The definitive community glossary A - Z

Here is a list of definitions for the most common community strategy, community building and community management terms and acronyms.

I originally wrote this for the Guild website. Find the original article here.

This is an updated version.

I’ll aim to make this Community Glossary the most comprehensive, freely available resource. Message me if you want to see any community terminology demystified.

Administrators or Admins

A community management role. Community Administrators or ‘Admins’ will typically be in charge of managing access to a community, approving new members, assigning roles and permissions to users, promoting and removing members, as well as many other duties.  

A Community Admin might not always be the public face of a community and can work as part of a larger team alongside community moderators or hosts.

Advisory Community

Advisory Communities usually comprise individuals who are advisors to a business, organisation or charity/non-profit to achieve its mission, potential or growth through their valuable support and advice.

Alumni Community

Alumni Communities are powerful communities that create value for both organisations and individual members.

The word alumni is traditionally used to describe former students of schools, colleges, or universities. Today, many business organisations use the term alumni to collectively refer to people who are former employees.

Businesses have recognised what educational institutes have known for decades - that your former physical place of study or work is a natural connective space, and that bonds and relationships formed there can create a powerful, long lasting allied force.

AMA (Ask Me Anything)

AMAs are question and answer-based sessions in a community, where members can ask questions in real-time to guests, highlighted community members or subject matter experts.

AMAs were first made popular on Reddit, where high-profile personalities like President Barack Obama, Elon Musk, Bernie Sanders and Bill Gates participated.

AMAs can be text based (like Reddit) or video based.

Ambassadors or Advocates

Community Ambassadors or advocates are community members who can help to raise its profile and recruit new members.

Automation

Automation can refer to things that you can automate in your community.

This might be automations from within a community platform, e.g. automatic member acceptance or posts with obscenities being filtered into a trust queue. Automations can also refer to a growing number of tools, services and rules that can connect to community platforms and speed up manual processes.

This can include approving community members, syncing your community data with your Customer Relationship Management (CRM), or sending messages, reminders or content round-ups to new members. Application Programming Interface (API) and services like Zapier can do this with some community platforms.

Avatar

An icon or figure representing a community member.

Some online communities accept or encourage the use of an avatar or a character instead of a member profile photo or headshot. Often used in video games and early internet forums where anonymity is favoured over being present.

Some avatars can only be used or unlocked if a member reaches a specific level within a community.

Award

Some communities award members for specific behaviours through the form of badges, tokens, credit or financial awards. See also gamification and badges.

B2B Community

A Business-to-Business or B2B Community is a group of professionals drawn together by a shared interest and held together over time by mutual support or benefit.

Online B2B communities are groups of people who share something in common AND share a digital platform to convene, collaborate and communicate.

Many of these communities will meet in-person to maintain social ties.

Badges

A community award and a method of illustrating the category, rank or profile of a member in a community. For example, a representative of the host brand, a ‘Founding Member’ or a ‘Valued Contributor’.

Awarding badges can be used as a gamification or behavioural science nudge technique to encourage desirable community behaviour, such as helping other community members. Badges can also signpost community moderators, hosts and administrators who can be approached for help, or they can highlight new members who may need more community support.

Banning

Community managers, moderators or admins may choose to ban members for breaching community rules or guidelines.

There will often be a process in place to help the moderation team treat members fairly and consistently.

Banning can be temporary or permanent and it doesn’t necessarily need to have a negative outcome - if you are protecting the community as a whole, your core membership will generally appreciate fair but decisive action to keep a community on track.

Bio

An abbreviation of Biography.

Most communities, networks or groups will require some form of identifier in the form of a biography or short summary of who a member is as a part of their personal profile. See also Profile.

Brand community or branded community

A brand community is a group of people who share a common interest, connection with or passion for a particular brand.

Successful brand communities move members beyond a transactional relationship and work hard to build a shared identity, a sense of belonging and some form of purpose for connecting. Brand communities or branded communities can be owned, i.e the brand invests, plans, creates and resources the community, or they can be non-owned, i.e frequently set up by brand fans who want to gather other like-minded people.

Brand communities can exist on online forums, community platforms, social media, events or any platform that gathers and facilitates interaction among community members.

Brand communities can be categorised using the 5Ps and 1C of community. Communities of Product, Place, Play, Practice, Purpose or Circumstance.

Bumping

Bumping is the process of adding a comment to a thread or post in a community to make it more visible.

Usually applied to older posts that may have useful information, or if the original poster or the community host or manager would like to see more engagement on a topic/thread or post.

CGC - Community Generated Content

Also known as Community Created Content (CCC). CGC is an example of community activity and is the co-creation of content from a community through collaboration.

Communities can create powerful, highly relevant and meaningful content. Each member can contribute different resources, skills, experiences and knowledge. CGC can be a way to bring a community together and help members to understand how much you value their presence.

An example could be a list of peer reviewed technology, event spaces, restaurants - the things that the community cares about that can be co-created through trusted and informed community input.

Channels

Channels are a design feature of some community platforms, including Slack. They provide community designers with the ability to structure, categorise and section off conversations into dedicated areas or ‘channels’.

Channels can make it easier to organise groups of people around specific topics or ideas. They help members easily navigate to content and conversations that they are most interested in.

Some community platforms, such as Circle, call channels ‘spaces’. In some community platforms, access can be restricted to specific channels. For example, a VIP or paying community member may have access to premium community channels that free tier members cannot view.

Chat

Usually refers to a live chat between individuals who are present in the community at the same time. Chat functions can be a community platform feature that allows quick, real-time discussions via audio or video options. In some community platforms, chat is separate from posts. In others, chat is the primary peer-to-peer method of communication.

Chatham House Rule

Many professional meetings, events and professional communities operate under the Chatham House Rule.

It’s a single rule, not rules, which encourages open discussion but protects the identity and privacy of participants.

The Rule reads as follows:

When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed.

If in doubt, assuming that the Chatham House Rule applies is good practice in private communities.

If you want to quote something that someone has said within a community, ask for their permission. People are often delighted to help, may offer you additional information or support, and you’ll avoid any misunderstanding.

