suede-community-marketing — Claude Code skill: grow a community

---
name: suede-community-marketing
description: "Suede AI community-growth discipline: member identity and purpose, platform choice (Discord, Slack, Circle, Reddit, Discourse, Facebook Groups), founding-member seeding, rituals and core loop, moderation and enforcement paths, health metrics with denominators, ambassador programs, and public community content that search engines and AI answers surface. Use when starting, auditing, or growing a product or brand community. NOT FOR: public social-channel content (use suede-social), referral-program mechanics and payouts (use suede-referrals), or customer-interview research (use suede-customer-research)."
metadata:
  version: 2.1.0
---

# Suede AI Community Marketing

Use this 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):

1. **What is the product or brand?**: What problem does it solve, who uses it
2. **What community platform(s) are in play?**: Discord, Slack, Circle, Reddit, Facebook Groups, forum, etc.
3. **What stage is the community at?**: Pre-launch, 0–100 members, 100–1k, scaling, or established
4. **What is the primary community goal?**: Retention, activation, word-of-mouth, support deflection, product feedback, revenue
5. **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.

Example: r/homelab: the identity is tinkerers who self-host, and every ritual,
channel, and recognition mechanic in it reinforces that self-image.

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

---

## Playbooks by Goal

### Launching a Community from Zero

1. **Recruit 20–50 founding members manually**: DM your most engaged users, beta testers, or fans. Don't open publicly until there is baseline activity.
2. **Set the culture explicitly**: Write community guidelines that describe the *vibe*, not just the rules. What does great participation look like here?
3. **Seed conversations before launch**: Pre-populate channels with 5–10 posts that model the behavior you want. Questions, wins, resources.
4. **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.
5. **Define your core loop**: What action do you want members to take weekly? Make it easy and reward it publicly.

### Growing an Existing Community

1. **Audit where members drop off**: Are people joining but not posting? Posting once and disappearing? Identify the leaky stage.
2. **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.
3. **Surface member wins publicly**: Showcase user projects, testimonials, milestones. This reinforces identity and signals that participation has rewards.
4. **Run recurring community rituals**: Weekly threads (e.g., "What are you working on?"), monthly AMAs, seasonal challenges. Rituals create habit.
5. **Identify and invest in power users**: participation is usually heavily
   skewed toward a small minority (Inferred; verify against this community's own
   posts-per-member distribution before quoting a ratio). Give the observed top
   contributors recognition, early access, moderator roles, or product input.

### Building a Brand Ambassador / Advocate Program

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

### Community-Led Support (Deflection + Retention)

1. **Create a searchable knowledge base** from top community questions
2. **Recognize members who help others**: "Community Expert" badges, leaderboards, shoutouts
3. **Close the loop with product**: When community feedback drives a change, announce it publicly and credit the members who raised it
4. **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; threads rank in Google and get quoted in AI answers | You don't own it; strict self-promotion rules |
| Facebook Groups | Consumer brands; older demographics | Declining organic reach; algorithm dependent |
| Forum (Discourse) | Long-form technical communities; indexable, owned answers | Slower velocity; higher effort to post |

### Searchable community knowledge

Google shows forum and community threads in a "Discussions and forums" result
block, and AI answer engines quote public threads. Chat platforms (Discord,
Slack) are not indexed, so the answers members give there disappear from
search.

- Run support and how-to questions in an indexable space (a Discourse forum or
  a public docs Q&A) and keep chat for real-time conversation.
- Turn the best chat answers into public pages each week, with the helper's
  permission and credit.
- Thread titles phrase the question the way a buyer would search it; the
  accepted answer comes first.
- On Reddit and other communities the brand does not own, participate as a
  named, disclosed employee, follow each subreddit's rules, and never seed
  fake recommendations.

---

## Community Health Metrics

Track these signals weekly. Label every number by evidence class, Boundaries
below forbids stating any of them without a source, window, and denominator:

- **Observed**: read directly from the platform's admin view or export. Name
  the view and the date pulled.
- **Computed**: derived from observed values. Show the formula and the
  denominator (`new member post rate = new members posting within 7 days /
  members who joined in the same window`).
- **Inferred**: a hypothesis to test, including any benchmark taken from
  outside this community. Never word it as this community's fact.
- **Unknown**: the platform does not expose the measure. State what would
  resolve it.

Metrics:

- **DAU/MAU ratio**: Stickiness (Computed: daily actives / monthly actives).
  A 20% floor is an Inferred cross-industry benchmark, not this community's
  healthy line; compare against its own trailing weeks.
- **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
- Engagement concentrates in a handful of accounts: compute the share of posts
  from the top 5 posters over a stated window before calling it a warning
- 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.

### Community Strategy Doc: exact headings

```markdown
# <Community name>: Strategy

## Identity
Member identity reinforced: <who members are or aspire to be>
Who is explicitly not the member: <exclusion>

## Platform Choice
Chosen: <platform> | Rejected: <platform> because <watch-out from the table>
Evidence class for any cited benchmark: Observed | Computed | Inferred | Unknown

## Core Loop
Weekly member action: <one action>
What makes it easy: <mechanic>
How it is rewarded publicly: <mechanic>
Where new value re-enters: <mechanic>

## Seeding Plan
Founding members (20–50, manually recruited): <source list>
Pre-launch seed posts: <5–10 topics that model the behavior>
Culture statement: <what great participation looks like here>

## 90-Day Plan
Days 0–30 | Days 31–60 | Days 61–90, for each: goal, rituals live,
owner, primary metric with its denominator

## Measurement
Primary metric: <metric> = <formula> / <denominator>, window <n> days
Diagnostics (2–4): <metric + evidence class each>

## Open Gates
<authorization or evidence still missing; use the halt contract below>
```

The other five deliverables use these headings:

- **Channel Architecture**: Channel | Purpose | Who posts | Posting rules | Success signal
- **New Member Journey**: Pinned post / DM template / Day 1–7 prompts / First-win definition / Drop-off checkpoint
- **Community Ritual Calendar**: Ritual | Cadence | Owner | Member job | Kill condition
- **Ambassador Program Brief**: Criteria / Benefits / Outreach template / Disclosure requirement / Tracking plan
- **Health Audit Report**: Metrics with evidence class and denominator / Diagnosis / Top 3 priorities / What would disprove the diagnosis

---

## Halt Contract

Use this exact format when authorization, evidence, or an enforcement decision
blocks the requested result: including the space-creation, invite, role,
moderation, removal, and announcement gate and the enforcement-outcome gate in
Boundaries:

```text
HALT: <one-line blocker>
Why it blocks: <specific missing authority or evidence>
Resolve with:
1. <option>
2. <option>
3. <option, when useful>
Waiting for: <the exact item or approval>
```

Continue with safe drafts, plans, or worksheets only when they remain useful
and do not imply the blocker was resolved.

---

## 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`.
- Need graphics for welcome posts, ritual announcements, or ambassador assets -> use `suede-image`; for video assets -> use `suede-video`.
- Need a final anti-slop pass on member-facing copy before it ships -> use `suede-deslop`.
- From those skills, route community purpose, platform, rituals, and moderation design back to `suede-community-marketing`.