Guild blog: community building best practices, trends and insights

CommunityBot - info and resources

Ashley Friedlein — Tue, 28 Jan 2025 10:39:05 GMT

About CommunityBot

CommunityBot is an experiment in expert bots and smart agents. We are interested to see how helpful an AI-powered bot, or agent, can really be. Initially the bot will be informational in nature - helping answer questions and providing useful information - but, as it develops, it will become more 'agent'-like i.e. be able to do things as well e.g. make introductions, book meetings etc.

CommunityBot was started by Ashley Friedlein following the closure of Guild, a platform for professional groups, networks and communities which he had founded. Although the Guild business did not take off as hoped (more details on that in the second half of this podcast interview with Ashley), the team still believed in the power of communities to share and learn and also in the compelling nature of mobile messaging as a medium to engage and have useful conversations.

Then AI became a big thing so we want to see how a combination of AI-augmented knowledge sharing and networking could be brought into the medium of messaging via the likes of WhatsApp. Through Guild, and many years of creating high quality content and connections around how to build and manage successful online communities, it seemed obvious to take this as the domain of expertise for our bot as we have all the ingredients for the bot's training and expert knowledge base.

Contributors & Partners

We're keen to make CommunityBot a community endeavour - of the community, for the community. To do that we rely on experts, practitioners and partners to help improve our bot, train it with ongoing community expertise and experience from community pros around the world. We'll keep adding to this list of contributors...

A big thank you to these community experts:

Michelle Goodall, Community Consultant and former CMO of Guild

Jobs

If you're looking for a job, or hiring, in the community industry, following is a list of resources that have been recommended (we'll keep adding to these resources so let us know if you've got a helpful suggestion to add):

Dedicated community jobs boards:

Led by Community Jobs - https://ledby.community/jobs
The CMX Job Board - https://www.cmxhub.com/jobs
(Australia-focused) The Community Collective Open Community Roles - https://thecommunitycollective.co/jobs
Community Inc. Jobs - https://community.inc/jobs

Job site aggregators with community jobs:

Remote.co - https://remote.co/remote-jobs/search?searchkeyword=community&useclocation=true
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/search/?currentJobId=4148288036&keywords=community
The Dots - https://the-dots.com/jobs/search/community-manager-jobs
CharityJob - https://www.charityjob.co.uk/jobs?keywords=community
Built In - https://builtin.com/jobs/remote/hybrid/office?search=community

Guild to close

Team Guild — Mon, 10 Jun 2024 13:07:29 GMT

On 1st October 2024 Guild will close down.

The Guild platform will officially close on 1 October 2024. Guild will no longer be live or usable after that date.

Since its launch, Guild has evolved from a private messaging app for executives and entrepreneurs to a feature-rich community and networking platform for professionals of all types from all over the globe.

Our vision was always to create a space where professionals of all types could find their people and belong to communities that could elevate their career or further their business goals. With no ads, privacy by design and a distinctly professional tone in a mobile-first package we felt we had created something unique and necessary. Over 108,000 members have joined since launch and more than 7,000 communities have been created on Guild.

However, we’re still a small business and yet to turn a profit and so have relied on the investor market to keep growing thus far. That market has been challenging over the past 18 months and has changed to favour businesses that have proven profitability, rather than growth alone. As a network product, this was particularly challenging for Guild as all of our efforts had gone into growing the network. We have been unable to prove our profitability in time for our next investment round. We have also failed to find an acquirer who fully believes in our vision for Guild and is ready to invest. So, we are forced to close the business.

To our customers, thank you for your loyalty and support. We appreciate this is disappointing and may present an onerous task to migrate your community to a new home. For this we apologise. We will reach out to you directly about next steps and assure you we will refund unfulfillable subscriptions and manage your data appropriately. In the meantime, we have answered some questions here.

We are reluctant to recommend an alternative as we believe Guild offers something unique but we did post about other platforms here recently that may be helpful.

To those who have joined Guild communities, we thank you for your interest in what we were trying to create and your contributions. We hope you find a new home for all that you have to share and learn.

Gregor and Ashley

Guild wind down and closure - FAQs

Team Guild — Mon, 10 Jun 2024 13:07:20 GMT

1. When will Guild officially close?

The Guild platform will officially close on 1 October 2024. Guild will no longer be live or usable after that date.

2. Why is Guild closing?

Guild is an early-stage start-up and is, to-date, not a profitable business. Whilst Guild’s user growth has been strong since public launch in 2020, revenue growth has not been strong enough to attract the investment, or an acquirer, required to continue.

It is a shame, and we always knew our vision - to create an alternate professional social media experience built around communities, mobile/messaging-first, and kept ad-free - would be hard to achieve. While it is sad to have to close Guild we do not regret trying, and it has been great to see so many positive and supportive communities using Guild over the last years to share, learn from each other and make meaningful professional connections.

3. What should I do before the platform closes?

We recommend that you review your account and save any necessary information regarding your profile, connections or groups you've created.

If you want to be able to access useful information, posts or resources in the future you will need to make a copy of these - you may find the “Email to myself” feature useful for this. In the FAQs below we include instructions for other actions you may want to take.

4. Will I receive a partial refund for my paid plan?

Yes, if you have paid for Guild beyond 1 October 2024 then we will issue a refund for any unused time. We will confirm to you what we believe we owe you before making the payment.

5. Will there be any impact on external integrations linked to my community?

Yes, integrations via Zapier linked to Guild will also stop working after the closure date. We recommend you disconnect any integrations you have, if you have any, from your account. You can do this by accessing your web admin → Integrations tab → Integration keys – > Bin.

6. How do I export my personal data?

To download a copy of everything you've posted to Guild, go to the main menu, tap Settings and select ‘Request personal data' and 'Request my data'. Your browser will download a zip file with three CSV files containing your own posts, DMs you’ve sent, and your profile data.

7. How do I export my community data?

If you’re on a paid plan you can export your account’s User & Engagement data and Conversation data. Go to web admin → Analytics tab. Select from two types of Analytics: Conversation data and User & and Engagement data. You'll receive an email with a link to download the different types of report. The link remains live for 24 hours.

You may also want to make a copy of your community description and guidelines to use in the future. Go to the group home screen, tap the three dot menu on the top right, and click “Edit group” to see all this information on one page.

8. How do I delete my personal account?

In the main menu tap Settings → My account → ‘Delete my account’ at the bottom of the screen. Please note that this action will delete everything you’ve ever posted to Guild.

If you're an account owner with any open groups, you will need to close your groups before deleting your personal account.

If you're a group host, you will need to ask your account administrator to reassign the host role before you can delete your account.

9. How do I close my community?

If you’re an administrator, host or moderator, go to the group home screen, tap the three dot menu - top right, click “Edit group” and select 'Close this group' at the bottom of the screen.

You can also complete this action from the web admin. On the 'Groups' screen click the 'Close Group' button next to the group's name.

To smoothly close your online communities, here are some recommended steps:

Create an announcement post within the groups - use it to explain the decision to close, express gratitude for your members' contributions over the years, provide the exact closure timeline, and suggest the next steps or CTAs. For example, you may invite your members to sign up to a newsletter, a new platform or a waitlist for your new community. Boost this post via the visibility boost.
Pin this post for visibility.
Send a direct email notification to your members to ensure they are informed about the closure. Your members’ email addresses are included in the User & Engagement data download (see above).
Consider hosting a Video Room Q&A session or post a new conversation thread for community members to address any questions they may have and provide clarity and transparency during this transition.
If your communities have a presence on social media and your website, post additional updates on these platforms.
Make sure you communicate your community’s closure or move wherever you talk to your members - think about other touchpoints like your website, events, member newsletters or magazines, membership apps and the footers of your organisation’s emails, as well as the above routes.
As well as communicating what happens with your community, remind your members that they may want to export their own personal data, contacts or useful information from the community so that they can easily find it after the community has closed.

11. What will happen to my data after the closure?

All user data and account data will be securely deleted from our system. The data will not exist after the closure on 1 October 2024.

This very much depends on your use case, your feature requirements, your budget and other resources. However, in terms of the 'usual suspects' you might want to consider then review our list of Platforms for building professional communities.

13. Do you offer consultancy / advice for selecting a new community platform and migrating to it?

Guild does not have such a consultancy offering unfortunately. However, we know lots of excellent community experts including independent consultants who could help you with platform selection and migration if needed.

Two such consultants, who know Guild very well and who Guild has worked with over the years, are Michelle Goodall and Blaise Grimes-Viort. Feel free to contact them direct.

14. Might Guild still get acquired or investment to keep going?

We don't think it is likely but, yes, that is still possible and we are open to discussions with interested parties. Contact Guild's founder Ashley Friedlein if you have a serious proposition.

15. What if I have further questions that are not covered here? Here’s how to get in touch before the closure on 1 October 2024:

Email support@guild.co
DM Team Guild from your Guild account (via Settings > Help > DM Guild)
DM or email your Account Manager or Customer Success Manager - go to your web admin → Account & Admins tab to find their details
Ask in the Inside Guild community if you’re a member

Platforms for building professional communities - on mobile and web

Ashley Friedlein — Wed, 05 Jun 2024 12:23:00 GMT

Platforms and tools are not the secret to successful professional community building but you still have to make the best choice of platform for your needs. You’ll need to consider your tech architecture and stack approach too, across the spectrum: full custom > custom integration > off the shelf with integration points > best of breeds integrated > standalone point solutions.

Following are the platforms that I’ve come across, broken down by category, to help save you time in your research. I’ve added some personal comments and observations where relevant.