Chief Community Officer‍ - CCO

The Chief Community Officer is the most senior executive role in the community profession and a C-level leader.  In practice there are very few CCOs.

As community becomes increasingly important for organisations, there is debate about where community sits and which C-level role is responsible, whether that’s revenue (CRO), marketing (CMO), communications (CCO) or customer experience (CXO or CCO). See this ‘Meet the Community Builders’ interview with Nicole Saunders, Director of Community at Zendesk where she talks about where community can sit in community led organisations.

Churn

Churn is when a member leaves a community.  The rate of attrition, or community member churn, is the rate at which members leave a community. It is most commonly expressed as the percentage of members who leave over a fixed period – usually monthly or annually.

Whilst some would view this as a negative metric, communities should expect churn. It can also be a positive outcome for a community. For example, a parenting community might churn members when their children reach a certain age and the community no longer feels relevant to their lifestage.

A learning community will churn members at the end of a programme.

Churn can be viewed as a positive challenge/opportunity. For example, it might be an indicator that it's time to set up an alumni community or develop mentoring within the community/programme.

Members who leave your community can even go on to become Community Ambassadors and recommend new members.

CMGR or #CMGR

CMGR is an abbreviation of Community Manager. It was used frequently on Twitter (now X) where every character counted and now is used on alternative platforms, such as Bluesky or Threads.

The #hashtagged version #CMGR pulls together all posts intended for Community Managers.  You may also see the hashtags #CommunityManager or #Community.

Co-creation

See CGC - Community Generated Content.

Code of ethics

A code of ethics can be part of, or an alternative to Community Guidelines. It sets out expected ethical behaviours and standards for both the community owner and the members of the community.

Community

A community is a social unit or group of people who share something in common, whether that's an identity, values, location, religion, a shared goal, circumstances, roles or interests. Communities share a sense of place - that can be geographical or a virtual or digital platform.

Online communities are groups of people who share something in common AND share a digital platform to gather and communicate.

Types and categories of community can be expressed as The 5 Ps and 1C.

Community Advocates

Community Advocates are the same as Community Ambassadors. They are typically highly engaged, positive members who actively influence existing members and attract new community members.  This advocacy usually takes place through channels such as word of mouth, messaging, email or social media platforms.

Community As A Service (CaaS)

This term has two meanings. First coined by Kelly Strickel, founder and CEO of Remodista in December 2016 “Community as a service is a concept that allows members of an ecosystem to do business together while maintaining guardrails and parameters that allow the group to focus on a greater purpose for the betterment of all.”

In November 2020, Michelle Goodall, highlighted CaaS in the co-authored guide Community Based Marketing (CBM) - The new play in B2B marketing as:

"a service offered by consultancies, community specialists and agencies to provide businesses and organisations support with community strategy, building and management. This may include specifying or sourcing a community platform, establishing a community strategy, integrating and analysing data and providing day-to-day help with moderation, management, analysis and marketing."

Community Based Marketing (CBM)

First coined by Ashley Friedlein and Michelle Goodall in 'Community Based Marketing (CBM) - The New Play in B2B Marketing' in November 2020. Community Based Marketing is:

”Community Based Marketing (CBM) is bringing people together around a shared practice, purpose, place, product or set of circumstances to create insights and closer, more valuable relationships with prospects, customers and other stakeholders to deliver organisational value."

The rise of the Knowledge and Passion Economy, impact of the coronavirus pandemic and waning effectiveness of other marketing channels have seen B2B communities gain investment and gain a more strategic position in organisational and marketing strategies.

But McKinsey in 2021 also noted that successful consumer brands had also placed community at the heart of their business and forces including Direct To Consumer (DTC). The rise of subscription brands means that consumer marketers are taking community and community based marketing seriously. This article helped many people realise that a community flywheel could power their growth in ways not considered before.

For more, see this article ‘What is Community Led Growth? Is it the same as Community Based Marketing?’

Community Champion / Community Hero

Community Champions or Community Heroes are often connected to local or national grassroots communities and initiatives run to rally local communities around a cause or campaign.

For example, the app OLIO recruits community champions to help reduce food waste in their local communities by promoting and re-distributing unwanted food from supermarkets, restaurants and stores.

Community Guidelines

Community Guidelines are a published list of norms around behaviours and actions expected from members.

They may outline ethics, prohibited behaviour, and advice to encourage community contributions. They should ideally be brief, memorable and easy to link to in case administrators or moderators need to reinforce behaviours or processes. See also Code of Ethics.

Community Health

A set of measures and analysis or a report on whether a community is thriving, struggling or somewhere in between.

There is no set of standard community health metrics.

For example, one community may be thriving with 10 members engaging once a month, while another may be struggling with thousands of engaging daily. Community health must be measured in relation to your community type, purpose and strategy.

Community Host

A community role. A Community Host will typically perform a number of duties, including welcoming new members, prompting conversations, moderating discussions and hosting in-community events.

They may or may not have a community management, community moderator, or a community admin role.

In some communities, the Community Host is the public face of the community and may even be a figurehead or an expert who is external to the business or organisation.

Community-Led Business

Increasingly businesses are focusing on building communities to drive growth and impact by incorporating various stakeholder feedback, opinions and insight through communities.  

And many businesses are taking their corporate responsibility seriously and putting community at the heart of what they do to hold themselves to account, not just to people but the planet too.

Capturing valuable insight from customer, local, advisory, internal and volunteer communities can shape strategy, values and even product and service innovation.

A Community-led business can also be one where the community forms the heart of the business and drives the business model. For example, commercial member/subscription organisations or research businesses who provide insights from their community.

Community-Led Growth

Community-Led Growth is a strategy that an increasing number of businesses are adopting. Examples include the likes of Notion and OLIO.

At its heart are communities, developed or supported by the organisation long-term, as a force to drive customer acquisition, expansion and retention. But also to power positive societal impact.

See also Community-Led Business.

Community Lifecycle

There are various Community Lifecycle models that chart the different stages of a community. Richard Millington of Feverbee identifies inception, establishment, maturity, saturation and mitosis.

