# Iblai Marketing Community Marketing

> Build and leverage online communities to drive product growth and brand loyalty. Use when the user wants to create a community strategy, grow a Discord or Slack community, manage a forum or subreddit, build brand advocates, increase word-of-mouth, drive community-led growth, engage users post-signup, or turn customers into evangelists. Trigger phrases: "build a community," "community strategy," "Discord community," "Slack community," "community-led growth," "brand advocates," "user community," "forum strategy," "community engagement," "grow our community," "ambassador program," "community flywheel."

- Skill: `iblai/iblai-marketing-community-marketing` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add iblai/iblai-marketing-community-marketing`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/iblai/iblai-marketing-community-marketing/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Marketing & Growth
- Author: iblai (https://skillmd.com/u/iblai)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/iblai/iblai-marketing-community-marketing

---


# /iblai-marketing-community-marketing

Design, launch, and grow a community that creates real value for members
while delivering measurable business outcomes.

## Step 0: Context Check

Read `.agents/product-marketing-context.md` (or `.claude/product-marketing-context.md`
on older setups) first. Only ask for what isn't there.

Pin down before recommending anything:

1. **Product or brand** — problem solved, who uses it
2. **Platform(s)** — Discord, Slack, Circle, Reddit, Facebook Groups, forum
3. **Stage** — pre-launch, 0–100 members, 100–1k, scaling, or established
4. **Primary goal** — retention, activation, word-of-mouth, support deflection, product feedback, revenue
5. **Ideal member** — role, motivation, what they hope to get from joining

Work with what's available. Make reasonable assumptions and flag them when context is missing.

---

## Strategy Principles

### Build around identity, not the product

The strongest communities form around who members *are* or aspire to be — not your product. Members join for the product but stay for the people and identity.

Examples:
- Indie hackers (identity: bootstrapped founders)
- r/homelab (identity: tinkerers who self-host)
- Figma community (identity: designers who care about craft)

Always pin down: **What identity does this community reinforce for its members?**

### Value flows to members first

Every touchpoint answers: *What does the member get from this?*

- Exclusive knowledge or early access
- Peer connections they can't find elsewhere
- Recognition and status in a group they respect
- Direct influence on the product roadmap
- Career opportunities, visibility, or credibility

### The Community Flywheel

Healthy communities compound:

```
Members join → get value → engage → create content/help others
    ↑                                          ↓
    ←←←←← new members discover the community ←←
```

Design for the flywheel from day one. Every decision: *Does this accelerate the loop or slow it down?*

---

## Playbooks by Goal

### Launch From Zero

1. **Recruit 20–50 founding members manually.** DM your most engaged users, beta testers, or fans. Do NOT open publicly until baseline activity exists.
2. **Set culture explicitly.** Write guidelines that describe the *vibe*, not just the rules. What does great participation look like?
3. **Seed conversations before launch.** Pre-populate channels with 5–10 posts that model the behavior you want — questions, wins, resources.
4. **Do things that don't scale at first.** Reply to every post. Welcome every new member by name. Host a weekly call. You are buying social proof.
5. **Define your core loop.** What action do you want members to take weekly? Make it easy and reward it publicly.

### Grow an Existing Community

1. **Audit drop-off.** Joining but not posting? Posting once and disappearing? Identify the leaky stage.
2. **Create a new member journey.** Pinned welcome post, `#introduce-yourself`, DM or email from a community manager, a "start here" path.
3. **Surface member wins publicly.** Showcase user projects, testimonials, milestones. Reinforces identity and signals that participation has rewards.
4. **Run recurring rituals.** Weekly threads ("What are you working on?"), monthly AMAs, seasonal challenges. Rituals create habit.
5. **Invest in power users.** 1% of members generate 90% of value. Give them recognition, early access, moderator roles, or direct product input.

### Brand Ambassador / Advocate Program

1. **Identify candidates.** People who already recommend you unprompted. Check reviews, social mentions, community posts.
2. **Make the ask personal.** Don't send a generic form. Reach out 1:1 and explain why you chose them specifically.
3. **Offer meaningful benefits.** Exclusive access, swag, revenue share, or public recognition — not just "early access to features."
4. **Give them tools and content.** Referral links, shareable assets, key talking points, a private Slack channel.
5. **Measure and iterate.** Track referral traffic, signups, and engagement driven by advocates. Double down on what works.

### Community-Led Support (Deflection + Retention)

1. **Build a searchable knowledge base** from top community questions
2. **Recognize members who help others** — "Community Expert" badges, leaderboards, shoutouts
3. **Close the loop with product.** When community feedback drives a change, announce it publicly and credit the members who raised it
4. **Monitor sentiment weekly.** Watch for patterns in complaints or confusion before they become churn signals

---

## Platform Selection

| Platform | Best For | Watch Out For |
|----------|----------|---------------|
| Discord | Developer, gaming, creator communities; real-time chat | High noise, hard to search, onboarding friction |
| Slack | B2B / professional communities; familiar to SaaS buyers | Free tier limits history; feels like work |
| Circle | Creator or course-based communities; clean UX | Less organic discovery; requires driving traffic |
| Reddit | High-volume public communities; SEO benefit | You don't own it; moderation is hard |
| Facebook Groups | Consumer brands; older demographics | Declining organic reach; algorithm dependent |
| Forum (Discourse) | Long-form technical communities; SEO-rich | Slower velocity; higher effort to post |

---

## Health Metrics

Track weekly:

- **DAU/MAU ratio** — Stickiness. Above 20% is healthy for most communities.
- **New member post rate** — % of new members who post within 7 days of joining
- **Thread reply rate** — % of posts that receive at least one reply
- **Churn / lurker ratio** — Members who joined but haven't posted in 30+ days
- **Content created by non-staff** — % of posts not written by the company team

**Warning signs:**
- Most posts come from the company team, not members
- Questions go unanswered for >24 hours
- The same 5 people drive 80%+ of engagement
- New members stop posting after their intro message

---

## Output Formats

Produce one of:

- **Community Strategy Doc** — Platform choice, identity definition, core loop, 90-day launch plan
- **Channel Architecture** — Recommended channels/categories with purpose and posting guidelines
- **New Member Journey** — Welcome sequence: pinned post, DM template, first-week prompts
- **Community Ritual Calendar** — Weekly/monthly recurring events and threads
- **Ambassador Program Brief** — Criteria, benefits, outreach template, tracking plan
- **Health Audit Report** — Current metrics, diagnosis, top 3 priorities to fix

Be specific. Generic advice ("be consistent," "provide value") is useless. Give something the user can act on today.

---

## Task-Specific Questions

1. Platform you're building on (or considering)?
2. Stage — pre-launch, early, growing, established?
3. Primary business goal — retention, activation, word-of-mouth, support deflection?
4. Ideal member and what motivates them?
5. Existing users or customers to seed from?
6. Hours per week available for community management?

---

## Related Skills

- **iblai-marketing-referral-program**: Structured referral and ambassador incentive programs
- **iblai-marketing-churn-prevention**: Retention strategies that pair with community engagement
- **iblai-marketing-social-content**: Content creation across social platforms
- **iblai-marketing-customer-research**: Understanding members' needs and language