1. Conversations & Messaging Apps

Often mobile-focused and about engaging community members in conversations

Guild – yes, we get to put ourselves first and obviously we’re the best for professional groups, networks and communities if you want the ease/intimacy of mobile messaging but purpose-built for professionals and businesses to use.
Slack – gets used quite a bit for professional communities despite being designed as a workflow and collaboration tool for teams. Some people like Slack precisely because they also use it for workflow but I still think Slack isn't designed for communities.
WhatsApp - I don't like to mention WhatsApp really because it is not meant for professional use but we all know it does get used for business as well as friends and family and they have added some community features more recently so it can be 'hacked' for professional use.
Discord – there’s quite a lot of noise around, and adoption of, Discord which makes sense if you’re in the gaming world or into live streaming or audio hangouts… but I struggle to see how it would work for most professional communities given the anonymity and lack of business admin/controls. But it seems cool to like Discord at the moment…
Signal – a popular alternative to WhatsApp except blue not green. And not owned by dodgy-data-practices Meta of course. But it is really for individuals rather than businesses wanting to host communities.
Telegram – pretty much the same as Signal except a lighter blue. And better stickers than WhatsApp. A possibility for informal peer professional groups and personal private comms but not really a business platform.
Geneva– quite a broad proposition covering creators, brands and consumer communities… not used it personally so hard to comment further.
Threema – like the ‘Swiss bank of messaging apps’… and they are Swiss. Perhaps not the most exciting for some communities, but strong on security. Has personal and work versions.

2. Membership Platforms

Tend to be web-based (some have apps) and cover a broad range of features from handling membership payments to content, directories, courses, events etc. The 'usual suspects' are as follows:

Zapnito – really shines if your community is an expert one i.e. about the exchange of knowledge and expertise. UK-based.
Mighty Networks – a fully featured option but which (perhaps because of its breadth) I find quite hard to use and lies somewhere between ‘creator’ and ‘business’ in feel. Also, more ‘American’ in feel and approach.
Disciple Media – comes from a background in community sites for music fans but now much more of a direct competitor to Mighty Networks above. Not experienced it directly myself yet. But, being UK-based, also feels less ‘US’.
Bettermode - (used to be called Tribe) also fully featured with quite an emphasis on integrations. Feels similar and most directly competitive with the likes of Circle (below). Canada-based. (Formerly known as Tribe)
Circle – similar proposition to Bettermode (above) except pitched more at ‘creators’ rather than ‘professionals’ or businesses (so good if you want more emojis ?).
Higher Logic – US-based platform best known in the professional association space. Quite ‘enterprise’ in approach.
Hivebrite – arguably like the European version Higher Logic which started out in France (now with NYC office also).
Ugenie - UK-based, focused on professional membership management, with a broad range of features, including payments, at a very reasonable price.
ReadyMembership - a tech platform developed by UK-based agency Pixl8 who specialise in serving the needs of professional associations and membership organisations.

There are a number of platforms for ‘creators’ as part of the ‘passion economy’ which might do enough for what you need but probably best suit single-person, or small, businesses (or ‘side hustles’) focused on content/creativity:

There are also lots of forum software offerings which I’ve not listed here but include Discourse, Forem, Docebo etc.

There are loads of tools to run newsletters but more of them are now offering ways to charge subscribers and also offer some element of ‘community’. Worth considering if you want quite a simple professional community offering based on a newsletter.

4. Payment platforms for subscribers or members

If you’ve already got the tech to do things like content, events, courses etc then perhaps you just need a means to charge your subscribers or members. If so, here are some options to consider:

5. Professional networks where you can run a group or community

Building your own community means you have to attract new members to you. You might want to run your community, or perhaps a free version of it, for marketing reasons, where there is already a network of professionals to find you. Some to consider that are not industry-specific:

LinkedIn– the ‘big one’ with 600m+ members. But it has become very noisy and LinkedIn groups have generally been in decline for years.
Guild – yes, us again. Our professional groups and member profiles are discoverable for those who want that so you can tap into the whole Guild community. Our sweet spot is professional services i.e. professionals exchanging information, ideas, IP, advice, knowledge, expertise, connections rather than physical goods.
Facebook Groups – I don’t use Facebook and don’t think it is appropriate for professional groups. But plenty of people disagree and FB Groups have been eating into LinkedIn Groups in the last years.
Xing – essentially the European competitor to LinkedIn that is not nearly as big but popular in some countries (e.g. Germany used to be big for Xing). I’m not on it so can’t comment as to how they’re faring now.
Reddit – has been around forever but is still popular and certainly worth checking to see what communities already exist on it for your area of interest.

Joining a community on Guild - what’s in it for you?

Team Guild — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 09:49:00 GMT

Very few people dispute that joining a community is usually good for you, and good for the community as a whole.

But often we focus on the greater good - supporting others, furthering a good cause, or the feeling of satisfaction you get from being helpful.

These are what community professionals call “intrinsic motivators”. They’re essential for any community to thrive. But it can be too easy to think community is solely about those “warm fuzzy” feelings.

In fact, there are many more tangible benefits for people who join groups, communities and networks on Guild. And the more active and helpful you are in a community, the more you’ll benefit.

Here are a few examples of the benefits of joining communities on Guild:

1) Grow your professional network

Social media platforms have volume, but that comes packaged with a lot of noise. More intimate communities attract C-suite and senior leaders because they escape the sales spam that accompanies social media platforms like LinkedIn.

Professional communities on Guild can help you build deeper relationships with people who can help your career - and also help build relationships that can land that deal, important introduction, partnership, client, interview etc. We're so certain about this advantage that we covered it in more depth in our guide to Community Based Networking.

2) Get practical and confidential advice in a safe space

"Every day is a school day" as they say, and asking for help is an opportunity to learn.

Turning to a community can get you helpful and knowledgeable answers fast. That’s why communities make great sounding boards for ideas and challenges.

Community members are often motivated to build their reputation. There’s more time to think and to come up with a quality answer. If you’re not battling a social media algorithm, the right people are more likely to see your question at the right time.

It can be easier to ask about sensitive topics like inclusion, wellbeing, conflict, finance and sustainability initiatives out of the spotlight of social media.

3) Benchmark your knowledge with peers

Joining a community can help you understand where you are on your career path. If others are giving similar answers or you're asking the same questions, you'll feel more confident in your own knowledge and abilities.

What if you find that your answers are completely different? Either you’ve got a valuable alternative point of view, or you’ve got something to learn. Whatever the answer, you’re surrounded by peers who can help you. Even if you choose to simply listen (not lurk) in a group or community, you can still learn a lot from your peers.

4) Find better jobs, faster

Many communities on Guild allow members to share jobs. For example Guild communities like NED and Board Advisor Network and Business of Sport offer dedicated jobs threads.

Managers looking to fill a role will often post in a community where they know there are good candidates. In fact, these jobs may even be filled before they make it to a recruitment agency or a jobs board. Everyone you help in a community might have an opportunity for you one day, or may recommend you to someone else.

Many online communities help their members to find new roles - pictured are the Guild Community Collective and Business of Sport communities

5) Find quality candidates for your job roles, faster

What about when you’re the one recruiting? Candidates in a community are effectively pre-qualified. You can get to know them in a way that you can’t through a CV and an interview.

And community members can often offer personal recommendations for people who are suitable for your job vacancies. If a community you want to recruit in doesn’t have a jobs board or thread, it’s always worth asking. The community manager or host will want the community to help its members and they’ll usually be open to relevant jobs and opportunities being posted.

6) Make better choices - finding suppliers, technology, partners, consultants, advisors, agencies and more

If you’re trying to decide on a technology, looking for a new supplier, agency, advisor or consultant or just need a second opinion, turning to your community can save you time and money.

You may not even need to ask a question - searching through past conversations could turn up the answer you need. Communities like Events 365 for event professionals, Legal Pioneers or Renewd Network will regularly discuss technology, venues, suppliers and more.

Questions like these are likely to be welcomed and answered - many Guild members find peer-approved recommendations from their communities invaluable.

7) Learn to run a community - from the experts

Just being a member of an active community is an effective way to learn how to run your own. Watch and listen (remember, it's not lurking!) to community professionals like Blaise Grimes-Viort in Guild Community Collective or dedicated subject-matter experts like Catherine Weetman in Delivering Sustainability in your Business. Every community is unique - and yours should be too. But you can pick up ideas, inspiration and effective techniques and adapt them to your own membership.

Connecting with people who empathise and understand your position can make a huge difference to your business, your career and achieving your goals.

There are many communities on Guild for people working to achieve the UN's Global Goals, including communities working towards affordable energy, quality education, climate action, sustainability and gender equality.

For example, on Guild there are supportive communities fighting racism like the Anti-Racism Innovation Community and the Race Equality Matters Community Communities like She Has No Limits bring professional women together to share support and advice.

We find neurodivergent individuals feel especially welcomed and supported.

Loneliness and lack of connection can have a massive impact on wellbeing and health. They can also have an economic impact - absence, staff turnover and productivity can all be negatively impacted by loneliness. Simply joining a community can extend your personal and professional connections - and improve your sense of connectedness to others.

9) Kick-start your career

Many professional communities are hugely supportive of newcomers to an industry.

Many communities on Guild post internship and apprentice opportunities in some of the most exciting and supportive workplaces for those who are looking to kick start their careers.

Mentoring is an effective way to progress your own career and people are often flattered to be asked for help or recommendations. The pandemic and lockdowns in 2020-2022 saw a number of professional support groups start up including Design Community Hub supporting newcomers to the design industry, and CREO (now Events365) which supported event organisers who were facing conference calendar chaos.

10) Take a step up in your career

Communities can also support people who are looking to take a step up in their careers.

As well as the possibility of finding that next dream role in a community or group you've joined, you might want to become an advisor, trustee or non-executive director. NED and Board Advisor Network is a community of hundreds of non-execs and those who want to move into board/trustee roles, exchanging advice and experiences. It's also a community where those types of opportunities are posted.

There are many communities on Guild that can help power your career - for example, Design Community Hub and NED and Board Advisor Network

11) Stay up to date with what’s going on in your industry

We all have great intentions about keeping informed. We'll read the trade media. We'll follow industry experts on social media. We'll plough through that newsletter backlog.

But the most important topics will inevitably bubble up first in communities.

If your peers are talking about it, you need to know about it. You’ll often get knowledgeable and polite opposing points of view and evidence in a professional community. If you care about nuance and reaching a balanced conclusion about issues and contentious topics, community peers can be the best source.

12) Get a head-start on an unfamiliar topic

We've talked about listening and learning already, but joining a community and browsing past conversations can be a great way to jump in to the deep end without drowning in information. Scroll through past conversations or search by keyword, and scan through what's been discussed. You'll start to pick up what's important to this community, who the experts and influencers are, and get ideas for books or other resources that can help you on your journey. Guild is designed to make it easy to search and read older conversations so that valuable information stays available. Curious about creating a more inclusive culture or exploring the options in AI? Guild has groups for you - just search the community directory, request to join, and start reading.

13) Expand your professional interests

Professional success isn’t all about your industry knowledge and contacts. It's more important than ever to understand the bigger picture for our businesses and organisations.

There are many communities on Guild and generous hosts that welcome non-specialists/practitioners who want to learn more about a specific industry, profession, specialism or topic.

Whether it's community management, sustainability, inclusion, digital marketing, law, HR, product management or PR there's a host of discoverable communities and groups on Guild that could be a source of education and support for you.

14) Increase your visibility in your industry and further afield

Most online communities have member directories. For example, every Guild community has a member list that all members can access.

Some communities have public directories. On Guild you can make your personal profile discoverable, and share your bio, links and professional accolades. Your profile may also show badges like the number of connections you have. Humans are naturally curious. These directories, public or private, can lead to unexpected connections from contacts new and old.

Guild members can share their profile on the member directory making it easy to widen their professional network

15) Build your reputation as an expert

Many of us want to build a personal brand or generate awareness, coverage or links to our businesses.

Being active in communities can lead to all kinds of opportunities. Community Created Content is a common outcome of professional communities. You’ll often get a link and / or bio included as well as a credit.

Each time you post something constructive on a community, it's an opportunity for someone to check out your profile (tip: don't forget to make sure your Guild profile is complete and up to date).

As people start to recognise you, you’re more likely to get requests to contribute to articles, reports and other resources. And don't forget, there are lots of journalists on Guild looking for experts and insights that they can write about.

16) Find collaborators and expert comment

If you’re musing on content like blog posts or a report, a professional community can be a source of expertise, ideas and quotes - but don't forget to ask and attribute!

You’ll often have a good idea of who might respond, and you can identify and approach potential contributors directly. They are likely to be motivated to help you because of your shared community connection.

You're more likely to get considered, quality replies when people have time to think. You could even share a proposed post or report with your community and co-create your content. Your contributors will often share their contribution with their connections and networks. That means you can reach a wider but still very relevant audience.

17) Offers, opportunities and unexpected benefits

We often see large and small acts of generosity and support in communities on Guild.

Frequently members will share free and spare tickets to events. Authors and educators have offered advanced viewings of courses and books. Businesses have offered spare software and equipment. People have offered beta test opportunities for a valuable new service before it launches. Professional designers have offered to review websites and provide tips.

Simply being in the right place at the right time can mean you get access to these kinds of benefits. However, being a good community citizen can put you at the front of the queue if there’s competition.

And of course, you can return the favour. Sharing your own opportunities with your niche community saves time fielding enquiries. And at the same time, you can cement your personal reputation for generosity and reciprocity with people who really matter to you.

18) Have fun and make friends

This benefit is much more than a nice to have - it can actually make you healthier as well as happier! Humans are truly social animals - research led by Imperial College London says that feeling socially connected, even virtually, can help protect against depression and reduce anxiety. Your online connections needn't be solely virtual, either. It's common these days for real-life relationships to start online - friendship expert Kat Vellos even has a step-by-step guide to help you do just that. Not everyone you meet has to become a friend, but don't dismiss the potential of an online acquaintance, especially when you've started with a solid connection in a trusted community.

19) Escape the algorithms

Ad-funded social media platforms determine which content to deliver to you based on your behaviour, and that of others they deem to be "like you". This can be a lot of fun - and it certainly serves to keep you scrolling and clicking. But it does also limit what you might see and reduces the chances of serendipitous discoveries. If you're tired of seeing the same things at the same time as everyone else, then exploring online communities can help. On Guild, the newest conversations are at the top of each group, and hosts and moderators handpick important conversations to feature or pin. If you sometimes find the non-stop suggestions of social media exhausting, then invest more of your valuable time and energy in online communities and the humans you find there. (If sparks your interest, read more on why algorithms are bad for online communities).

20) Owning the product, rather than being the product

In our Trends in Community 2022 we identified new community governance and ownership models as a trend in online communities.

These trends can include anything from local communities coming together to buy, build and run local businesses and services, to community tokens and cryptocurrency benefits for creator, gaming and music communities.

The idea is that your contributions and hard work as a community member can become a form of intellectual or financial property of value. Compare this to a social media platform using your contributions to sell advertising or use personal information to help advertisers target you.

However this trend develops, being a member of online communities will help you understand community dynamics and put you at the forefront.

More about the benefits of being a community member

How to grow your professional network on Guild

Make your Guild profile discoverable to connect with other professionals

Getting started with Guild: building the perfect Guild profile

How to use Guild for professional networking and personal brand building

Networking tips for students, graduates and career starters

Top 10 online networking tips

The Guild Guide to Being a Great Community Participant

Ways to Use Guild: Community Participants

Communities you can join today

Communities for entrepreneurs

Communities for comms and PR professionals

Six Guild communities that can help your career 🤝

Many communities on Guild are private but some are 'discoverable' and listed on the directory. Search by keyword to find the right community for you.

Join Guild 🤝

See for yourself how the Guild experience is different to WhatsApp, Slack, LinkedIn or Facebook Groups. Guild is a safe space to connect, communicate and collaborate with others.

Join us on a platform that is purpose-built for professionals and businesses.

Just want to join some groups? Simply join Guild and then look through the discoverable groups and communities to find relevant ones to join
Thinking of running your own community? With an elegant and simple to use, mobile-first UX you've got everything you need to start a community - custom branding, analytics, video, group and user management and support. Get started with your own community here with our free and paid plan options.

Case Study: International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology builds member community with Guild

Team Guild — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 14:54:11 GMT

The International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology (ISUOG) is the leading international society for experts in ultrasound for obstetrics and gynecology, with thousands of members in 140 countries. Its mission is to improve women's health by providing high-quality education, raising standards and sharing research information about ultrasound in obstetrics and gynecology.

Liam Mandeville, Membership Manager at ISUOG, explained how Guild has helped them to build vibrant professional communities that support professional development and boost engagement.

Results in brief:

*Vibrant community of 600 professionals from one event
*Improved connection with global and early-career members
*Community helps newcomers to the profession to raise their profile and build connections
*Members challenge ideas and exchange insights, leading to raised professional standards

Why was creating online communities important for ISUOG?

"The nature of our members' work means they're constantly learning from each other - collaboration is key to getting things right, keeping up to date and challenging ideas.

In 2023 our annual membership survey showed that members would like easier access to networking opportunities.

An online community makes it much easier for members to exhange knowledge and share research and best practices.

Our members, from students to clinicians and researchers, are spread across many countries.

A community fills the engagement gap between our annual conferences and workshops and our journal, and it helps build a sense of belonging and professional growth among our members."

Why did you choose Guild as your community platform?

"We needed an intuitive, secure platform that felt right for professional conversation.

As a professional body in the medical sector, GDPR and clarity around advice is extremely important to us.

We make it clear to members that their discussions in the community are a starting point, not formal advice – they're more like an informal chat among colleagues rather than a consultation. We can put this into each community's guidelines and highlight them again within the groups by using Guild's featured conversations and resources.

Guild stood out for its ease of use, privacy features, and mobile-first approach. It suits our members who are often on the move.

The ad-free environment and the focus on professional networking were key factors in our decision, ensuring that our members could connect easily, listen, and learn from meaningful, focused conversations with peers.

Guild's flexibility meant that we could experiment and measure results, which helped with momentum at the start.

You can research and plan, but the real proof is how members perceive the community."

How has your Guild community helped with ISUOG's work?

"It's been transformative. We began with a trial group during the summer of 2023 and were surprised at how successful it was – it really flew, honestly. We saw a real appetite for community - over 600 members worldwide joined as a result of a single event.

We've started creating specialist groups for specific topics of interest, career stages, and geographical regions. These let people who need to go deeper into a topic can do so, but we can still offer something for all our members.

Building the community led to collaborative research projects and real professional development opportunities.

For doctors and trainers, recognition and visibility are important for their career, so being seen to take part in conversations, support colleagues and exchange ideas is a great way to do that – as well as to make connections who might help you to find new opportunities in the future.

Members love being able to have thoughtful and in-depth conversations on important issues. Guild is very easy to use and they can dip in and out and manage notifications to suit themselves.

Outside the community, we've been able to use the analytics provided by Guild to understand our members' needs so that we can tailor activities, events and resources even more effectively."

What are the next steps for ISUOG's community on Guild?

"We plan to introduce more interactive features like live Q&A and drop-in sessions. We've also got a roadmap for more groups. We've just launched three of these - one to share expertise on fetal growth; one on fetal heart, CHD and cardiac functions and another on pregnancy complications.

During our trial phase our members had the opportunity to tell us what groups would help them and to vote on the priorities. So, in the pipeline, we've got three further gynecology topic groups, plus communities for trainees and for members in lower-resourced countries.