The World Bank’s Communities4Dev research also suggests five stages: ideation, initiation, growth, maturity, and division/decline.

All community lifecycle models reinforce the importance of understanding that community needs will change over time - and that you need to plan for these changes and take appropriate actions at each stage.

Community Manager

The role of a Community Manager is varied and will be different for every community. In large organisations they may be part of a Community team that includes community marketers, operations managers and other specialists such as developers, events specialists, data analysts or content creators.

In smaller organisations, a Community Manager can be responsible for everything from member recruitment and marketing to measurement and strategy, day-to-day moderation, running events, engagement within the community, and even decisions about the community platform and supporting technology.

Community Managers are primarily “people people”, and the role in the context of community is usually seen as a behavioural one rather than technical or commercial role.

The term is also often used by social media managers to refer to a social media community manager.

A 2020 survey by Australian Community Managers found 170 different job titles in 184 respondents, so many people in organisations may be a Community Manager without having that specific title.

Community Market Fit

Community market fit (CMF) is a concept that describes how well a community meets the needs of a group of people.

It's a way to determine if a community's vision, values, and interests align with a large enough group of people and an indicator of whether your community will be successful.
For a longer explanation read: What is Community Market Fit?

Community Marketers‍

Community Marketers typically work with Community Managers or Community Hosts to amplify the work of the community and recruit new members rather than building or managing it day-to-day.

They may also create social media ads/posts, events, newsletters, blogs and other content that helps community members connect and showcases the effects of the community to a wider audience.

Community Marketers are rarely an exclusive role. Many have these community marketing tasks on top of additional roles, e.g. Marketing, PR, communications, events management, social media marketing etc.

In smaller communities, it is often part of a community manager’s role.

Community Operations

In larger community-led organisations and in more established communities, a Community Operations role connects the “front of house” Community Manager, moderators and administrators with the “back of house” creative and technical teams.

Similar to Marketing Operations within a marketing team, this is a strategic role with responsibilities for community reporting, improving processes, technology alignment, feedback and budgeting.

Again, in smaller communities, Community Operations is often part of a community manager’s role.

Community platform

A community platform is simply the platform on which you host your online community.

The choice will depend on a number of factors that are important to your organisation, business or departmental aims and objectives and how you intend to integrate community into your broader ‘Technology Stacks’ such as MarTech, SalesTech, PRTech etc.

If data, control and privacy are important, many people will choose a purpose-built community platform or even develop their own community technology.

The choice of community platform can also be determined by budget and whether you are looking to develop a Minimal Viable Community or MVC.

Community of Circumstance

Communities of Circumstance can be the most powerful of all communities when we need them.

They are similar to Communities of Practice, except that membership is driven by a set of circumstances or life experiences rather than a shared interest or profession.

Examples of these communities include people living with the impact of Multiple Sclerosis or those caring for loved ones with Dementia. Many of these communities are run and funded by charities and non-profits and they provide invaluable support to millions of people around the world.
See What are the 5Ps and 1C of community?

Community of Place

One of the 5Ps of community - a Community of Place or a Place-Based Community binds members together because of where they were born, where they live, work or spend a percentage of their time.

These communities can be neighbourhoods, towns, or workplaces. They can also be people connected by an event, gathering or any other geographically specific place that a number of people share.

Many grassroots local community groups run on free platforms like WhatsApp, NextDoor and Facebook Groups. My local Facebook Groups and WhatsApp groups in Walthamstow, East London were supportive to those struggling during the pandemic and they continue to offer support and connection.

But local communities of place can also host flame wars, poor behaviours and personal insults. And many communities of place are run by volunteers without community management training or robust community guidelines.

B2B Communities of Place tend to focus on local chapters, regional groups, physical or virtual events and meet-ups, such as physical member spaces or regular events.

Community of Play

One of the 5Ps of community - Communities of Play form around a common interest or hobby. They frequently cover topics such as gaming, sports, arts, music, collectables etc.

Typically, these communities are developed by passionate fans and hobbyists. There has long been a tradition of larger Communities of Play being acquired or closely worked with by the rights owners. Communities of Play can also be created by brands. One example of a brand with a long established investment in multiple community types is Lego - see What are the 5Ps or Community?

Community of Practice

One of the 5Ps of community - a Community of Practice is a common B2B community category or type.

It’s a group of people who share a common concern, interest or passion, and come together to interact regularly.

These communities tend to link individuals together across official organisational boundaries and departments as they exchange knowledge and collaborate to improve an industry, sector or role.

Examples include The Marketing Society’s Community of Practice for senior global marketers and many membership associations’ various communities and networks, such as Washington Technology Industry Association.

Community of Product

One of the 5Ps of community - Members of Communities of Product are focused primarily on discussing and learning about a specific product.

Communities of Product are popular in consumer industries such as beauty and fashion, where members benefit from being part of a loosely knit 'fan' community and receive member benefits via exclusive content, offers, events and product updates.

In Technology and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), product communities can also comprise millions of members, but also smaller, niche communities. They can be sub categorised as Customer Support, Customer Success or User communities.

Salesforce’s Trailblazer Community is a global movement with groups in around 90 countries. ‘Trailblazers’ comprise all types of stakeholders including developers, partners, employees and customers. It’s a B2B mega-community of Product.

Community of Purpose

One of the 5 P’s / categories of Community, a simple categorisation of community types.

Communities of Purpose tend to have a big, bold ambition. An end goal and a high purpose.

Ideally, these types of communities have a target date or time frame in which to achieve the purpose that they community is committed to, whether that’s to eradicate single use plastics by 2030, to reach NetZero, meet inclusion/diversity targets or to tackle the causes of a specific disease, whilst supporting those who live with it.

Community Purpose

This is the formal statement of the goals or aims of a community. It can also be called a Community Manifesto. All communities and community members benefit from convening around a clear purpose.

If you can’t sum up your community purpose in a couple of sentences, then your community may not have community market fit and it is likely to lose direction.

