--- name: suede-community-marketing description: "Suede-owned community-growth discipline for member purpose, platform choice, seeding, rituals, moderation, health metrics, and earned advocacy. Use when starting, auditing, or growing a Discord, Slack, forum, subreddit, or comparable product community. NOT FOR: public social-channel content (use suede-social), referral-program mechanics (use suede-referrals), or customer-interview research (use suede-customer-research)." metadata: version: 2.0.0 --- # Suede Community Marketing Use this Suede community-growth playbook to create genuine member value and measurable business outcomes without manufacturing engagement. ## Before You Start **Check for product marketing context first:** If `.agents/product-marketing.md` exists (or `.claude/product-marketing.md`, or the legacy `product-marketing-context.md` filename, in older setups), read it before asking questions. Use that context and only ask for information not already covered. Understand the situation (ask if not provided): 1. **What is the product or brand?**: What problem does it solve, who uses it 2. **What community platform(s) are in play?**: Discord, Slack, Circle, Reddit, Facebook Groups, forum, etc. 3. **What stage is the community at?**: Pre-launch, 0–100 members, 100–1k, scaling, or established 4. **What is the primary community goal?**: Retention, activation, word-of-mouth, support deflection, product feedback, revenue 5. **Who is the ideal community member?**: Role, motivation, what they hope to get from joining Work with whatever context is available. If key details are missing, make reasonable assumptions and flag them. --- ## Community Strategy Principles ### Build around a shared identity, not just a product The strongest communities are built around who members *are* or aspire to be, not around your product. Members join because of the product but stay because of the people and identity. Example: r/homelab: the identity is tinkerers who self-host, and every ritual, channel, and recognition mechanic in it reinforces that self-image. Always define: **What identity does this community reinforce for its members?** ### Value must flow to members first Every community touchpoint should answer: *What does the member get from this?* - Exclusive knowledge or early access - Peer connections they can't get elsewhere - Recognition and status within a group they respect - Direct influence on the product roadmap - Career opportunities, visibility, or credibility --- ## Playbooks by Goal ### Launching a Community from Zero 1. **Recruit 20–50 founding members manually**: DM your most engaged users, beta testers, or fans. Don't open publicly until there is baseline activity. 2. **Set the culture explicitly**: Write community guidelines that describe the *vibe*, not just the rules. What does great participation look like here? 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. ### Growing an Existing Community 1. **Audit where members drop off**: Are people joining but not posting? Posting once and disappearing? Identify the leaky stage. 2. **Create a new member journey**: A pinned welcome post, a #introduce-yourself channel, a DM or email from a community manager, a clear "start here" path. 3. **Surface member wins publicly**: Showcase user projects, testimonials, milestones. This reinforces identity and signals that participation has rewards. 4. **Run recurring community rituals**: Weekly threads (e.g., "What are you working on?"), monthly AMAs, seasonal challenges. Rituals create habit. 5. **Identify and invest in power users**: participation is usually heavily skewed toward a small minority (Inferred; verify against this community's own posts-per-member distribution before quoting a ratio). Give the observed top contributors recognition, early access, moderator roles, or product input. ### Building a Brand Ambassador / Advocate Program 1. **Identify candidates**: Look for 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. **Create 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**: Look for patterns in complaints or confusion before they become churn signals --- ## Platform Selection Guide | 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 | --- ## Community Health Metrics Track these signals weekly. Label every number by evidence class, Boundaries below forbids stating any of them without a source, window, and denominator: - **Observed**: read directly from the platform's admin view or export. Name the view and the date pulled. - **Computed**: derived from observed values. Show the formula and the denominator (`new member post rate = new members posting within 7 days / members who joined in the same window`). - **Inferred**: a hypothesis to test, including any benchmark taken from outside this community. Never word it as this community's fact. - **Unknown**: the platform does not expose the measure. State what would resolve it. Metrics: - **DAU/MAU ratio**: Stickiness (Computed: daily actives / monthly actives). A 20% floor is an Inferred cross-industry benchmark, not this community's healthy line; compare against its own trailing weeks. - **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 are from the company team, not members - Questions go unanswered for >24 hours - Engagement concentrates in a handful of accounts: compute the share of posts from the top 5 posters over a stated window before calling it a warning - New members stop posting after their intro message --- ## Output Formats Depending on what the user needs, 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 for each - **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 Always be specific. Generic advice ("be consistent," "provide value") is not useful. Give the user something they can act on today. ### Community Strategy Doc: exact headings ```markdown # : Strategy ## Identity Member identity reinforced: Who is explicitly not the member: ## Platform Choice Chosen: | Rejected: because Evidence class for any cited benchmark: Observed | Computed | Inferred | Unknown ## Core Loop Weekly member action: What makes it easy: How it is rewarded publicly: Where new value re-enters: ## Seeding Plan Founding members (20–50, manually recruited): Pre-launch seed posts: <5–10 topics that model the behavior> Culture statement: ## 90-Day Plan Days 0–30 | Days 31–60 | Days 61–90, for each: goal, rituals live, owner, primary metric with its denominator ## Measurement Primary metric: = / , window days Diagnostics (2–4): ## Open Gates ``` The other five deliverables use these headings: - **Channel Architecture**: Channel | Purpose | Who posts | Posting rules | Success signal - **New Member Journey**: Pinned post / DM template / Day 1–7 prompts / First-win definition / Drop-off checkpoint - **Community Ritual Calendar**: Ritual | Cadence | Owner | Member job | Kill condition - **Ambassador Program Brief**: Criteria / Benefits / Outreach template / Disclosure requirement / Tracking plan - **Health Audit Report**: Metrics with evidence class and denominator / Diagnosis / Top 3 priorities / What would disprove the diagnosis --- ## Halt Contract Use this exact format when authorization, evidence, or an enforcement decision blocks the requested result: including the space-creation, invite, role, moderation, removal, and announcement gate and the enforcement-outcome gate in Boundaries: ```text HALT: Why it blocks: Resolve with: 1.