Some will be application-only, but others will be on an index page behind our member firewall so that members can self-select relevant groups and discover new opportunities.

We'll also work with our events department to support webinars, courses and conferences with pop-up communities. We've seen how that can improve uptake and satisfaction from delegates.

We've learned from our trial the importance of getting the experts and speakers into the community. They can be busy people, so we plan to run AMAs with speakers so that members get value without making too many demands on our speakers.

Guild is a powerful platform; we can see that if we use it right, we can do great things.

There's a lot of excitement in the office about the potential for new communities, so we'll keep experimenting and responding to what our members tell us they need. "

What would you advise other professional associations who are thinking about building a membership community?

"An online community lets you be more inclusive and offers more value to more members – not everyone can make it to conferences and networking sessions, especially if you have international members.

Making connections is a key benefit for people joining a society, and an online community increases that opportunity.

Associations also tend to have plenty of brilliant, useful content that members may not have discovered or have forgotten about. Building a community lets you signpost that content when relevant, for example, in response to questions or when something comes up in the news.

Don't be afraid to mix up the content you post – it doesn't all have to be deep and meaningful conversation starters. We've found polls and quizzes to be particularly effective – every member is different, so we offer lots of different ways to benefit from the community.

And encourage people to introduce themselves – that first step to posting in a community is really important. Make it easy and ask people about themselves – it helps members find they have something in common, and it's an easy first post to make!"

Other membership organisations building communities on Guild

Trade Association Forum boosts membership offering with community on Guild

PRCA powers the communications sector with Guild groups

Renewd moves from Slack to Guild for its B2B membership community

Independent Print Industries Association hosts buyer/supplier community and internal communications groups on Guild

CIPD sets up HR Leader support group on Guild

Low Carbon Homes builds retrofit professional community on Guild

Are you a membership organisation or association looking for a better way to engage with your members?

See for yourself how the Guild experience is different to WhatsApp, Slack, LinkedIn or Facebook Groups.

Guild is a safe space to connect, communicate and collaborate with others.

Join us on a platform that is purpose-built for creating groups, communities and networks on mobile.

Just want to join some groups? Simply join Guild and then look through the discoverable groups and communities to find relevant ones to join
Thinking of running your own community? With an elegant and simple to use, mobile-first UX you’ve got everything you need to start a community - custom branding, analytics, group and user management and support. Get started with your own community here with our free and paid options

Book a demo

Ways to use Guild: charity and volunteer groups

Team Guild — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 13:23:16 GMT

In these 'Ways to use Guild' articles, we're featuring examples of what Guild users have created with our ad-free, private platform that's purpose-built for creating groups, communities and networks on mobile.

In this article, we look at how Guild can be used to help charities organise their work and connect with volunteers, boards and other stakeholders.

Why do charities use online communities?

You've got social media, your own website, your email newsletters, your LinkedIn page, your CRM - what does a community add to this?

Quite simply, a community can tie all your other work together, save time, help you to amplify messaging and campaigns and inform both content and ways of working.

Charities need private, GDPR compliant spaces to communicate, connect and collaborate with a range of partners including staff, volunteers, supporters, donors and trustees.

Charities on Guild use their communities to support board meetings, connect and engage volunteers, organise campaigns, add value and longevity to training, build relationships with ambassadors and spokespeople, and deliver projects and courses.

10 ways charities can use online communities

Charities can set up and host groups and communities in minutes on Guild. It's as easy to use as other platforms but offers more flexibility, features and privacy.

Create working groups for specific marketing, grants or fundraising activities
Manage a fundraising event and instantly message and update a team of staff and volunteers
Co-ordinate volunteers and their work (see how child literacy charity Bookmark co-ordinates a network of 2000+ volunteers)
Create a trustee group and provide them with the latest news and requests for support
Create an advice and support group/community for your beneficiaries with full oversight of discussion threads
Create sub-groups e.g. regional groups or sector groups
Create a group that helps to source news and ideas for your social media activity
Fill spaces and opportunities for spokespeople and ambassadors (see how InnovateHer is inspiring girls to take up STEM careers with its ambassador community)
Organise, plan and record board meetings (see how Spotlight YOPD organises its board work with Guild)
Hold private conversations with high-profile supporters and experts (take a look at how Beacon collaborative connects philanthropists with an online community)

Why charities build communities with Guild

Connecting with stakeholders and varied audiences can be complicated, time-consuming and costly for charities.

Guild simplifies communications by allowing you to create professional, GDPR-compliant groups, networks and communities that are mobile-first and easy to use - and they can be set up in minutes. You can also:

Customise and brand your groups – you can add your charity logo and header photo to groups
Create safe, separate GDPR-compliant groups for different stakeholders and audiences, e.g. Volunteers, Trustees, Supporters, Members or Beneficiaries etc.
Manage multiple communities from a single account
Pin posts with videos, photos and images in the groups – such as a short welcome message from your CEO
Have private and secure member profiles
Let your members network and connect safely
Measure the engagement within each of the groups
Integrate with your CRM or other platforms using Zapier
Host livestreams and video events and meetups
Create and publish Group Purpose statements, guidelines and rules to ensure the right community culture and behaviour

More examples of how charities use Guild:

Join a dedicated community for charity and non-proft professionals

Do you work in the charity, non-profit or public sectors in digital, marketing, communications or fundraising? Then this is the group for you! Charity, Non Profit and Public Sector Trailblazers is a community for strategists and practitioners at all levels to learn, collaborate, share and blaze a trail for success - apply to join (free) now.

Join Charity, Non Profit and Public Sector Trailblazers

More ways to use Guild

Alumni groups

Event communities and networking groups

Communities of practice

Virtual learning communities

Communities for lead generation

Pop-up event communities

Join Guild 🤝

See for yourself how the Guild experience is different to WhatsApp, Slack, LinkedIn or Facebook Groups. Guild is a safe space to connect, communicate and collaborate with others.

Join us on a platform that is purpose-built for professionals and businesses.

Just want to join some groups? Simply join Guild and then look through the discoverable groups and communities to find relevant ones to join
Thinking of running your own community? With an elegant and simple to use, mobile-first UX you’ve got everything you need to start a community - custom branding, analytics, group and user management and support. Get started with your own community here with our free and enterprise options

Book a demo

Community Conversation - engaging volunteers with an online community

Team Guild — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 10:38:06 GMT

Many charities are dependent on volunteers to deliver their work. But it takes time and resources to recruit, train, engage and retain volunteers.

It's also vital that volunteers feel valued and connected to the charity's mission.

How do you achieve all this with tight budgets, small teams and looming deadlines?

Our latest Community Conversation has some answers that work for a nationwide UK charity, managing thousands of volunteers across the country. Jenny Cater, Volunteer Attraction and Engagement Manager at Bookmark Reading Charity, told us how dedicated private communities on Guild are a vital part of their charity tech stack.

One in four children are unable to read well when they leave primary school, and a lack of reading skills causes difficulties with many other school subjects. The one-to-one programmes that Bookmark offers are proven to increase young people's enjoyment and confidence in reading as well as their skills. Each literacy volunteer is trained to help them deliver structured sessions, and Bookmark's communities are key to ongoing development, problem-solving and peer-to-peer support.

Jenny and community expert Blaise Grimes-Viort discussed:

how encouraging the joy of reading by offering fun and choice to children can have a measurable impact on their skills and confidence
why handpicking the right technology and tools is so effective for a volunteer-led programme
the importance of making sure volunteers feel supported and enjoy their role
why security, simplicity and flexibility were key in Bookmark's choice of community platform
the need for a sense of community and connection among volunteers
the benefits of an online community as a listening and communication tool
why volunteers value the opportunity to help each other as well as carrying out their own role
how to onboard and signpost a community to volunteers
using trial and error and experimentation to build a community
how a community's informality and conversational style boosts belonging and commitment in volunteers
why an online community helps with marketing, development and recruitment

See the full recording here:

Further resources

Interview with Jenny on her experience as a community manager

Bookmark community case study

Get 30+ tips for creating engagement in your online community

Check out our Community Strategy and Community Management resources hub

Become a reading volunteer with Bookmark

Join community peers

Want to connect with peers and experts in community and discuss your own challenges around migrating community platforms?

Apply to join Guild Community Collective, a free online community for community and social media professionals, however experienced you are.

Join charity and non-profit peers

Want to connect with peers and experts in the charity, non-profit and public sectors? Discuss your own challenges and successes with digital, marketing, communications or fundraising by joining hundreds of peers in the Charity, Non Profit and Public Sector Trailblazers community.

Join Guild 🤝

See for yourself how the Guild experience is different to WhatsApp, Slack, LinkedIn or Facebook Groups.

Guild is a safe space to connect, communicate and collaborate with others.

Join us on a platform that is purpose-built for creating groups, communities and networks on mobile.

Just want to join some groups? Simply join Guild and then look through the discoverable groups and communities to find relevant ones to join
Thinking of running your own community? With an elegant and simple to use, mobile-first UX you’ve got everything you need to start a community - custom branding, analytics, group and user management and support. Get started with your own community here with our free and paid options

What is Community Manager Appreciation Day?

Team Guild — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 09:00:00 GMT

Community Manager Appreciation Day is celebrated annually on the fourth Monday in January.

It was launched in 2010 by Jeremiah Owyang to celebrate and improve the visibility of community managers across the world.

What is Community Management?

The discipline of Community Management is often a bridge between an organisation or brand - and the community it is aiming to create and serve. For example, a community can be a loyal audience or group of users or people connected by a similar passion, role, set of challenges or interests.

Community Management is a strategic discipline that includes:

1. Community Strategy
Defining the purpose and value of the community. Alignment and integration within an organisation or business.

2. Community Design
The choice of community platform and technology. The Interaction and Information architecture.

3. Community Launch
Establishing founder members, community behaviours, guardrails and boundaries. Publicising and recruiting community members.