Having a clear purpose will help you capture the attention of members who will be relevant, interested and engaged. It helps new members understand why they should join a community. It also ensures existing community members continually understand the reason why they joined and value the community.

Purpose can also be the sole foundation of your community. For example to ‘improve social mobility in X profession/country’ or ‘collaborating for actionable change in race equality.’ Also see Communities of Purpose.

Community Rules

These often accompany or are a part of Community Guidelines.

Community Rules are a list of behaviours that are not allowed in a community. These are typically written in the negative, e.g. “No unsolicited selling”, to ensure that clear guardrails are in place for community moderation.

Community Strategy

Whether it sits within your business strategy, communications strategy, marketing strategy or separately, a community strategy is the overarching direction and guiding policy around ‘community’ in your organisation or business.

This can include understanding and communicating where community sits, how it is resourced in your organisational model, your community goals, what value you will generate for the community and from the community, how it will work for the community members you want to serve, which types of communities you want to build, and how you expect to launch, grow and develop it through the community lifecycle… and much more.

If you are looking for support developing or refining your community strategy, please schedule a discovery call with me.

Community Success Manager (CSM)

A consultancy type role which has a parallel in Customer Success.  

A Community Success Manager (CSM) often works for a platform or agency supporting the customer or community owner in understanding the technology and processes they need to run a thriving community.

Their role may include community member onboarding, measurement, marketing and management.

Community Washing

The community equivalent of 'greenwashing'. To be avoided at all costs.

Community Washing is building groups of people for unethical or exploitative purposes. It’s where a community isn’t part of a genuine, purposeful strategy.  Community expert Venessa Paech explains that community washing is: “a feel good, social spin on marketing or business activities that are ultimately extractive, even harmful”

Community Zine

An example of Community Generated Content or CGC.  A Community Zine can be a physical or digital magazine that is created within a community. It is usually created for self-expression, rather than for profit.

It can be a collaborative output from a community or can be pulled together by community managers from discussions and content in a community.

Conversation Threads

Some community platforms enable communities and groups to separate discussion topics into different conversation threads.

Consumer messaging apps like WhatsApp don't have conversation threads, but have a continuous feed of messages. Threads were a key defining feature of forums, one of the earliest community platforms.

Threads make asynchronous conversation easier and can give discussions in communities a longer lifespan. Combined with a good search facility, conversation threads can add enormous value to your community by avoiding repeat questions - if you’ve ever seen the same topic crop up weekly in a Facebook Group or a WhatsApp group, you’ll understand the benefit of conversation threads in communities.

Creator

A creator is anyone who produces pieces of interesting content in multiple formats. It is usually applied to a skilled, creative person or an influencer with a sizeable consumer audience on social media platforms. Some are able to make a living from being a creator. Others supplement their income with their content.

SignalFire states there are approximately 50 million creators worldwide. Creators can be paid to endorse brands or will have long term relationships in return for content production and distribution.

This is broadly termed Influencer Marketing and is worth $13.8 billion worldwide. This commercial relationship in many countries has strict advertising and consumer laws and will be regulated. The FTC in the US and the ASA and other bodies in the UK oversees creator/influencer marketing.

Creators have successfully monetised their knowledge, art, analysis or skills for many years through tactics such as guest blogging, live-stream gaming, advertising and brand tie-ups in social media.

Increasingly, creators are seeing the value of adding community to their social media presence and networks through platforms such as Discord, Mighty Networks and others.

For many this underpins securing additional revenue streams with members through techniques such as tokenising their communities – or developing loyalty by continuing private conversations in subscriber spaces.

For example, in sport, UCLA basketball player Jaylen Clark launched $JROCK, his own social token that gives community members special access to tickets, content, and merchandise. In professional services, consultant Simon Andrews has monetised his much-admired newsletter for digital, advertising and marketing by creating a “Salon” type community for AdTech and digital experts called Fix AdTech / Perfect Storm. Community allows him to strengthen ties with those who subscribe to the Fix newsletter, including clients, prospects and partners, but also to provide access as a subscription-based add-on to the newsletter.

Cross-posting

Cross-posting is the act of posting the same content to multiple places. For example posting the same message and content to social media platforms and multiple groups on community platforms.

Cross-posting can be helpful as it creates more visibility and reach of content. But posting the same content in multiple communities can be frustrating for members or even be considered ‘spam’.

Consider whether people have seen your information before and whether you need to tailor what you say for specific communities. It can be courteous to acknowledge that you’re cross-posting to avoid confusion.

DAO

A Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) is an investment vehicle which runs on blockchain technology.

DAOs is an internet-native business model. It's an entity that is owned and managed collectively by its members. Like a co-operative, everyone has a say and decisions are made through voting. Rules around spending are integrated into the DAO's code.

Cooper Turley, an investor and builder of DAOs, described a DAO as “an internet community with a shared bank account” in an interview with CNBC.

Defamation

Like social media, communities are digital spaces where discussions can turn heated and comments can be made about individuals or businesses in the moment that could be considered defamatory by law.

A defamatory statement can be libel (published and written) or slander (published and is one which injures the reputation of another person by lowering them in the estimation of "right-thinking members of society generally.")

Defamation laws differ across regions and countries, so please do refer to the relevant laws. Defamation is extremely rare in professional communities, but is important to watch out for defamatory comments.

Community Managers and moderators will be on alert for conversations and comments that look like they could descend into defamatory comments that would break the law.

Direct Message (DM)

Direct Messages are messages between members of a community which aren’t visible to anyone outside the conversation.

Also known as a Personal Message on some platforms. Typically these are one-to-one private messages between two individuals.

Discoverable Profile

Some community platforms allow members to choose whether they make their profile discoverable, meaning they are visible outside of a community and will have their own public web page with its own URL.

The advantage of discoverable community profiles and social media profiles on platforms such as LinkedIn is that they are indexed by Google and can provide information about individuals that they would like to be seen by others when searching for them.

Having consistent personal profiles across multiple spaces indexed by Google is a great way to maintain a personal or professional brand.

Google yourself now to see what your professional brand looks like. Do you need to take action?

