Cognition has a Discord community for content marketers.

I onboarded discussion leaders to help me manage the community a few months ago, and they have made a sizeable impact on the community’s growth.

As we grew, some parted ways to explore more opportunities. It made me realize I can’t explain from zero every time we onboard a new member.

So I thought, “Maybe I should write a playbook for our community managers so everyone knows the community goals and we stay on the same page.”

The big idea was to document my vision so everyone on this journey with me knows where we’re heading.

Writing down my principles made me feel - “Fuck it; this should be public.” Because if this helps you manage your community better or provides insight, what more do I want?

So here we go:

Insiders’ Principles

Notes all our managers should read to learn about the kind of community we’re building.

1. We have two kinds of goals: Members and Community.

Member Goals: Make our community members better content marketers than they were before the community existed in their lives. You choose how - be it with your resources, insights, questions, or the conversations you start.

Community Goals: Always work on Growth and Engagement.

• Growth is how we keep bringing new people into the community. We want more people, of course, but that’s not what we focus on. We work on getting content folks who do good, real work and can articulate their insights. This will naturally draw ‘more people’ towards the community as a second-order effect.

• Engagement is how we host our members. “Do we ask interesting questions and make our members comfortable enough to eventually share insights without prompting them to do so?” should be our mindset.

Also, understand the 90-9-1 rule.

All communities have four types of community members:

• Creators: People who voluntarily ask questions and post insights.

• Contributors: Members who reply to creators’ posts and take the convo forward.

• Observers: Folks who actively read posts and replies but do not engage. They react at most.

• Inactive: Those who either skim the messages passively or check in the community once a week.

So don’t take the pressure of ‘Engaging Everyone.’ Just focus on ensuring the creators are active and contributors are acknowledged. That’s only 10% of the community - and it keeps it running smoothly (We hope.)

2. What data do we track?

We track a North Start metric and some Secondary metrics every Monday to measure the growth.

North Star metric: Number of unique members messaging per week. We will have regulars who constantly post and engage. But it’s on us to create an environment where new members want to voice their opinions.

Secondary metrics: Total messages per week, New Joins, Leaves, Unique Channels engaged, Whether the primary channels were active, etc.

3. We are members first

We have a set of responsibilities as hosts, but no conversation should ever feel like it’s a host-member relationship. If at all we are anything, it’s members. All the host activity still happens (spam control, event moderation, etc.), but it should be subtle and effective.

4. Make Friends

There is a high possibility you will find your next hire, collaborator, or cofounder in communities. (Some people even find spouses, but that’s a different story.) It isn’t possible by mere ‘networking.’ Talk to people, know what’s happening in their lives as much as they’re comfortable sharing, and of course, for most of the time, talk shop.

Some folks like to keep relationships professional. I respect that. If that’s you, see from the lens of ‘How can I help this person to the best of my abilities?’

5. Primary channels are work. Everything else is the playground.

I am a huge proponent of having fun channels in the communities. That’s where the real bonding happens, IMO.

We have #chillzone and #memes to talk about everything except work - from health to food to meetups to discoveries to movies to pictures to travel. Everything.

These channels are forever active and for the right reasons.

But as hosts, it’s our responsibility to hold conversations in our primary channels. Remember our goal? We need to help our members become better content marketers.

6. Our ideal state is to become Host Independent

If you and I can’t work on Insiders tomorrow. Or we are off for a 14-day vacation, the members should still spend time in the community for what it is and the people it has.

If the community always needs a host to prompt conversations and connections, it’s not really a ‘community.’

7. The best way to stay active in the community is with documentation

You don’t have to specifically allocate time to the community. Do interesting things; drop your insights in the right channel. As simple as that.

Ex: Read a blog, post a TL;DR. Or write what you agree/disagree about. Or talk about how you have drawn a parallel in our work/life.

Well, that’s my input and one way of doing it. You do you.

8. Stay accountable for your side of commitments

If all of us are accountable for our tasks, we spend our time more efficiently on reflection and improvement than on supervision. Pick a task, commit to a deadline (you choose), get it done no matter what. Especially when our members are involved.

9. You tell. You TELL.

If something is good, you tell. If something is shitty, you definitely tell.

Honesty with the right intent is always appreciated.

That’s everything I had on my mind. I might add, subtract, or refine the nine principles with time. I will let you know when I do. But for now, I hope this was useful.

Before we leave,

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See ya soon!

Love,
Vikra.