4. Community Engagement
Moderation, motivation, posting content and resources, establishing rituals and connections.

5. Community Governance
Risk and reputation management. Data management. Creating processes that support a safe and trusted community.

To highlight the increasingly strategic role that community plays in organisations, Community Manager Appreciation Day is also marked as 'Community Manager Advancement Day’.

Successful communities create significant value exchanges for members and those who build them - including innovation, solving problems, customer advocacy, product/service feedback, high level customer engagement and customer service.

Celebrating Community Managers

To celebrate #CMAD we’re featuring and celebrating some of the Community Managers who have chosen Guild as a community platform.

Blaise Grimes-Viort is an online community and social media consultant. He hosts Guild Community Collective, a free to join group and network for community managers and social media managers across the globe. Read more about his experiences.

Catherine Weetman hosts Delivering Sustainability in your Business, enabling both deep and broad discussions around a topic that can be challenging and complicated. Find out more about her thoughts on community management.

Sara Martinez hosts Charity and Non-profit Trailblazers, a free-to-join community for people who work in fundraising, marketing and digital in charities and non-profit organisations.

Jenny Cater is a community manager for the charity Bookmark. She shares her tips for managing a successful volunteer community

Faith Nacional-Rahi, Success Manager, The Health Sciences Academy, had to learn community management skills in order to run a suite of professional communities for dieticians and nutritionists. Read about her take on community engagement.

Kashi Chellen is Community Manager for The Happiness Index's Happiness & Humans community for HR professionals - she recently talked to us about consulting your community and transitioning to a new platform.

Resources and communities for community managers

Community managers old and new. Happy Community Manager Appreciation Day. We salute you!

We have a host of free community strategy/building training resources, case studies and communities to support you throughout the year. Please come and join your peers, however experienced you are. Whether you're
If you’re a community strategist, community builder, community manager or social media professional, come and join Guild Community Collective.

Here’s a sample of our community strategy articles and resources:

Community Strategy Training hub

Community Strategy Training: What is an online community?

Online community trends 2024

What is community moderation?

Why the term “lurker” has no place in community strategy

Why social media algorithms could ruin your community

Community Manager Appreciation Day 2023 - meet the community managers

Join Guild 🤝

See for yourself how the Guild experience is different to WhatsApp, Slack, LinkedIn or Facebook Groups. Guild is a safe space to connect, communicate and collaborate with others.

Join us on a platform that is purpose-built for professionals and businesses.

Just want to join some groups? Simply join Guild and then look through the discoverable groups and communities to find relevant ones to join
Thinking of running your own community? With an elegant and simple to use, mobile-first UX you’ve got everything you need to start a community - custom branding, analytics, group and user management and support. Get started with your own community here with our free and enterprise options

36+ ways to create engagement in your online community

Team Guild — Tue, 16 Jan 2024 08:00:00 GMT

We covered "Get off to a great start with your Guild group" in another article, but once your group, community or network on Guild is up and running, what are the best ways to encourage member engagement?

Get your member onboarding right

1. Set the tone for engagement at the very start

First impressions really do count! Welcoming new people to your community is essential to ensure return visits and improve engagement.

Weaving in a personal touch to the process of signing up or joining in significantly affects how comfortable people feel. Help them to assess quickly whether the community is a welcoming, safe and valuable space for them to get involved with.

Some considerations for getting your member onboarding right on Guild:

When you invite members to your Guild group, community or network make sure you communicate fully:

The name and purpose of the community - why are people there and what should they expect?
The potential value of the community to new members - what do existing members get from belonging and engaging?
What to do and where to go when they first join the community - what are the 1,2,3 steps they need to take? Fill in their profile? Introduce themselves on a welcome thread? Answer a poll?

Think about how to signpost this as clearly and effectively as you can. We recommend:

Using the Auto Welcome DM feature and draft a short, simple and clear welcome message with the 1,2,3 steps
Ensure that you add direct links to conversations/threads or resources you want members to visit and engage with first

You can use an automatic welcome DM to guide new members of your community

Look at your community like a shop window. Do you need to do a bit of arranging and showcasing?

If you were joining your Guild group, community or network for the first time, would you feel that the featured and latest conversations and discussions were compelling enough to read and engage with?
If not, you may need to take action and repin older threads or start new ones

Varying your community content

2. Vary the messages you post

You can make your community more interesting for your members by posting different types of content.

Some examples of message formats you can try include:

Welcome messages (see "Get off to a great start with your Guild group(s)")
Welcome video - it’s amazing how much impact a welcome video from a host can have on orientation and engagement - repeat your community purpose and value and the 1, 2, 3 step onboarding process in this video. It can be formal or informal in tone.
An AMA (Ask Me Anything) session - see How to run an AMA on your Guild group
Links to interesting content/news
Links to register for events/webinars that you are running
Post your own polls on Guild (or links to surveys or polls you are doing)
File attachments with content you have produced (white papers, research, presentations, spreadsheets etc.)
Links to documents the group can collaborate on, e.g. Google Docs/Sheets, Dropbox, OneDrive etc. – see how events professionals collaborated on an industry manual in the CREO community on Guild)
Updates/reminders about what members can do in Guild that they might not be aware of. For example, updating their professional profile with links, seeing info on who has read messages for all messages, being able to edit/delete their messages, searching archives and profiles, seeing host-featured content from the group and lots more.
Ask for help. Helping other people feels good, fosters your community bond, and provides value to members. Set an example as a host by asking for input, opinions, and suggestions and encourage your members to do the same.

3. Make your messages easy to read

Use FORMATTING for interest... you bold text by putting asterisks around words or phrases (*bold*), and you can italicise text by putting underscores around words or phrases (_italics_). You can do both at the same time if you want!

4. Don’t take yourself too seriously

The jury is out on emojis in the workplace, but in a community, you’re building personal and professional relationships. That’s why we allow the use of standard emojis on Guild, and we introduced GIFs after many requests from our users.

It’s a bit of an art, but a well-chosen emoji or GIF can remind people that you’re a real person and lighten the tone, so don’t discount them just because you’re running a professional community.

5. Use the power of video

Business and Enterprise accounts on Guild have a built-in community Video Room for live streaming, to hold meet-ups, drop-ins, informal chats, interviews, events, AMAs and other activities that work better in person.

Some communities will say they’re online for a live Video Room sessions on specific days or time – others will schedule more formal events. Ask your members what would interest them and experiment.

The Video Room feature on Guild is popular with hosts for bringing communities together

We know how popular and engaging video is. Even if you don’t have a Video Room, you can record a video and post it to your group.

We recommend using an app (e.g. Clips which comes on Apple/iOS phones by default) which adds captions. The advantage of captions is that your video can still be watched and understood without sound, which makes it more accessible for as many people as possible.

6. Use the power of events

It's simple to add events to your Guild groups. Events and community go together naturally - community adds value to your events which in turn help improve community engagement.

Even if you’re not running your own events, signposting relevant events for your group, community or network is valuable for your members, and will encourage repeat visits and engagement - especially if you use the ‘Visibility Boost’ feature to send members events posted in your group as an email.

To learn more about the events feature read https://guild.co/blog/getting-started-with-guild-how-add-events/

And for a best practice guide to combining events with community read https://guild.co/blog/how-combine-events-community-best-practice-guide/

7. Run a poll or survey 📊

As a group Host or Admin, you have the power to run polls in your group. This is a good way to provide easy interaction and engagement and stimulate conversations around the results.

Click/tap to create a 'New Conversation' and then select the Poll tab. You can have up to 10 answer options, and you can also select the 'Visibility Boost' option to have the poll sent to all group members when you post it.

Members of the group can then vote and view the results.

>>Read more about polls on Guild.

8. Create traditions and community rituals

Successful communities have their own regular 'rituals' or 'codes' that are known to the group and make it distinctive.

Are there ideas you can come up with that would encourage members to bond, engage and feel a sense of belonging?

Member milestones are obvious. As your community grows, do celebrate your members old and new and even make use of Gifs to celebrate.

Member milestones are a celebration for everyone in your community

Suitable rituals will depend on the type of group, community or network that you have and member types, but for example, does your group need to present pitches? Host a #PitchFriday thread.

Does your group propose new members into the group? Start an #IntroMonday thread.

Other ideas include #HelpWednesday, #ThrowbackThursday, #MarketplaceMonday, #CasualFriday, #ThankfulThursday – and so on.

Some rituals might seem idiosyncratic or quirky, but they can differentiate your community, drive engagement and help members build emotional bonds.

9. Go back to the beginning - let people know how your group came about

Your community’s origin story can be a much overlooked and under-rated fact that new members will often not know if they are new to the group – especially if you've been running something for several years.

Consider writing this up in a blog post, and pinning it to the top of your group.

You can explain it at the beginning of in-person meetings or include it in your member email newsletter. Republishing the roots of why the community was launched can often re-inspire older members to contribute, as they feel they are part of a bigger and established, often more meaningful, whole.

10. Start a jobs thread

Depending on your community’s focus, allowing a jobs thread can help your members.

Jobhunters have the chance to have an informal chat with a potential employer; recruiters can connect with candidates in a more private setting.

This can be especially useful if your community has a lot of freelancers or contractors.

Sometimes members will just share roles they’ve seen elsewhere out of pure altruism – either way, you’re giving people a reason to engage, and you help your members with their professional goals.

11. Add images from events or slides from webinars

In your Guild community, you can add multiple images into one post – they’ll appear as unobtrusive, clickable and downloadable thumbnails, so you don’t need to worry about filling up your community with oversized images.

This can be ideal for sharing a few slides from a show or asking for an opinion on a design or product.

12. Allow anonymous questions

Not everyone is an extrovert. Some individuals can be shy about posting or responding to conversations in groups, communities or networks.