Disengaged Members

These are inactive members of a community who haven’t logged in, read content or participated in any way for a period of time.

Dunbar number

Anthropologist Robin Dunbar’s famous research suggests that the optimum size for human groups is 150 - after this point groups tend to collapse or fragment as it is no longer possible for individuals to keep up with connections.

Community strategy often focuses on the quality of membership rather than quantity, and although the specific 150 number might not apply to every community, it is a useful principle to consider for sizing some peer-to-peer communities of practice.

Elder

An example of a community member type or community role in the Community Member Lifecycle.

Within online communities, elders are typically thought of as established members who can help in many ways, including helping new members on-board and orientate.  See Member Lifecycle.

Engagement

Community engagement is a key metric for measuring the health of an online community, and looks at how frequently and meaningfully members are engaging, whether that’s in group discussions, one-to-one conversations, or other activities such as attending events or updating their personal profiles.

Community Engagement is not the only metric or even the most important one. In social media platforms, engagement is critical in order to beat algorithms and because the content is so ephemeral.

In community platforms, it’s much less important to focus on high levels of engagement as community members will log in, read, react and contribute when they are able to or have a specific need.

You can employ numerous tactics to increase engagement in your online community but like any metric you should make sure that your community is aligned to your business objectives.

Extrinsic Motivators

Understanding Extrinsic Motivators can help community professionals understand some of the reasons why individuals join and participate in a community.

There are broadly 2 ways to consider what motivates individuals to join and engage in communities – Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivators.

Most of us are very likely to have one or more of these motivation types. It’s also likely that our motivations will change through our member lifecycle or even the community lifecycle.

Extrinsic motivators are usually external motivations that impact and show up in the environment around the individual, and provide some form of externalised reward.

For example, participating in and winning a community challenge or a quiz and getting some form of badge, personal kudos, increased community status or a reward from the host. Or receiving customer support in a community that fits the needs of the individual who asked and allows them to fix their issue.

Traditionally communities that rely too heavily on extrinsic motivators (like the retailer with frequent sales/discounts who damages their bottom line and their brand) can damage the health of a community and the bonds between members. See also Intrinsic Motivators.

First-party data

First-party data is a category of information that a company collects from customers.

First-party data or 1P data is part of the multiple data types that marketers use and is broadly seen as one the most valuable data categories (zero party data, first party data, second party data, third party data). The collection and use of all data types is governed by different data laws in different countries and regions.

First-party data can be collected by companies through behaviours and actions across their websites or apps, including subscription data, social media and community data.

It can also include non-online information such as surveys, customer feedback, and other customer information in a CRM.

Founders

Many successful communities, regardless of whether they are B2B or B2C, start with a small core group of community founders. This may include a cohort who can sometimes be called VIPs or beta testers, who test the community concept and create the right community atmosphere and behaviours.

Founders are an important community member segment. See also Member Lifecycle

Five Ps of Community (and one C)

The broadest categorisation of community types comprising Communities of Practice, Communities of Place, Communities of Product, Communities of Play, Communities of Purpose and Communities of Circumstance.

These community types can be sub segmented further, but this is a great place to start your understanding of what communities are and what they can help to achieve.
See What are the 5Ps and 1C of community?

Forum

Forums were amongst the earliest forms of online communities where conversations took place in the form of posted messages and conversation threads and discussions, often within websites.

For example, Econsultancy.com's very early digital marketing forums in 2000 or thecybermoms.com, a forum on CyberMom, a US parenting site that billed itself as the "Net for Moms with Modems".

Usenet was a platform of thousands of bulletin boards and forums, covering many topics. It was bought by Google in 2001.

Reddit is a direct descendant of the information-rich and (usually) friendly, supportive world of Bulletin Boards and forums that many early internet users participated in.

FUD

Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. One of the key elements of community management is to help banish FUD in a community!

That might include providing a clear community purpose and great onboarding for new members, or eliminating misinformation and fake news from the community to ensure high levels of community trust and satisfaction.

Gamification

This refers to adding elements of gaming to encourage engagement, participation, recruitment or other desired behaviours in your community.

Gamification can include member rankings and titles, badges, formal or informal awards such as unlocking status avatars, applause counts through to statistics on a profile  - such as member number, join date, number of posts or connections.

Iceberg Effect / Iceberg Theory

There’s much more of an iceberg’s mass under the sea than what can be seen above the water level!

The Iceberg Effect is the term for the theory that the visible activity of a community only accounts for a small part of the overall activity that a community manager does. For example, privately encouraging members to participate, planning events, or moderating discussions.

The Iceberg Effect can also apply to platforms.

For example communities that are visible via search engines make up a very small percentage of the total communities in the world. Many are private and invite-only and exist on platforms that can’t be seen publicly or indexed by Google.

Inactive members

An inactive member is an individual in a community that has not logged on or engaged in any way for a significant period of time.

This may be as a consequence of many factors including a change to their circumstances, lack of time, or because the community no longer serves their needs.

Integrations

Integrations are tools offered by technology and software providers to connect to other services you use.

In a community context this might allow you to make sure your CRM invites customers to join your community, or differentiate community members from ordinary customers on your email lists.

Internal Community Manager

In organisations a community manager may liaise between employees, management, leadership and other internal stakeholders and manage internal communities for employees and colleagues. This role may be part of the internal communications or HR team.

Intrinsic motivators

Understanding Intrinsic Motivators can help community professionals understand some of the reasons why individuals join and participate in a community.

There are broadly two ways to consider what motivates individuals to join and participate in your community – Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivators.

We are all very likely to have one or more of these motivation types and it’s also likely that our motivations will change through our member lifecycle or even the community lifecycle.

Intrinsic motivators are usually internal motivations that don’t necessarily show up in the environment around the individual, and which provide some form of internalised reward.

For example, participating in a collective support effort to raise funds for a good cause in a community, or supporting another community member with a helpful answer to their question - and the feeling of enjoyment that comes from those acts. These are Intrinsic Motivators.

Healthy and successful communities will tend to offer ways for community members to participate that will appeal to a mix of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. 
See also Extrinsic Motivators.

KPIs

Key Performance Indicators are any metric that you use to measure performance.

In a community context this might include the number of new members per month, engagement metrics like logins, new posts or replies or whether community members go on to become newsletter subscribers, customers or take other actions you want to encourage.

The most valuable community KPIs will align with organisational goals, measures and KPIs.

Lurkers

A lurker is a term used to describe a community member who views content but doesn’t get involved in discussions or post updates of their own.

It’s a common term, but I believe that the term shouldn’t be used.

By using the term 'lurker' and valuing those who engage more, you might be overlooking the impact from your quieter members who often make up the majority of a community.

Consider why there are communities or groups that you’re in where you are more likely to post and engage. And consider reasons why you sit back and read in other communities. Are they discussing topics you’re less confident on? Are you a beginner compared to others? Has someone already stated your opinion or views?

Often simply reading, absorbing information and learning in a community is hugely valuable for community members. Don’t forget that value as a community manager.
Read Why we need to ban the term ‘lurkers’ in community strategy

Maturity

Used to describe the lifecycle of a community or a specific stage in the community lifecycle where a community has reached a mature stage.

It can also be applied to members and the stage that they are in their member lifecycle. See also Community Lifecycle and Member Lifecycle.

Members

Members are simply people or individuals who have joined your community.

In some professional or B2B communities, particularly associations, members might be organisations and then individuals sit under company membership of the community.

Member Retention

Just like customer or employee retention, membership retention refers to how many of your members stay in your community.

Most communities will experience churn or a loss of members. Community Managers will usually try to mitigate churn by ensuring that new members join.
See also Churn.

Member Lifecycle

Member lifecycles refer to the typical maturity and different stages of being a member of a community.

For example, a new community might be kicked off with a group of community founders. The first additional group of invited members are new members (or newbies).

As a community grows and matures, new members will join and become the newbies, some members will become elders and some will leave. Perhaps because they have moved on in their life stage, have changed careers, been promoted, they have retired or sadly passed away.  

Understanding Community Member Lifecycle models and Community Lifecycle models reinforces the importance of understanding that individuals and their community needs will change over time, and that you need to plan for these changes and take appropriate actions at each stage.

See also Elders, Founders and Newbies.

Member Spotlight

This is a technique in a community that features a member based on predetermined criteria.

For example ‘Made by Members’ can be a spotlight technique in communities where hosts can highlight campaigns, best practice activity or things that members of their community have created.

Mentoring

Mentoring is a great way to share experience and learn new skills, increase confidence, and job satisfaction and impact professional and personal growth. It’s the process of matching up individuals so that influence, guidance and direction can be given by the mentor to the mentee.

Mentoring communities can open up mentees to a wide support group of experienced mentors.

Metrics

Community metrics are simply the measures that are important to a community.

For example, these may focus on growth, engagement, impact or member churn.

Some communities also measure ‘community health’. This can be a single measure or a combination of factors, including quantitative and qualitative metrics such as ‘positive sentiment’, ‘volume of quality responses from community’ or ‘Net Promoter Score.’

Brand communities need focus and investment and most communities will need to show quantifiable value or return on investment (ROI) after an agreed timeframe. That might be by generating some form of business growth/value or improving operational efficiency, or another value derived from helping people within or outside of an organisation.

Most communities will be connected and aligned to organisational goals, objectives and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and a community manager will need to consider how to show value and return on investment (ROI) for their communities.

The key to community metrics is:
- to decide what you want your community to achieve
- to identify where to find the right data
- to consider how you can analyse that data to report meaningfully to others
- and the actions you take as a result of analysing that data

Micro Community

Micro communities are online communities with a very small number of members.

Often focused around a niche subject, or a niche grouping such as a specific role, speciality, interest or geographic region.

Examples of micro communities are ‘concierge’ top client communities or communities that bring together a specific small group of people such as investors and advisors.

Migration

Migration is the process of moving your community from one platform to another (e.g. from social media platforms to community platforms) or merging communities to another community on the same platform.

Moving platform does risk losing dormant or inactive members. However, moving communities to a more suitable platform usually reinvigorates a community and also ensures that you can attract and involve new members.

Many platforms, especially on social media, prevent you from accessing or migrating any useful community data with you.

For this reason you might choose to create your community on a platform where you can own and analyse community data.

Moderation

Moderation in an online community involves reviewing posts, content, comments and conversations from members to make sure they align with the community guidelines, rules and the community ethos.

There may be a dedicated community moderator or multiple community moderators who handle this. It may be the responsibility of a Community Manager and some communities also devolve moderation to community members, such as Super Users, Community Elders or Community Volunteers.

Moderation is usually done to a specific set of rules, guidelines and processes to take emotion and difficulty out of having to delete comments or warn members that they have broken the rules and not acted in the spirit of the community.
See also Community Rules and Community Guidelines.

Monetisation

Monetisation is the process of generating income streams from a community.

There are a number of ways to monetise an online community, such as making community a valuable part of a membership package, or generating revenue from other sources such as coaching, events, recruitment, sponsorship or advertising.

Non-profits and charities can also 'monetise' communities through donations and other forms of financial support from members.

Monthly Active Users (MAU)

Monthly active users (MAU) is a metric used to track the number of individual members who are engaged in a community. Some communities also use Weekly Active Users (WAU) as an important Community Metric.

MVC - Minimum Viable Communities

Just like product development, where a version of a product is often developed with just enough features to be usable by early customers who can then provide iterative feedback, the same minimum approach can be applied to communities.

If you have an idea where a collaborative community will be central to achieving your set goals, a small-scale Minimum Viable Community or MVC is a great way to start. MVCs can also be called a Prototype Community or a Beta Community.
For more detail read What is Minimal Viable Community (MVC)?

Newbies

An example of a community member type or role in the Community Member Lifecycle.

Within online communities, newbies are typically thought of as new members who have joined and who may require onboarding and orientation assistance.

One of the most important jobs for community managers is to ensure that community newbies are welcomed and that Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) is eliminated in the minds of new members. This will reduce member churn and help maintain high levels of community trust and satisfaction.
See Member Lifecycle, Elders and Founders.

Onboarding

Onboarding is the process of introducing a new community member to your community. It may include bringing them up to speed with the community platform’s functionality as well as introducing them to the community purpose, guidelines and values.

Community onboarding is one of the most important elements of community design and the member experience.

One Percent Rule

Also known as the 90-9-1 rule, this is a theory that in any group or community most people are consumers rather than producers of content. This also translates to the percentage of people who start discussions in communities.

In many communities, this practically plays out as a relatively small number of individuals, i.e. 1%, who start discussions/conversations, post content and welcome new members.

A larger group will respond to conversations started by others. This 9% will like, comment or answer questions if asked.

The remainder – the 90% - are likely to be either only readers or learners (not 'lurkers') or inactive members.

It’s a useful rule of thumb and obviously will vary by community. Smaller, micro communities can flip the model and may have 90% of members posting discussions and content.

OP

An abbreviation meaning “Original Poster”, i.e. the person who starts a thread in a community, group or network.

If you use this term, it’s usually best practice to mention the individual and tag them, if appropriate.

Passion Economy

Where individuals build audiences at scale and turn their passions into livelihoods. The rise of digital platforms, including online communities, has enabled more people to make a living from their passions.

The Passion Economy is more extensive than solely fashion and beauty. For example, it can include the monetisation of passions and skills more closely linked to journalism, financial services and management consultancy.

Li Jin is widely considered to be the godmother of the passion economy. She wrote an essay titled “The Passion Economy and the Future of Work" and described her thesis as: "People being able to monetize individuality and non-commoditized skills at scale, supported by digital platforms."

Li also states that the passion economy is a superset of the creator economy.

Periodic Table of Community Strategy

Created and published in Feb 2022 by Michelle Goodall, the Periodic Table of Community Strategy summarises the most important elements of community strategy distilled into a quick reference visual.

The Periodic Table of Community Strategy is a useful resource for community builders who are just getting started. It's also a helpful reference guide for experienced community professionals.

Please contact me for a free copy of The Periodic Table of Community Strategy.

Personal Profile

Much like on a social media platform, a personal profile within an online community will usually include minimal but a standard set of details about an individual member, such as name, preferred pronouns, location and a short biography.

There may also be ratings or rankings for members on their profile to indicate standing or membership levels on the platform or community.  

Some community platforms offer an option to make a profile public with a shareable URL so that members can expand their network.
See also Discoverable Profile.

Playbook

A community playbook is a document that contains the principles and practices behind your community for others to easily reference and use.

Established communities with teams of more than one person usually have a community playbook to ensure that all community roles are aligned and that there is consistency in community governance and management.

Post

A post is normally an individual part of a community conversation thread, channel or space, whether it starts a discussion or continues one.

In most communities, members can post to existing conversations or start a new conversation (making them the Original Poster or OP).

An individual usually has control over their own posts in a community allowing them to edit posts. Famously, this isn't the case on social media platform X.

On the whole, posts are positive things in communities, networks and groups, but posts can also be deleted by Community Moderators if they fail to meet Community Guidelines.

Private Message (PM)

An alternative way to describe a Direct Message (DM). Most online communities will allow members to private message each other, allowing them to send messages that can only be seen by the selected recipient.

Reciprocity

A core principle of building successful communities is to encourage members to be good community participants - and for community managers to be great community participants too!

The Reciprocity Principle refers to the feeling of indebtedness people have towards those who do something helpful for them. This can lead to a feeling of obligation to help others and reciprocate, as we feel uncomfortable being indebted to other people.

Offering help, giving recognition and praise and supporting others fosters a positive atmosphere in any community. According to Robert Cialdini, author of Influence: the psychology of persuasion, humans are “hardwired to want to return favours, pay back debts and to treat others as they have been treated”.

Which is a wonderful way to make the world go around - and a great principle for community building!

Rank

Some communities choose to rank or flag the status of their members.

For example, they may highlight long-serving members, i.e. Elders or Founder members - see separate listings for these definitions - or valuable contributors or "conversation starters".

In some communities, there may be ways for other community members to reward other members that contributes positively to their rank.

See also Valued Contributor.

Rituals

Many communities have standard and regular activities that help to bond the community - these are also known as community rituals.

The best rituals are ones that run deeply into the ethos of the community and have some kind of regularity, so that they become part of a community's rhythm.

For example, community ritual examples can include easy engagement conversation threads like monthly polls, “Wednesday Wins” or “Friday Feels” where members share good news or things that have made them smile that week.

Rituals can also include things like video events/meet ups such as ‘AMAs’, ‘Town Halls’,  ‘social drop- ins’ ‘virtual coffees’ or ‘surgeries’.

Rituals can also include Welcome threads where the community host, manager or other members recognise and highlight new members on a regular basis.

Read What are rituals in community building and why are they so important?

Rewards

Community rewards can be things of value that are earned or bestowed on community members by the community manager or others in the community.

A simple example can be a ‘like’ ‘upvote’ or reaction button that contributes to a member's rank to highlight that they are a valued member in the community.

Rewards that Community Managers might develop will depend on what type of members they have in their community, and whether those members have Intrinsic or Extrinsic motivations.

Extrinsic rewards might take the form of status, public thanks or kudos or even gifts or monetary rewards such as free access to an event, person or content. Some communities gift members with books, tokens or credits that can be traded in.

Intrinsic rewards may take the form of a collective notification that a challenge has been met, or a target achieved as a result of the community and individuals providing help or support. For example, “98% of our youth mentees have gone on to get full time jobs in the digital sector”.
See also Intrinsic Motivators and Extrinsic Motivators.

ROI

Return on Investment, see also Metrics.

ROI is a simple metric, calculated by dividing the benefit of an investment by its cost. However, many community managers or programs find it a challenging metric if their communities are not aligned to business or organisational goals.

To demonstrate how the community is supporting and proactively affecting business or organisational metrics, you need to identify and track the right goals and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to align your community to.

