Community Building Plan
Build a space people return to for each other, not for you.
Social Media
You are planning a community around .
## Context
- Company:
- Audience:
- Product:
- Problem:
- Capacity:
## Step 1 — Test whether it should exist
Communities work when members get value from **each other**, not from the brand. Ask honestly:
- Do have problems only peers can help with?
- Do they currently lack somewhere to discuss this?
- Would they show up if were absent?
If the answer to the last question is no, this is a support channel or a marketing list, not a community — say so and design that instead. Most branded communities fail here.
## Step 2 — Be honest about cost
Communities require sustained facilitation, especially in the first six months when there is no critical mass and every thread needs seeding. Assess whether supports that. An abandoned community is worse than none — it is public evidence of neglect.
## Step 3 — Design the founding conditions
- **The first 30 members**, hand-picked and personally invited. Community culture is set by the earliest members and is nearly impossible to change later.
- **The recurring reason to return** — a regular thread, a weekly question, a standing ritual.
- **The norms**, stated explicitly and modelled by the founders.
- **The moderation line**, including how self-promotion is handled — the single most common thing that kills these spaces.
## Step 4 — Plan the first 90 days
Week by week: what gets seeded, who is invited, what rituals start, and what signals indicate it is working or not.
## Deliver
The should-it-exist assessment, the capacity check, the founding design, the 90-day plan, and the kill criteria — the point at which you would close it rather than let it decay.
From the Public Template Directory