Community case study: Notion’s community led growth
Notion is an example of amazing community success.
Unlike many technology start ups, Notion built upon early ambassadorship for the product and focused on community led growth.
Today it has 20m users and over 1 million community members.
So, let’s take a brief look at their community led growth story.
What is Notion?
Notion is a productivity software tool with a minimal design aesthetic that captured the imagination of Gen Z and became a viral consumer product that is now making inroads into businesses across the world.
It’s like Evernote or Delicio.us (remember that?) on steroids.
Early fans discovered Notion for note-taking and storing, tasks, homework and project planners, calendars, vision and mood boards and much. And they were happy to broadcast their love for the product through TikTok and YouTube.
How did Notion’s communities develop?
Notion fan and productivity communities started to spring up on platforms, such as Reddit, Facebook, Discord, Clubhouse and local Notion peer support groups used platforms like Meetup to arrange in-person events and co-working.
One of the early fans setting up Notion peer communities was Ben Lang. He loved Notion so much that he built a website where people could share Notion templates, he launched a Facebook Group for fans of Notion and tweeted about the product. He did this for free because he loved the product so much.
In this brilliant article and inteview by Rex Woodbury, we learn that Ben was approached by Notion’s Head of Marketing and essentially hired their biggest fan as Head of Community at a time when they had only 15 employees.
What did Notion’s Head of Community do first?
The first thing that Ben did was to formalize Notion’s Ambassador Programme. He prioritized geography and a fan’s knowledge and passion for the platform when it came to appointing ambassadors.
Importantly, the decision was made to not remunerate and to create a vetting process that looked for examples of community building expertise from Notion’s prospective ambassadors.
Ben also created a Community Hub on Notion. Not only highlighting a brilliant use case for the platform, but creating a simple, navigable hub and knowledge hub for Notion fans to find:
Regional or interest-based communities and forums
Regional or online events and webinars
Notion ‘Goodies’, e.g templates, brand assets etc.
Ways for people outside of the company to get more closely involved with Notion, e.g. apply to be an Ambassador, Champion, Affiliate, Certified Consultant, and other roles
Notion’s Community Knowledge Hub helps Notion users and fans find events, communities, content, the Ambassador Programme and other ways of connecting with the company
What is Notion’s community tech stack?
I will update when I find out more about Notion’s techstack, but these are the community tools and platforms I can see they link to or have read that they use.
Notion
This is the central knowledge hub. There are also individual Notion workspaces that are used as community spaces for specific location based groups to collaborate, for example Japanese regional communities, India, Spain, Brazil etc.
Slack
Slack is used for Notion owned programs and communities, such as the Ambassador and Champion groups.
Threado
Threado is used for community workflow automation.
Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit, X (formerly Twitter), Discord, Clubhouse, Meetup
Notion fan and Ambassador run community spaces have presences on these platforms.
What can we learn from Notion’s approach to community and community led growth?
There is so much you can learn from Notion and its communities.
Here are just a few highlights:
Community is everywhere - identify where your fans are already living their siloed digital lives
Part of the role of anyone developing a community strategy is to identify where your communities already exist. Notion fans had set up their own website, groups on Telegram, Facebook, Meetup, Reddit, Discord and other places.
People want to communicate and convene with each other in many spaces, for many different reasons.
You have a community ecosystem, not a single community space.
Take community seriously, even if you are a small start up
Notion hired for a community role and they were only 15 people. Even if you don’t hire a Head of Community, get support mapping out your community ecosystem and defining a strategy and roadmap.
Identify, nurture and support your superfans
There is so much value from this group. Whether that is informing your product, giving feedback, leaving reviews or developing content, events and communities.
Community is one of the best ways to inform product development
Notion’s communities provide a direct line of communication between them and their end users. They have established a fast feedback loop for their product. As well as building long-term affinity, they are identifying product pain points and unusual uses for their product.
Community creates an organic flywheel of content, product adoption, and referrals
Notion’s community is constantly creating content for their brand, and product. This steady stream of content has expanded their organic footprint, generated increased awareness and fuelled demand.
Don’t treat community like paid marketing or sales (but do measure the impact)
Community is not transactional like sales or marketing. Community is delicate and is powered by relationships and people. But get community right and you will positively impact user growth, sales, advocacy, product and market insight and much more. And this can be measured.
Like brand reputation, community is precious and it can be lost overnight
I can’t see that Notion have made any mis-steps and are certainly not being extractive with their approach to community and their fans. There seems to be a strong sense of trust, so this is not a direct learning from them.
But something that I am keen to tell all of my clients is the importance of being a constant “good steward” and ensuring that there is a trusted relationship with you and your stakeholders and communities.
Communities are a lot like brand reputation. Without care and attention, you can easily lose people’s support or goodwill. They will either go quiet or leave your communities. And all of the above is cancelled out.
Notion’s Head of Community Ben Lang mentions interview with Rex Woodbury. I love this quote from him that highlights how magical and fragile communities can be:
“Community is something that’s so hard to build and so easy to lose.” Community’s magic is in its inherent fragility.”
Have a community and want to be featured as a case study? Please do contact me.
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Further reading
I’m creating a community glossary and will be explaining some key concepts in community strategy, community building and community management.
Here are some connected articles that you may find helpful:
What is Community Everywhere / what are Community Ecosystems?
What is Community Led Growth - is it the same as Community Based Marketing (CBM)?
What is Community Market Fit?
What is Minimal Viable Community (MVC)?
What are the 5 Ps and 1 C of community?
What are rituals in community building and why are they so important?
What is Broken Windows Theory and does it apply to Community Management?
What is Community Manager Appreciation Day (CMAD)?
The Definitive Community Glossary - A - Z
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Photo by JOSHUA COLEMAN on Unsplash