Mapping out capabilities and time, cross-referenced with the main objectives of the business/organisation, will ensure your efforts are focussed on which community activities to prioritise based on potential impact.

Your aim is always to help monitor the right kind of community behaviours and activity to develop and demonstrate ROI, effectiveness and positive progress.

Roles

Most communities have roles for both members and for those who set up and manage communities, groups or networks.

For those who set up communities, specific named roles on online community platforms may come with different privileges or powers, such as administrator, analyst, host or moderator.
See Community Manager, Community Host, Community Advocate, Community Champion, Community Moderator.

SEO

Search Engine Optimisation is the process of developing and organising digital content in a way that makes it easy to find via search engines, such as Google, Yandex or Bing.

Hosts of discoverable communities create SEO optimised community descriptions, or use the community platforms features to surface useful discussions and content for easy discovery by potential members using Google and other search engines.

The principles of good SEO are also aligned to good UX, good usability and good community and content taxonomy.
See Taxonomy.

Social Tokens

Social tokens are a key part of crypto, Web3, the digital economy and the creator economy.

Celebrities, such as the musician RAC and college basketball player UCLA basketball player Jaylen Clark, have created their own economies and currency, distributing them to fans based on their fandom.

In Clark’s case, holders of $JROCK social tokens get special access to content, merchandise and access/tickets to the sports star. Social tokens are likely to be key community rewards in consumer communities for years to come.

Super User

Can also be called a Valued Contributor. Super Users in communities are regular contributors to community activities and their community activity is valued by both members and community hosts.

They are the familiar faces on the platform and can also represent the community on the outside in advocacy or champion roles. Community Managers frequently work with Super Users for feedback as well as informal and formal community development and support.

Many enterprise technology businesses had Super User programs before they had communities. These are customers or users of technology that know the ins and outs of a product or service, most likely uses it every day, and can offer advice and support to other users.

Tagging

Tagging in communities can refer to a number of features, dependent on the community platform, but it is a set of methodologies to provide context and visibility of community content to other members.

In some community platforms you can use the @ symbol followed by a member name within a shared community and can tag members on posts, threads or conversations. This lets other people reading the conversation find out more about that person. It can also serve as recognition for the person you tag.

Members are usually alerted when they are tagged, so it can be a good way of ensuring that someone has seen you giving kudos, or ensuring that they see an important reply or question.

Tagging can also be used by community hosts or members to bring someone into a conversation they would find interesting, or where their contribution would be valuable.

Tagging can also be applied to members of a specific channel within a community in platforms like Slack. If it is used too frequently, it can become annoying for members.

Taxonomy

Taxonomy can refer to the way that an organisation's communities are designed and structured. It can also refer to the structure of content in a community.

For example, a business or organisation's Community Taxonomy might include communities where content/messaging is intended to reach large numbers in social media, and also include internal communities and private micro communities, where smaller numbers of members convene, such as prospects and VIP clients.

Community taxonomy can also describe the way that channels or spaces in a community are organised to provide the best possible user experience.

Content Taxonomy is a system for organising content that any organisation produces, which might be used in a community but in many other places too. It includes:
- Content Structure, e.g. models of content types  and templates such as Case Study, Short Form Video, Report etc.
- Metadata – i.e. descriptions about content, including tags
- Controlled Vocabulary i.e. the driving attribute of the content and tag terminology

Tokens

Also known as Social Tokens or Community Tokens. Tokens are a type of cryptocurrency that can be used by individuals, brands/businesses or communities to monetise, reward or incentivise certain actions.

Many influencers, creators and celebrities use platforms such as Instagram or TikTok and their Creator tools to monetise their personal brand and presence. In this model, the social media platform sets rules and can take a percentage of the revenue generated.

Tokens are decentralised, built over blockchain and use the same model as cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum.

Benefits include creators being able to skip the social platforms' partner models and take full control over the reward model and revenue.

Tokens can be issued as a gatekeeping mechanism to a community by offering premium access to content only for their largest token holders that can either be bought or awarded as a result of some form of valuable fan/follower/community member action.

The model assumes that the value of tokens will increase as the community grows and more tokens are issued.

Troll

A person who sends malicious messages or deliberately starts arguments or dissent in social media or in communities.

Trolls are unpleasant. Their behaviour is ugly. Do not feed Trolls. They can undermine a community and, in some cases, can break laws.

Trolls are sadly common on some social media platforms and platforms where profiles are anonymous, but they are rare in professional communities. This is because there tends to be a strong code of professionalism and ethics, anonymity is discouraged and professional profiles are strongly encouraged.

There are usually clear community guidelines in professional communities and members usually help moderate out trolls and disruptive behaviours if they feel a sense of ownership in communities.

User generated content (UGC)

User generated content is content in any format produced by a community’s own members. See also CGC.

UX

User Experience is a broad term for all aspects of a person or an end-user's interaction with a company, its systems, services, and its products.

UX includes a person's perceptions of utility, ease of use, and efficiency.  Usability is connected to UX, and community platforms and apps with ‘good usability’ should make tasks and behaviours easy, enjoyable and intuitive for all users.

Valued Contributor

See Super User.

Virtual Community

An alternative term for Online Community or Digital Community. A Virtual Community is a network of individuals who connect to each other through digital or online platforms such as apps, communities, forums, and social media.

Weekly Active Users (WAU)

Weekly Active Users (WAU) is a metric used to track the number of individual members who are engaged in a community in a given week. Some communities also use Monthly Active Users (MAU) as an important Community Metric.
See Monthly Active Users.

Zombie Threads

Sometimes used to describe an old discussion or thread in a community which has run its course, but has been revived by someone adding a new reply.

A slightly derogatory term, suggesting that a member has resurrected something that probably should have stayed buried.

Further reading

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 Minimal Viable Community (MVC)?

What are rituals in community building and why are they so important?

What are the 5 Ps and 1 C of community?

What is Broken Windows Theory and does it apply to Community Management?

What is Community Manager Appreciation Day (CMAD)?

Why we need to ban the term ‘lurkers’ in community strategy

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Photo by Drew Beamer