As of 2024, 86% of social media marketers say building an active and engaging online community is critical to a successful social media strategy.

In a perfect world, my car would run on starlight and dreams, fries would taste good reheated, and we would never be asked to prove the ROI of community management.

Matthew Stibbe, CEO of Articulate Marketing, told me, “Community is not the cult of celebrity. It’s a reciprocal thing. It is about building connections, true connections, and developing those connections into relationships.”

If you‘ve seen other posts I’ve written about community management, you know I used to manage a Facebook community for a TV station where I worked as a digital journalist.

When I started thinking about the different types of online communities that exist, I felt like the possibilities were endless.

Brands build online communities around their target audiences.

A key decision when creating an online community is whether it’ll be free for members to join or if they’ll have to pay to access it. And, the model you choose can have a significant impact on how you end up running your community.

You lost that lovin’ feelin’. Fun to hear on the oldies station. Not so fun to hear from your community members.

Jenny Sowyrda, manager of community strategy and operations at HubSpot, shared a great analogy with me about community management: