Where community strategy
meets intentionality.

Online Community 

Google this question, and you may find a variety of answers. To ensure we’re on the same page throughout this book, here’s my baseline definition: An online community is a group of three or more people with similar ambitions who gather virtually to inspire each other through content, experiences, and encouragement. There are three important elements of an online community: 

1. A place to meet digitally online to be seen, heard, and valued. 

2. A routine, habit, or ritual that community members do together. 

3. A group with a common challenge, goal, desire, or need. 

Online communities can take place in many different places and in many different ways. Here are a few examples: 

• A single virtual call that offers members a space to connect. 

• An email that is shared with more than 3 people. 

• A forum, chat room, group, or text that allows people to share photos, video, audio, or other content. 

• A platform that invites a specific group of people into a private online place for connection, collaboration, and conversations 

• A virtual event that offers attendees an opportunity to meet, network, connect and discuss topics related to the event’s focus, themes, or learning content.  

Community Strategy Launch Plan

Without strategically setting the stage for a community, a launch may need to be postponed due to a lack of clarity, leadership, and goal setting. Understanding the roles and responsibilities of community leaders, hosts, and managers is important. To build a community strategy, there are five stages I take my clients through to develop what will become the foundation for the next phase and a roadmap for success. 

Stage 1: Community Concept – What’s the why behind your community idea? 

Stage 2: Community Curiosity – Who is this community for, and what’s in it for them? 

Stage 3: Community Clarity – How will this community transform or support them? 

Stage 4: Community Architecture/Structure – What content, events, and programs will support them? 

Stage 5: Community Strategy Launch Plan – Who, when, why, where, and how will this community be shared with my audience? 

Determining your community strategy (and your launch or relaunch plan) will require going on the journey through these stages (outlined above). 

Existing business owners will want to determine how a community fits within the organization and how a community aligns with your existing business goals. For new community builders, you’ll need to determine how the community will fit into your existing life with other commitments, jobs, or responsibilities. 

The CALM Method™ has helped me over the course of my community-building journey. I’m going to break down the CALM Method™ of Clarity, Awareness, Learning, and Motion to help you find calm in the community-building process. Finding calm has not been easy over the past two years. I’ve learned that adding layers, complexity, and/or several concepts can create more confusion than clarity. 

The fastest way to find calm with community building is to keep things simple. (Which isn’t easy) This framework became what is now called the CALM Method™ that I’ve developed and improved over the years to come up with the best way for me to help myself, clients, and community members in an easy way to find calm in the process of building, launching, and 

growing an online paid community. 

• Clarity of your unique concept. 

• Awareness of your validation sources.  

• Learning what structure will work best for you. 

• Motion through taking action.     

The 5 Elements of Community Design

1. Architecture – A strategy for the layout of a community.    

2. Member Content – How written, visual, audio, and video content will be organized inside the community. 

3. Experience – The community member experience includes onboarding, communication, notifications, and interactions. 

4. Culture – Setting the tone, creating guidelines, and managing expectations 

5. Participation – Encouraging others to share, connect, and communicate inside a community. 

Community Architecture 

The architecture of an online community refers to the structure you’ll build. This includes the features, member benefits, user experience, and the structuring of content and resources within the online space. A well-thought-out community aligns with the vision, mission, and purpose established by the group’s host. Leading an online community requires understanding how you want to communicate with your members and how they enjoy connecting with each other. 

• Identify the your community architecture: 

Decide if you want to do a Cohort-based or Membership based model. 

• Cohort-based 

1. 1. Self-study course with a cohort

   2. A immersive course with a cohort

   3. A coaching group

   4. A mastermind cohort 

   5. A challenge cohort 

• Creator Community Memberships 

1. 1. YouTube influencer (funded by brand deals) 

1. Niche content creator (Creator-to-Creator marketplace, Business-to-Business marketplace, Software-as-a-service) 

2. Community creator (Memberships, courses, masterminds, or a combination of revenue streams from online stores and sponsorship. 

Below are a list of some categories of memberships you might be familiar with:

1. Podcast supporter memberships 

2. Skill sharing memberships 

3. Support communities 

4. Educational communities 

5. Networking communities 

6. Technology communities 

7. Industry-specific communities  

8. Special interest communities 

9. Change communities (leading a movement) 

10. Creative, entrepreneurial, collaborative, and resource-sharing communities such as collectives of experts or specialists. 

Community Platform 

An online community platform is software technology that an individual, organization, or company can purchase on a subscription basis to communicate with their audience, customers, clients, or members. These are known as membership sites, and a new term community creators or creator communities is emerging a new way for entrepreneurs to earn revenue by creating courses, programs, or offers and providing that to their audience on a subscription basis which creates income for the business owner and provides education and resources for the members, in addition to providing a way for the members to meet each other. The main benefits of purchasing a community platform subscription are that in most cases you will own all of your content and have the ability to keep your member data private. There are hundreds of community platforms. You can research the best platforms and compare features that fit your business and community needs. 

Community Architecture 

The architecture of an online community refers to the structure you’ll build. This includes the features, member benefits, user experience, within the online space.

Community Content 

Any text, information, data, graphics, messages, sounds, videos, content, code, scripts, software, or other materials. All content is copyrighted and/or attributed to the appropriate source. 

Community Roles

A Community Host – to guide the vision, mission, and purpose. 

A Community Facilitator– to support the programming, events, or workshops. 

A Community Manager – to onboard members, support members, and encourage participation within the community. 

A Strategy Consultant – to create processes and tools to increase conversions from your marketing and advertising efforts to your programs. 

Marketing Manager – either internally or hiring an agency to help promote, advertise, and scale your business. 

An Active Community Member – to participate in events, share successes, ask questions, view content, read articles, answer polls, fill out surveys, and give feedback. 

A Passive Community Member – to see if they belong here and how they could participate in the future, view content, read member comments, not ready yet to commit to active membership but is interested in the opportunity. 

Community Culture

Community culture can be explained as the way you invite and instruct members to participate, share, connect, and learn together. It is the path for members to feel seen, valued, and heard. Culture is written into your community guidelines, demonstrated in your member testimonials, and expressed by members when they talk about your community to non-members.

Community Cohort

A cohort refers to people who have common characteristics, and it’s also a formal term that describes a small group taking a class together. There are five kinds of community cohort structures: 

1. A self-study or self-guided learning course with a cohort 

2. An immersive, time-based course and cohort 

3. A coaching program 

4. A Mastermind group 

5. A Challenge  

An ideal member or ideal client is a person who fits the profile of the community creator’s target audience. They have a problem that the creator can help them overcome or resolve with their assistance, support, knowledge, network, or resources. 

The creative process of generating, developing, or communicating new original ideas which can be visual, concrete, or abstract. Included within this term is the thought cycle from innovation, to development, to actualization. Ideation can be conducted by individuals, groups, or organizations.  

Once you have a problem & potential solution, go find your target users in online communities and try to interview them about their problems & current solutions. Don’t try to sell to them just yet, but confirm that they have the problem you are solving, and would be willing to pay for you to solve it. Read “The Mom Test” for tips on how to validate your idea without describing what it is and risking them lying to you