceed with explicit assumptions if critical inputs missing; provide 2–3 options with tradeoffs

---

## Platform Selection

### Platform Comparison

| Platform | Best For | Key Strength | Key Weakness |
|----------|----------|--------------|--------------|
| **Discord** | Gaming, dev, real-time | Rich features, free | Overwhelming UX |
| **Slack** | Professional, B2B | Familiar, searchable | Expensive at scale |
| **Circle** | Courses, creators | Clean UX, courses | Less real-time |
| **Discourse** | Long-form, async | SEO, knowledge base | Old-school feel |
| **GitHub Discussions** | Open source, devs | Code integration | Limited features |
| **Reddit** | Public discovery | SEO, scale | Less control |
| **Telegram** | Crypto/token holders | Real-time, bots | Limited moderation |

### Platform Architecture

**Discord (larger projects)**
```
INFORMATION: #announcements #faq #roadmap #rules
COMMUNITY:   #general #price-talk #memes #introductions
ALPHA (role-gated): #whale-chat #og-lounge #team-updates
SUPPORT:     #help #report-scams #suggestions
VOICE:       General VC, AMA Stage
```

**Telegram (token/crypto communities)**
```
[Main Group]     — Public chat, price bot, welcome message, active mods
[Announcements]  — One-way official updates only
[Alpha/Holders]  — Token-gated, exclusive content, direct team access
[International]  — CN/KR/JP with local mods (if needed)
```

**Essential Bots**: Price bot, Buy bot (celebrate purchases), Holder verification, Anti-spam/scam, Welcome bot.

### Social Platform Strategies

**Twitter/X**: Reach and real-time discussion. Twitter Spaces for live audio, threads for depth, quote tweets for community amplification.

**Reddit**: Long-form depth and discovery. Build a subreddit or participate in existing ones. SEO benefit from indexed discussions.

**Farcaster**: Crypto-native audience, frames for interactive content, native to web3 culture.

**Forums (Discourse, etc.)**: Long-form async knowledge base, SEO-indexed, permanent resource for members.

---

## Workflow (8 Steps)

### 1) Intake + Pick Primary Job-to-be-Done
- **Inputs:** User prompt; [references/INTAKE.md](references/INTAKE.md)
- **Actions:** Confirm ICP, define primary goal, identify where community already gathers, list constraints
- **Outputs:** Context snapshot + assumptions/TBDs list
- **Check:** You can finish: "In 8–12 weeks, this community will _____ for _____, measured by _____."

### 2) Define the Movement + Value Exchange
- **Inputs:** Product POV, category beliefs, member motivations
- **Actions:** Write community thesis: worldview/philosophy, what you stand for, what you're "against." Define give/get value exchange.
- **Outputs:** Community thesis + value exchange
- **Check:** Thesis is non-generic (can't fit any random company); value exchange includes concrete benefits and contributions

### 3) Choose Community Model + Map Member Journey
- **Inputs:** Primary goal, member needs, resources
- **Actions:** Choose model (support, learning, netwo