How do you calculate the ROI of community? And where should community live in a business? Businesses have been building communities for a long time, but community was historically seen as a cost center. At most, community was seen as a customer support channel or a marketing channel.

What is the value of community?

Businesses have been building communities for a long time, but community was historically seen as a cost center. At most, community was seen as a customer support channel or a marketing channel. We’ve witnessed the renaissance of the community discipline. Community has come to be seen and utilized as so much more than simply support forums or social media followings. While both of these applications remain important and needed, they are just a couple pieces of the total business value that is driven by community.

The Business of Community 

Unlike most other disciplines, community can live in its own department or across departments. As a strategy, community can be applied to almost every aspect of business from marketing, to product, to sales, to success…The options can be dizzying, which is why we’ve created a simple model for defining community business value: The SPACES Model.

Simple Model For All Communities 

A customer support community, members answer questions and solve problems for each other to reduce overall customer support costs and improve satisfaction.Most common metrics for Support Communities:<ul><li>Case deflection</li><li>Active users</li><li>Conversation engagement (posts, comments, DMs, etc.)</li><li>Number or percentage of answered questions</li><li>Reduced customer support calls</li></ul>

S: Support

In product communities, members share ideas and feedback that drive innovation and product improvements.By bringing users or customers together online (or sometimes offline), companies can leverage the collective insight of their community to get ideas for innovative features, identify the most important changes that will improve their products, and save money and time on surveys. Most common metrics for Product Communities:<ul><li>Product ideas</li><li>Feature adoption</li><li>New user-generated content</li><li>Customer satisfaction</li><li>Number of event attendees</li></ul>

P: Product Ideation, Innovation & Feedback

These communities operate as a network of ambassadors and advocates who drive awareness and growth for the business.This is where community and marketing most closely intersect. Sure, a company can tell people to buy its product. But it’s much more powerful to have authentic advocates promote a product or experience.

A: Acquisition and Advocacy

These communities are built of people who are contributing content that makes up the product or other assets.Distributed content models are changing the way businesses function. From user-generated content to open-source platforms, distributed models allow value to be created by the masses, with the business just providing the platform.Most common metrics for content communities:<ul><li>New user-generated content</li><li>Active users</li><li>Conversation engagement (posts, comments, DMs, etc.)</li><li>New user/member signup</li><li>Number of event attendees</li></ul>

C: Content and Contribution

External engagement communities bring together a group of people around a common interest that is related to a given brand or product.Community is powerful because it gives people a common sense of identity and belonging. Most common metrics for external engagement communities:<ul><li>Active engagement</li><li>Conversation engagement (posts, comments, DMs, etc.)</li><li>Number of event attendees</li><li>New user-generated content</li><li>New user/member signup</li></ul>

E: Engagement (External)

Internal engagement communities are made up of employees, suppliers, partners, or vendors who work with a specific brand.As organizations become more distributed and remote work becomes more common, internal engagement becomes even more important.Most common metrics for internal engagement communities:<ul><li>Active users</li><li>Conversation engagement (posts, comments, DMs, etc.)</li><li>Net Promoter Score (NPS)</li><li>Number of event attendees</li><li>New user/member signup</li></ul>

E: Engagement (Internal)

Building off the popularity of customer support communities, success communities go beyond just fielding questions to actively drive increased product adoption and customer lifetime value.These communities connect customers with each other to share best practices. They may help customers upskill how they use the product and develop strategy, or they may empower customers to become mentors and instructors.Most common metrics for success communities:<ul><li>Active users</li><li>New user/member signups</li><li>Net Promoter Score (NPS)</li><li>Customer retention</li><li>Customer satisfaction</li></ul>

S: Success

Use the SPACES Model to get buy-in for your community by clearly articulating how and where community adds business value.<ol><li>Use the SPACES Model to get buy-in for your community.</li><li>After you mastered one area of the SPACES Model, extend your influence.</li><li> Identify the metrics you’ll use on your objective. </li><li>Use your SPACES objective to inform overall strategy. </li><li> </li></ol>

Apply the SPACES Model

These communities are built of people who are contributing content that makes up the product or other assets.Distributed content models are changing the way businesses function. From user-generated content to open-source platforms, distributed models allow value to be created by the masses, with the business just providing the platform.Most common metrics for content communities: New user-generated contentActive usersConversation engagement (posts, comments, DMs, etc.)New user/member signupNumber of event attendees

External engagement communities bring together a group of people around a common interest that is related to a given brand or product.Most common metrics: Active engagementConversation engagement (posts, comments, DMs, etc.)Number of event attendeesNew user-generated contentNew user/member signup Internal engagement communities are made up of employees, suppliers, partners, or vendors who work with a specific brand.Most common metrics: Active usersConversation engagement (posts, comments, DMs, etc.)Net Promoter Score (NPS)Number of event attendeesNew user/ signup

E: Engagement

Building off the popularity of customer support communities, success communities go beyond just fielding questions to actively drive increased product adoption and customer lifetime value.These communities connect customers with each other to share best practices. Most common metrics:Active usersNew user/member signupsNet Promoter Score (NPS)Customer retentionCustomer satisfaction

What is the value of community? Where does it fit in your business? We've created a simple model you can now follow.

The SPACES Model for Defining Community Business Value

Morgan Wood