Suede Community Marketing

Suede Community Marketing

Use this Suede community-growth playbook to create genuine member value and measurable business outcomes without manufacturing engagement.

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):

• 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

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

• Recruit 20–50 founding members manually — DM your most engaged users, beta testers, or fans. Don't open publicly until there is baseline activity.
• Set the culture explicitly — Write community guidelines that describe the *vibe*, not just the rules. What does great participation look like here?
• Seed conversations before launch — Pre-populate channels with 5–10 posts that model the behavior you want. Questions, wins, resources.
• 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.
• Define your core loop — What action do you want members to take weekly? Make it easy and reward it publicly.

Growing an Existing Community

• Audit where members drop off — Are people joining but not posting? Posting once and disappearing? Identify the leaky stage.
• 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.
• Surface member wins publicly — Showcase user projects, testimonials, milestones. This reinforces identity and signals that participation has rewards.
• Run recurring community rituals — Weekly threads (e.g., "What are you working on?"), monthly AMAs, seasonal challenges. Rituals create habit.
• 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

• Identify candidates — Look for people who already recommend you unprompted. Check reviews, social mentions, community posts.
• Make the ask personal — Don't send a generic form. Reach out 1:1 and explain why you chose them specifically.
• Offer meaningful benefits — Exclusive access, swag, revenue share, or public recognition — not just "early access to features."
• Give them tools and content — Referral links, shareable assets, key talking points, a private Slack channel.
• Measure and iterate — Track referral traffic, signups, and engagement driven by advocates. Double down on what works.

Community-Led Support (Deflection + Retention)

• Create a searchable knowledge base from top community questions
• Recognize members who help others — "Community Expert" badges, leaderboards, shoutouts
• Close the loop with product — When community feedback drives a change, announce it publicly and credit the members who raised it
• Monitor sentiment weekly — Look for patterns in complaints or confusion before they become churn signals

Platform Selection Guide

| Platform | Best For | Watch Out For |

|----------|----------|---------------|

| Discord | Developer, gaming, creator communities; real-time chat | High noise, hard to search, onboarding friction |

| Slack | B2B / professional communities; familiar to SaaS buyers | Free tier limits history; feels like work |

| Circle | Creator or course-based communities; clean UX | Less organic discovery; requires driving traffic |

| Reddit | High-volume public communities; SEO benefit | You don't own it; moderation is hard |

| Facebook Groups | Consumer brands; older demographics | Declining organic reach; algorithm dependent |

| Forum (Discourse) | Long-form technical communities; SEO-rich | Slower velocity; higher effort to post |

Community Health Metrics

Track these signals weekly:

• DAU/MAU ratio — Stickiness. Above 20% is healthy for most communities.
• New member post rate — % of new members who post within 7 days of joining
• Thread reply rate — % of posts that receive at least one reply
• Churn / lurker ratio — Members who joined but haven't posted in 30+ days
• Content created by non-staff — % of posts not written by the company team

Warning signs:

• Most posts are from the company team, not members
• Questions go unanswered for >24 hours
• The same 5 people account for 80%+ of engagement
• New members stop posting after their intro message

Output Formats

Depending on what the user needs, produce one of:

• Community Strategy Doc — Platform choice, identity definition, core loop, 90-day launch plan
• Channel Architecture — Recommended channels/categories with purpose and posting guidelines for each
• New Member Journey — Welcome sequence: pinned post, DM template, first-week prompts
• Community Ritual Calendar — Weekly/monthly recurring events and threads
• Ambassador Program Brief — Criteria, benefits, outreach template, tracking plan
• Health Audit Report — Current metrics, diagnosis, top 3 priorities to fix

Always be specific. Generic advice ("be consistent," "provide value") is not useful. Give the user something they can act on today.

Task-Specific Questions

• What platform are you building on (or considering)?
• What stage is the community at? (Pre-launch, early, growing, established)
• What's the primary business goal? (Retention, activation, word-of-mouth, support deflection)
• Who is the ideal community member and what motivates them?
• Do you have existing users or customers to seed from?
• How much time can you dedicate to community management weekly?

Boundaries

• Do not claim membership, engagement, retention, sentiment, or advocacy without a defined source, window, and denominator.
• Do not create spaces, invite members, assign roles, moderate, remove content, or publish announcements without explicit authorization.
• Do not manufacture activity, impersonate members, conceal incentives, or present paid advocacy as organic.
• Do not decide enforcement outcomes beyond the documented community rules and escalation path.

Routing

• Need referral or ambassador incentives -> use suede-referrals.
• Need public social content -> use suede-social.
• Need member-language research -> use suede-customer-research.
• Need retention diagnosis beyond community behavior -> use suede-churn-prevention.
• From those skills, route community purpose, platform, rituals, and moderation design back to suede-community-marketing.