Some members might have a sensitive topic (commercial, personal or professional) they want to ask about.

Consider whether you might allow anonymous posting on your community, group or network.

If you wish to do this, you could create a Google Form or equivalent for anonymous questions that you can pose as the host. Or you could encourage people to DM you with sensitive questions to share.

Be a cheerleader and active listener

13. Applaud efforts by members

As soon as your members start posting their own messages, make sure you're there to encourage and support them.

Hit the applaud react button on their messages to show them you're there and listening.

14. Avoid lonely ‘orphaned’ threads

Uncomfortable silences in community can discourage member engagement.

If someone in your community asks a question and it goes unanswered by members it’s called an ‘orphaned thread’. Do make an effort to reply within a reasonable timeframe.

You can simply amplify their request for help and encourage them. Or, if you know someone in your group, community or network who would be able to help them or has the answer, you can DM or @ mention them to encourage them to respond.

15. Identify and repeat what works

Guild's engagement analytics (Paid Plans can access these from their Admin section) provides detailed insights into who’s engaging and who is not, and what topics and types of posts encourage engagement.

It’s useful to review your community data every month. You may be surprised at which conversations take off - every community is different.

16. 'Pin' a hot topic, an important conversation, an upcoming event etc

In Guild, Hosts or Admins can 'pin' a conversation.

Swipe left over the conversation and mark it as pinned. A black pin will then appear next to the conversation title, and it will be 'pinned' to the top of the conversations on the group home screen so that it is prominent and always visible.

You can pin up to five conversations at once.

You can use this pin feature to highlight particularly important, valuable or hot conversations.

17. ‘Feature' the best content from your archives

Hosts and Admins on Guild can 'feature' a conversation.

To do this, just swipe left over the conversation and mark it as featured. A black star will then appear next to the conversation title marking it out as special. You can feature as many conversations as you want.

Group members can view all the featured content via the 'three dots' navigation icon on the top right. This is a great way for members to see the 'best of' the group and immediately/easily benefit from valuable content contributed to the group.

Featured and pinned conversations are both good ways to showcase your community content

18. Don't panic! It's about quality rather than quantity

We’ve researched the optimum number of host-generated posts per month, which we found was two posts per week.

Ensure that you post quality rather than quantity, or your members might feel spammed.

Ask them questions in your posts and try to get everyone involved. Consistency is more important than frequency.

19. Don’t panic (again)! It can take months for a group to 'warm up'

It takes time for all groups to warm up to each other – in-person and through tech – as that is natural for humans.

Even your quieter members are likely gaining value from merely being connected with the other members – the DM count in your admin panel will show you this.

Don't be disheartened if it takes a few months for your group to gain that momentum, and keep up the good work.

Let your membership help

20. Let group members talk about what they're doing too

Don't be afraid to let your group, community or network members discuss what they're doing – not all self-promotion is selling.

As soon as members find commonalities, they're more likely to engage, turn up to your in-person or virtual meetings and find the group valuable.

Encourage some old-fashioned networking practices. For example, providing a specific thread for members to promote their services or portfolio can be a helpful way to avoid promotional posts being too intrusive.

21. Ask for feedback

Worried about whether the content you're posting is striking the right tone?

Make sure to ask for member feedback. You could run an all member survey but you don't even need to ask the whole group every time – remember that on Guild, you can DM people completely privately. Don't be afraid to say, "What did you think of when I posted ______?"

You might not always get positive feedback – but remember, every bit of constructive criticism inspires learning. Members appreciate that you care about their opinion, and it can give people a sense of belonging and ownership.

22. Find and nurture your ambassadors

The more you can make your group members feel they have a stake in your group, the better.

Aim to identify a core group of ambassadors (or champions) at the earliest stage possible in your community to engage, help you spread the word and get more people involved.

Successful online communities are made up of members who feel they can contribute when they want to, and ambassadors/champions can set the tone. The more self-sustaining your group is, the less you have to worry about consistently coming up with exciting new content.

23. Make introductions

On Guild, it’s simple to introduce people to one another.

You probably know your community members well, and you’ll see potential connections before they do.

Simply click on the profile of one member, click the “Introduce [Name] to…” link, pick the other individual from your network, and write a brief note explaining why you’re making the introduction.

Good introductions are valuable; your members will remember where they met and who connected them.

24. Collaborate and co-create

Building something together in a group, community or network on Guild creates a sense of ownership, belonging and collaboration.

You can keep it simple - ask people to contribute recommended books for a reading list, podcasts to listen to, or create a calendar of industry events.

Or you can crowd-source a complete manual like the CREO events community.

Your community is likely to share and update something they feel part of creating rather than passively consuming something you’ve given them. By asking for help and offering recognition, you show your members that you value their expertise and time.

People appreciate being asked for help. You are showing your respect for their knowledge and experience by making the request.

Some examples from successful Guild groups, networks and communities include:

- create blog posts with comments and tips to coincide with awareness days. For example, this co-created article for Neurodiversity Celebration Week

- work on something ambitious like a list of essential PR technology to get your job done, as the Comms & PR Pioneers group did

- build an evergreen piece of content and invite feedback - we did this with the Periodic Table of Community Strategy and the Online Community Glossary in Guild Community Collective

Keep your members coming back

25. Embed reminders in all your comms channels

A one-off email or announcement at an event may drive some adoption, but ideally, you should constantly embed regular reminders about your group/community across all your communications.

Remind people at your in-person and virtual events, in your email newsletters, in email signatures, at face-to-face meetings, in onboarding or renewal discussions, in marketing collateral, in social bios etc.

Encourage conversations to continue in your group, community or network on Guild.

A simple way to do this is to embed the Guild app badge alongside your social icons and link to your group – you can download the badge and logo in various formats from our brand guidelines.

You can create a QR code with a link to your community and promote it on posters, social posts, on presentation slides, videos etc.

You can also find examples of how Guild community owners have done this in our guide to growing your online community.

Providing a QR code makes it easy for event attendees to find your community or network

26. Remember FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) is a powerful motivator

Once you have a nascent community with some valuable activity, you should let others know what they're missing.

Let them know who’s already in the group. Show a screenshot of some valuable content/conversations happening, and they will soon want to join so as not to miss out.Embedding a link to a relevant or intriguing conversation can be helpful – click on the “three dots” menu at the top of any discussion and share. If your group is public, the link will take anyone who isn’t logged in to your landing page on the Guild groups directory, and they can request to join.

27. Use community data analysis to show what they’re missing

On Guild, Paid Plan account Admins can access detailed analytics about their community – members and conversations.

People love to hear their own stories and those of people they know. For example, you can produce word clouds, top ten job title/sector lists, and highlight the hottest topic or the most applauded contributors each month and share them on other comms channels such as newsletters, social posts, emails etc.

If something in your analytics strikes you as interesting, it will probably be interesting to your members too. Just remember to keep it positive and respect privacy!

Be consistent

28. Have guidelines? Be seen to stick to them

Does your community have guidelines? Then stick to them.

Members will lose trust in what you're doing if they see community rules being broken. For example, if you expressly forbid members from selling and soliciting, but allow spammy threads, then members are likely to leave your group... If you control who gets added to your group and you have strict joining criteria, follow these rules.

29. Remove inactive members of your group...

If someone isn't contributing to your group, don't be scared to remove them.

Find this awkward? Send them a quick DM or email to check why they aren’t checking in.
If they are getting value from being a silent member of your group, take it from there.

If they’re getting value despite their inactive status, then by all means, encourage them to log in more frequently or become an active contributor. But remember that your quieter members can be valuable listeners, learners or advocates – here’s why we don’t use the term lurker on Guild.

30. Make a hard switch from other messaging apps (like WhatsApp)

It is usually easier for your users to have just one messaging app for your group, network or community. In some cases, Guild is used alongside the likes of WhatsApp, where the latter is just used for 'off the record social' chat but this adds to the moderation burden.

Engagement on Guild is typically best when a group starts with Guild rather than running parallel groups on other platforms, as users aren't always clear on which to use for what.

Increasingly we are seeing customers making a 'hard switch' to Guild and shutting down groups on consumer messaging apps like WhatsApp (for legal/compliance reasons also) or platforms like Slack that aren’t designed for communities.

This takes some decisiveness but certainly helps with engagement. Your members will appreciate the certainty that they’re in the right place.

31. Ensure your members can access your community wherever they are

The best thing about modern connectivity is that our phones allow us to be part of online communities, groups and networks like never before.

Guild was designed to be mobile-first, so to encourage maximum participation in your group, encourage your members to https://guild.co/join, download the mobile app and enable notifications.

(NOTE: you can see via the engagement analytics data whether individual users have the mobile app or not, so you can gently remind those who don't).

If users go into their app settings, they can enable or disable notifications on a group-by-group basis or choose to receive email notifications instead.

32. Invite in temporary special guests

Just like you'd invite a speaker, or expert, to a real-world event, you can invite someone into your group on a temporary basis.

For example, you could invite in a specialist who can answer group members' questions. Or a keynote speaker. Or researcher, academic, author, trade association, journalist, analyst, even a politician?! Special guests can really help liven up the group.

Temporary special guests can liven up your group or community, like these participants in an AMA on the FORT community

Keep things fresh

33. Rotate group Host status to mix things up

You can reassign Host status to any group member on Guild, so if you feel that this might keep things fresh in your group, you can use this to invigorate things. Like temporary guests, you can also have temporary Hosts. Just ensure that they understand their role, whether they need to moderate and whether there is a community playbook / guidelines that they need to follow.

Ask your members if they'd like to be a guest chair, host, or interviewer for a few days – let them have fun with it. A Host won’t be able to access your admin features or group data.

