Communities at Scale

How do you build and maintain a community?

Photo by dominik reallife on Unsplash

Community is a hot topic right now, so there are questions about how you build a community, but then, as most business and marketing conversations tend to turn, it becomes a question of how to do it at scale.

You first need to understand the why for the community, its members, and how you can empower them for growth and maintenance. You have to get the soil right first.

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.

If we look at large-scale communities from a football club perspective, the needs and tactics become clearer.

Points of Entry

The larger the community, the more points of entry you need. We see this when we discuss what makes a fan. Buying a t-shirt? Watching the game on TV? Going to the game in person? Having a man cave filled with merch? There are multiple ways to enter and participate.

It isn’t enough to want to belong. You need to understand how you can access the community as a whole. There will sometimes be questions about what qualifies someone as worthy or applicable for the community. This is where you decide…