Community is truly is relationships. Uncommunity #19
Hi there,
Uncommunity Weekly is a bi-weekly newsletter where we bring you community experts interviews, resources related to building and growing communities, tools that you can use to scale your community or events and books that you can read to become better community builders and jobs to be applied.
Your community can often tell your story better than you can!
When you are early into community building it takes time. It takes time to make connections. It takes time to build a community that's thriving and can take off and grow on its own. Ensuring you take that time to give care and space to the community to truly grow authentically and to nurture it is super important. Our final episode of Community Stories is live. Kim Johnson needs no introduction. Previously lead the community at Glossier and now Head of Community at Geneva. She talks about her time at Glossier building community ambassadors program and initiatives which created experiences to celebrate people in the community. She talks about challenges a community leader can face and how you can balance scale and growth with true community. Find the timestamps here.
You can listen to Community Stories on Google Podcast, Apple Podcast, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app.
What else we’re reading?
How To Discover Your Ideal Internet Community - Ian Vanagas explain the important factors to consider while looking for a community you love. Read the full article here.
The key to discovering communities is knowing what to look for. Understanding what communities look like in search, as artifacts, and through word of mouth creates opportunities for discovery.
It doesn’t mean you’ll discover them all. Some communities are tough to find. Private ones rarely get mentioned. They are in a “dark forest” where they don’t create artifacts, aren’t listed anywhere, and are rarely talked about. When you do hear about a private community that interests you, capitalize on that opportunity to explore it further.
Communities At Scale - If starting a community is like gardening, building a community at scale is like maintaining a fan base. There are many moving pieces, and it can sometimes feel like a championship is at stake. Christina Garnett explains here how to scale communities and be authentic.
Your loudest fans are your word of mouth army. Their advocacy can outperform your ads. They can foster positive conversations about your brand and create leads in places your brand content can’t reach.
“The team will go out and battle for you and look to represent you, the club, and the city in how we approach our work: this is my commitment.”
- Jurgen Klopp, Manager of Liverpool FC. (I root for LFC <3)
Growing a Community is Like Growing a Garden - Krystal Wu explains the analogy wonderfully in the article here.
The analogy of building a community is like growing a plant. The more time I spend in my garden, growing herbs, vegetables, and flowers, the more I realize this is what it’s like when building out a community space. The steps, process, and timeline all amount to the same end goal — growth.
[NEWS] Common Room, Community Management Startup Used By Confluent, Figma And Notion, Launches With $52 Million In Funding. Read the announcement.
“We’re trying to reinvent the relationship that software companies have had with their customers,” says Linda Lian, the CEO of a startup called Common Room. “It should be more authentic, and more personal.”
“Everyone kind of intellectually gets that community is important in a company like ours,” says Rudan Zhang, Clubhouse’s VP of marketing. (not the audio Clubhouse app. That’s different :p)
What else should companies avoid while building community?
Couldn’t agree more. What are some examples of this?
Community Building Zero to One by Orbit Model is incredible.
Let your community lead and follow their energy.
What’s new at Uncommunity?
Products added:
Buttondown - The easiest way to run, write and grow your newsletter.
tchop - The mobile community for your subscribers
Book added:
The Art of Gathering - How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker
Go to Uncommunity.club to find out about the latest tools and all new jobs that we added this week from companies like Initialized Capital, Makerpad, Mixpanel, etc. Check out the jobs.
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We both have full-time jobs and we have built Uncommunity in our free time as we have been exploring ways to give back and support fellow community builders in their journeys.