34. Involve your members and moderators

If a conversation goes off topic in a good way, it may be the embryo of a new conversation. Invite one of the members involved to start a new thread or post. This reduces "host overload" where it feels like the host is the only person who can or does start conversations - one host described her new community as "it looks like The Sally Show at the moment" (name changed to protect the innocent!). It also sets an example for the community that all members is welcome to kick off a new conversation. Sometimes people need to feel they have permission, but sometimes they're waiting to be asked.

If certain members are particularly knowledgeable or senior, you could even give them moderator status and encourage them to experiment alongside you.

35. Bring your own stakeholders and experts along

If you're running a community supported by (or supporting) a business or organisation, encourage them to be active in the community. Members can respond well to the opportunity to ask questions of experts or simply the knowledge that people they respect are listening. Don't restrict yourself to "senior" staff - there are experts all through any organisation. Be transparent about their roles (make sure they have a complete profile with a bio) and keep an eye to make sure they encourage, rather than dominate, conversations.

36. Go exploring

Keep an eye out in other communities - your perspective as an "ordinary" member will help you spot the topics and tips that catch your eye. That might be an idea for a new ritual, a technique for bringing in new voices, a community event or project you could start, or a different way to onboard new members and encourage them to jump in. It's not about copying ideas but taking inspiration and coming up a spin that's unique to your community and your members. Joining communities on Guild is a great way to learn about engaging members - see how your fellow hosts welcome and bring people into the conversation. Many Guild communities are private, but you can find those which are open to new members on the Guild groups directory at guild.co/groups

Join Guild 🤝

See for yourself how the Guild experience is different to WhatsApp, Slack, LinkedIn or Facebook Groups.

Guild is a safe space to connect, communicate and collaborate with others.

Join us on a platform that is purpose-built for creating groups, communities and networks on mobile.

Just want to join some groups? Simply join Guild and then look through the discoverable groups and communities to find relevant ones to join
Thinking of running your own community? With an elegant and simple to use, mobile-first UX you’ve got everything you need to start a community - custom branding, analytics, group and user management and support. Get started with your own community here with our free and paid options

Community Conversation - engagement in an alumni community

Team Guild — Mon, 15 Jan 2024 12:07:06 GMT

Professionals in all sectors get value from online communities. But what they need from a community varies considerably.

Experienced professionals are often pushed for time - they may want to be part of efficient, authoritative conversations. On the other hand, people just starting their career need accessible, approachable content and want to spend time building relationships with mentors and peers.

How can you effectively engage both types of member?

This is one of the topics covered in our most recent Community Conversation, between Faith Nacional-Rahi, Success Manager, The Health Sciences Academy, and Blaise Grimes-Viort, Guild Community Collective host and founder of community consultancy Is The Answer.

The Health Sciences Academy (THSA) is the world’s largest 100% science-based, nutrition-focused online educational institution. It launched in 2012 and has trained over hundreds of thousands of health and wellness professionals, from career switchers to level 7 certification.

Faith and Blaise discussed:

why privacy and meaningful connection and conversation are harder to achieve in mainstream social media
how creating additional communities for professionals helps The Health Sciences Academy increase global visibility and reach
how online community can enrich learning and support learning outcomes for students
the power of simple engagement techniques like quizzes and polls
the benefits of running a range of exclusive communities to cater for different audience needs
strategies to boost recruitment and retention through engagement and feedback
how a dedicated online community builds loyalty and advocacy
how subject matter experts can learn to become effective community managers
the role of mentorship in communities, allowing experts and stakeholders to build visibility through sharing knowledge and experience
how clear guidelines and procedures can encourage engagement and effective conversations

See the full recording here:

Further resources

Read The Health Sciences Academy (THSA) case study

Join the THSA Community

Join Nutrition Professionals Worldwide

Read about hosting an alumni group on Guild

Get 30+ tips for creating engagement in your online community

Check out our Community Strategy and Community Management resources hub

Join community peers

Want to connect with peers and experts in community and discuss your own challenges around migrating community platforms?

Apply to join Guild Community Collective, a free online community for community and social media professionals, however experienced you are.

Join Guild 🤝

See for yourself how the Guild experience is different to WhatsApp, Slack, LinkedIn or Facebook Groups.

Guild is a safe space to connect, communicate and collaborate with others.

Join us on a platform that is purpose-built for creating groups, communities and networks on mobile.

Just want to join some groups? Simply join Guild and then look through the discoverable groups and communities to find relevant ones to join
Thinking of running your own community? With an elegant and simple to use, mobile-first UX you’ve got everything you need to start a community - custom branding, analytics, group and user management and support. Get started with your own community here with our free and paid options

National Awareness Days 2024 for your community

Team Guild — Thu, 28 Dec 2023 12:00:00 GMT

Awareness days and holidays can offer community managers and social media managers a useful framework for campaign and content planning.

Some are more serious and formal than others, but these dates can be useful for helping to spark conversations within your communities. Community hosts can encourage member engagement by sharing stories and offering advice or peer support.

There are 100s of community awareness days and months throughout the year for some excellent causes. We've focused on those relevant to business and the workplace, health and well-being, and diversity and inclusion.

We explore them in more detail below but here's a quick list of 2024 awareness days that could help you engage and connect your community.

January 15 2024 – Blue Monday (Global) or Brew Monday (UK)

January 22 2024 – Community Manager Appreciation Day (Global)

January 27 2024 – National Fun at Work Day (Global)

January 27 – February 4 2024 - National Storytelling Week (UK only)

February 2024 – National LGBT+ History Month (UK only)

February 1 2024 – Time to Talk Day (UK only)

February 5-11 2024 – National Apprenticeship Week (UK only)

February 5-11 2024 – Race Equality Week (UK only)

February 6 2024 – Safer Internet Day (Global)

February 17 2024 – Random Acts of Kindness Day (Global)

March 1 2024 – Zero Discrimination Day (Global)

March 1 2024 – Employee Appreciation Day (Global)

March 8 2024 – International Women’s Day (Global)

March 15 2024 - World Sleep Day (Global)

March 18-24 2024 – Sign Language Week (UK)

March 18-24 2024 – Neurodiversity Celebration Week (UK only)

April 2023 – Stress Awareness Month

April 7 2024 – World Health Day (Global)

April 22 2024 – Earth Day (Global)

April 26 2024 – World Intellectual Property Day (Global)

May 2024 – Local and Community History Month (UK only)

May 2024 – National Walking Month (UK only)

May 2 2024 – World Password Day (Global)

May 5 – World Laughter Day (Global)

May 13-19 2024 - Learning at Work Week (UK Only)

May 13-19 2024 – Mental Health Awareness Week (UK Only)

May 16 2024 – Global Accessibility Awareness Day (Global)

May 21 2024 - World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development (Global)

June – Pride Month (Global)

June 1 – 7 2024 – Volunteers Week (UK Only)

June 5 2024 – World Environment Day (Global)

June 20 2024– National Freelancers Day (UK only)

June 17-21 2024 – Small Charity Week (UK Only)

July – Plastic Free July (Global)

July 17 2024 – World Emoji Day (Global)

July 30 2024 – International Day of Friendship (Global)

August 9 – Book Lovers Day (Global)

August 10 2024 – International Update Your Bio Day (Global)

September 5 2024 - International Day of Charity (Global)

September 23-27 2024 – International Week of Happiness at Work (Global)

September 23-29 2024 – National Inclusion Week (UK)

September 23-29 2024 – International Week of the Deaf (Global)

September 26 2024 – European Day of Languages (Europe only)

October 2024 – Black History Month (UK only)

October 2024 – Global Diversity Awareness Month (Global)

October 4 2024 – World Smile Day (Global)

October 7-13 – National Work Life Week (UK only)

October 10 2024 – World Mental Health Day (Global)

November 2 2024– National Stress Awareness Day (UK only)

November 11-17 2024 – Global Entrepreneurship Week (Global)

November 29 2024 – Black Friday (Global)

November 30 2024 – Small Business Saturday (UK)

December 2 2024 – Cyber Monday (Global)

December 3 2024 – Giving Tuesday #GivingTuesday (Global)

December 3 2024 – International Day of People with Disability (Global)

December 5 2024 – International Volunteer Day (Global)

December 12 2024 – Christmas Jumper Day (UK only)

Awareness days for January

January 15 2024 – Blue Monday (Global) or Brew Monday (UK)
First established in 2005, Blue Monday, which falls on the third Monday of each January, is said to be the most depressing day of the year. The theory is that the winter weather, short daylight hours, and average number of days since last pay day all contribute to a feeling of negativity. The Samaritans charity has a more constructive take, and recommends people mark Brew Monday, saying “we all have our good days and our bad days, and those aren’t for the calendar to decide.” Whichever path you choose, taking “time for a cuppa and a catch-up” will help your community to connect.

January 22 2024 – Community Manager Appreciation Day (Global)
Community Manager Appreciation Day occurs on the fourth Monday of each January, to recognise and celebrate the efforts of community managers around the globe. It’s a day where people traditionally take to social media platforms to give thanks to their online community managers.

January 27 2024 – National Fun at Work Day (Global)
Authors Mario Tamayo and Bob Nelson say that in Fortune’s 100 Best Places to Work list, 81% of employees at companies ranked as “great” described their office environments as fun. Since we spend so much of our time at work, this might be a good opportunity to bring teams together over an activity, light-hearted charity event or event. It’s good for your team and good for your organisation.

January 27 – February 4 2024 - National Storytelling Week (UK only)
Primarily an initiative to get children and young people enthused by the power of stories. However, it’s a great catalyst for sharing stories in your community, or sharing stories about your community with wider audiences. Check out our guide to using story and journalism to support your community.

Awareness days for February

February 2024 – National LGBT+ History Month (UK only)
National LGBT+ History Month occurs every February in the UK, and it exists to promote equality and inclusion. It's an opportunity to increase the visibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, and their lives, history and experiences. The initiative aims to advance education on matters affecting the LGBT+ community, and to help make institutions and workplaces safer for all.

