# Community marketing Human Guide ## What This Is For Provides expert guidance for community builder and community-led growth strategist. It gives the agent a clearer input/output frame for social content: what context to ask for, what decisions to make, and what usable artifact to return. Use this as a human-readable version of the Community marketing agent skill. It is meant for marketers, operators, founders, and other non-coders who want the workflow without reading agent-specific implementation instructions. ## When To Use This - Use this when you need a repeatable process for community marketing. - Use this when the task needs judgment, examples, constraints, or a clear output format rather than a one-off prompt. - Use this when you want to hand an AI assistant enough context to produce a usable marketing artifact. ## When Not To Use This - Do not use this when you only need a quick factual answer. - Do not use this when the work depends on private data you cannot share with the assistant. - Do not use this as a replacement for legal, compliance, financial, or medical review. ## What You Need Before Starting - The goal or business outcome you want. - The audience, customer segment, or market context. - Any source material the assistant should respect, such as notes, briefs, examples, URLs, or brand guidance. - Constraints such as tone, length, channel, deadline, region, or approval requirements. - A clear definition of what a good final answer should look like. ## Step-By-Step Workflow 1. State the job clearly: "Use the Community marketing guide to help me with..." 2. Add context: audience, goal, offer, channel, source material, and constraints. 3. Ask the assistant to identify missing inputs before producing the final output. 4. Have the assistant follow the skill-specific guidance below. 5. Review the result against the final checklist and ask for revisions where needed. ## Skill-Specific Guidance - **What is the product or brand?** — What problem does it solve, who uses it - **What community platform(s) are in play?** — Discord, Slack, Circle, Reddit, Facebook Groups, forum, etc. - **What stage is the community at?** — Pre-launch, 0–100 members, 100–1k, scaling, or established - **What is the primary community goal?** — Retention, activation, word-of-mouth, support deflection, product feedback, revenue - **Who is the ideal community member?** — Role, motivation, what they hope to get from joining - Indie hackers (identity: bootstrapped founders) - r/homelab (identity: tinkerers who self-host) - Figma community (identity: designers who care about craft) - 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 ## Decision Points And Nuance The original skill emphasizes: Before You Start, Community Strategy Principles, Build around a shared identity, not just a product, Value must flow to members first, The Community Flywheel, Playbooks by Goal, Launching a Community from Zero, Growing an Existing Community, Building a Brand Ambassador / Advocate Program, Community-Led Support (Deflection + Retention). Use these questions to steer the work: - What is the intended audience or buyer? - What source material must be preserved? - What should the assistant optimize for: clarity, persuasion, accuracy, speed, creativity, or conversion? - What examples represent the desired quality bar? - What should the assistant avoid? ## Common Mistakes - Value must flow to members first - **Recruit 20–50 founding members manually** — DM your most engaged users, beta testers, or fans. Don't open publicly until there is baseline activity. - **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. - **Make the ask personal** — Don't send a generic form. Reach out 1:1 and explain why you chose them specifically. - | Reddit | High-volume public communities; SEO benefit | You don't own it; moderation is hard | - "Mentions warning sign of company-dominated posts" - "Notes peer support must feel valued, not used" ## Copy-And-Paste Prompt ```text Use the Community marketing human guide. My goal: [Describe the business outcome] Audience: [Describe who this is for] Context and source material: [Paste notes, examples, links, or existing copy] Constraints: [Tone, length, channel, timeline, must-include items, must-avoid items] Before producing the final output, ask me for any missing information that would materially improve the result. ``` ## Final Checklist - [ ] The output matches the original goal. - [ ] The audience and context are reflected in the answer. - [ ] Important constraints and source material were preserved. - [ ] The assistant made the relevant decisions explicit. - [ ] The final artifact is ready to use, review, or hand to the next person. ## Source This guide was generated from the coreyhaines31/marketingskills skill entry for `community-marketing`. ## Source Skill Notes These notes preserve the nuance from the original skill. Use them as supporting reference when the workflow above feels too generic. # Community Marketing You are an expert community builder and community-led growth strategist. Your goal is to help the user design, launch, and grow a community that creates genuine value for members while driving measurable business outcomes. ## 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. Examples: - Indie hackers (identity: bootstrapped founders) - r/homelab (identity: tinkerers who self-host) - Figma community (identity: designers who care about craft) 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 ### The Community Flywheel Healthy communities compound over time: ``` Members join → get value → engage → create content/help others ↑ ↓ ←←←←← new members discover the community ←← ``` Design for the flywheel from day one. Every decision should ask: *Does this accelerate the loop or slow it down?* --- ## 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** — 1% of members generate 90% of value. Give them recognition, early access, moderator roles, or direct 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.