February 1 2024 – Time to Talk Day (UK only)
Time To Talk Day is organised by Mind with Rethink Mental Illness and the Co-op. Its aim is to create “supportive communities by having conversations with family, friends, or colleagues about mental health”. 1 in 4 people will have a mental health problem in any given year – talking about it reduces stigma and helps people support themselves and others. Lots of resources available on the Time to Talk Day website.

February 5-11 2024 – National Apprenticeship Week (UK only)
National Apprenticeship Week in the UK was set up to highlight the exceptional work of employees and apprentices. It’s an opportunity to highlight the positive impact of apprenticeship schemes for apprentices, employers and the wider economy.

February 5-11 2024 – Race Equality Week (UK only)
Race Equality Week is an annual UK-wide movement – in 2022 it united over 3,500 organisations to address the barriers to race equality in the workplace. The 2024 theme is #ListenActChange and organiser Race Equality Matters offers many resources to help you take part, including a 5 day challenge.

February 6 2024 – Safer Internet Day (Global)
Safer Internet Day uses the strapline ‘Together for a better internet’. Its aim is to promote safer and more responsible use of online technology and mobile phones, particularly among children and young people.

February 17 2024 – Random Acts of Kindness Day (Global)
A global movement that aims to “Make Kindness the Norm”, Random Acts of Kindness Day should be a perfect fit for any community. Mark it in big or small ways, use it as a prompt to reconnect with members you’ve not seen for a while, or simply start a conversation with your own stories. Think kindness should be for every day, not just one day? The free Kindness at Work calendar has you covered and many of the prompts can be used in your community.

Awareness days for March

March 1 2024 – Zero Discrimination Day (Global)
UNAIDS runs Zero Discrimination Day on 1 March to “celebrate the right of everyone to live a full and productive life—and live it with dignity”. It aims to help to create a global movement of solidarity to end all forms of discrimination.

March 1 2024 – Employee Appreciation Day (Global)
Taking place on the first Friday of every March, Employee Appreciation Day is a relatively new date in the diary. It's an opportunity for companies to thank their staff for their hard work and effort throughout the year. Businesses celebrate in different ways, from encouraging
colleagues to leave early, to arranging events or showing recognition in other ways.

8 March – International Women’s Day (Global)
Taking place on 8 March every year, International Women’s Day first began over a century ago. It celebrates the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women, whilst working to accelerate gender equality. The global theme for the 2023 International Women’s Day was "DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality".

March 15 2024 - World Sleep Day (Global)
Held on the Friday before spring Equinox each year, World Sleep Day is designed to call for action on important sleep related issues. This includes the effects of medicines, education, social aspects and driving. Introduced by the World Sleep Society, its mission is to lessen the burden of sleep problems on society through better prevention and management of sleep disorders. In a professional context you could look at the impact of broken sleep and the importance of work-life balance, reducing stress, screen breaks and working hours.

March 18-24 2024 – Sign Language Week (UK)
The British Deaf Association is a Deaf-led organisation working directly with Deaf people that use British Sign Language (BSL). It campaigns for equal rights on a national level, and at a local level it works to empower Deaf people to achieve access to their local public services. Sign Language Week promotes events, facts, figures and resources to encourage people of all ages across the UK to take up the challenge of learning BSL for themselves and better understand the language and culture of people for whom BSL is their first or preferred language.

March 18-24 2024 – Neurodiversity Celebration Week (UK only)
Almost 15% of students in the United Kingdom have a learning difference. Neurodiversity Celebration Week was founded by Siena Castellon, a teenager with ADHD, dyslexia, and dyspraxia. It focuses on schools and colleges but as Siena says "The struggling SEN students of today will become the entrepreneurs and revolutionaries of tomorrow" so your business or professional community might also want to mark this week with awareness activity.

Awareness days for April

April 2023 – Stress Awareness Month
An initiative by The Stress Management Society, Stress Awareness Month is "an opportunity for an open conversation on the impact of stress…. removing the guilt, shame, and stigma around mental health. Depending on your community's membership you could discuss issues and ways to solve them, remind people of the importance of taking time off, share stress-relieving content, or ask for feedback in an anonymous poll.

April 7 2024 – World Health Day (Global)
World Health Day is an international event to draw attention to a specific health topic of concern to people around the world.

The day occurs on 7 April each year to mark the anniversary of the founding of WHO in 1948. Previous themes have included universal health coverage, active ageing, high blood pressure and depression.

April 22 2024 – Earth Day (Global)
Earth Day, organised by Earthday.org, is an annual event held to encourage mass environmental protection. The first Earth Day took place in 1970 in the US, and it now has the support of 193 countries globally. It's observed by more than one billion people worldwide with a wide range of events - see Take Action for ideas for your organisation or community.

April 26 2024 – World Intellectual Property Day (Global)
It may sound like a dry topic – "an opportunity to highlight the role that IP rights, such as, patents, trademarks, industrial designs, copyright), play in encouraging innovation and creativity." But many communities and their members are creators who will want to protect their own output, and most of us use other people's resources every day. In 2023 the day's theme was "Women and IP: Accelerating innovation and creativity" and the organiser, the World Intellectual Property Organization, provides resources and events to learn about, celebrate and encourage groundbreaking ideas.

Awareness days for May

May – Local and Community History month (UK only)
The purpose of Local and Community History Month is to raise awareness of local history and promote its importance within the local community, encouraging participation from everyone. Throughout May, activities are planned across the country, such as trips, library exhibitions, and local lectures.

May 2 2024 – World Password Day (Global)
World Password Day was first established by Intel in 2013, and falls on the first Thursday of May each year to address the critical need for complex passwords. It highlights the importance of good practice and strong authentication for keeping personal information safe, and preventing cybercrime. Community managers could use it to prompt members to consider their password security.

May 5 – World Laughter Day (Global)
Humour can sometimes be divisive but more often it brings us together. Laughter also has many health benefits from lowering blood pressure to potentially improving immunity. An easy prompt for your community might be to ask them to share something that makes them smile or to share their favourite (community-friendly) joke or pun in your sector. These "low-friction" opportunities to contribute can be the starting point for people to join in on other, deeper conversations.

May 13-19 2024 - Learning at Work Week (UK Only)
Campaign for Learning co-ordinates this annual event to promote lifelong learning at work. Organisations and workplaces are encouraged to provide inspiration, resources and time for teams to explore new learning opportunities. Each year has a specific them – see the Learning at Work Week website for ideas and resources.

May 13-19 2024 – Mental Health Awareness Week (UK Only)
Organised by mental health support charity Mind, Mental Health Awareness Week is a themed campaign to raise awareness, invite conversations, and encourage people to volunteer, raise awareness and take action to break the stigma associated with mental health.

May 16 2024 – Global Accessibility Awareness Day (Global)
98.1% of home pages have at least one accessibility issue under the WCAG 2.0 guidelines. Fostering inclusive design and development can have a huge impact and Global Accessibility Awareness Day highlights events and resources that “get everyone talking, thinking and learning about digital access and inclusion”.

May 21 2024 - World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development (Global)
The United Nations General Assembly first declared the World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development in 2002, and every year this day offers a chance for everyone to "promote culture and highlight the significance of its diversity as an agent of inclusion and positive change". Within your community you could ask members to think about and share something they've learned about the cultures of the places they live, work, come from or collaborate with. Set an example by sharing something you've discovered recently yourself.

Awareness days for June

June – Pride Month (Global)
Pride is an annual opportunity to foster acceptance, equality and celebration of the LGBTQIA+ community. There are many ways to take part and show genuine allyship. There are many events and resources available depending on your industry or sector – start by asking your own community members for their advice and the resources they trust.

June 1 – 7 2024 – Volunteers Week (UK Only)
Charities large and small come together to celebrate volunteers and the contributions they make to society. Volunteers Week is an opportunity to show the impact of volunteers and the difference volunteering can make both to individuals and organisations and encourage people to explore volunteering in the future.

June 5 2024 – World Environment Day (Global)
An annual event since 1974, World Environment Day began as a way to engage governments, businesses, and citizens to address pressing environmental issues. World Environment Day has a different theme and a different host nation each year. In 2023 it was hosted by Sweden, with the theme 'Only One Earth', calling for transformative changes to enable cleaner, greener and more sustainable living.

June 20 2024– National Freelancers Day (UK only)
National Freelancers Day was set up by the IPSE, the organisation supporting the UK’s self-employed and freelance community. It celebrates all things freelance and typically features influential speakers, interactive workshops and opportunities for the freelance and self-employed community to connect.

June 17-21 2024 – Small Charity Week (UK Only)
Small Charity Week focuses on the UK’s small charity sector. It aims to both raise awareness and celebrate their contribution to individuals, communities and causes and includes a series of events, resources and tools to support small charities, their volunteers and teams.

Awareness days for July

July – Plastic Free July (Global)
This month-long awareness event began in Western Australia but has expanded worldwide. It’s about raising awareness of different types of plastic and how to reduce single use plastic, whether in the home, workplace or the products we buy and use. Plastic Free July shares advice for homes, schools, businesses and communities.

July 17 2024 – World Emoji Day (Global)
Whether you love or hate emojis in professional communications there's no doubt they're becoming more common in the workplace. World Emoji Day can be a fun way to start a serious conversation about new ways to communicate - take a look at the day's organiser Emojipedia for more details on the meaning and accessibility of emojis.

July 30 2024 – International Day of Friendship (Global)
The UN General Assembly proclaimed in 2011 that 30 July should celebrate “the idea that friendship between peoples, countries, cultures and individuals can inspire peace efforts and build bridges between communities”. Groups are encouraged to hold events, activities and initiatives that promote dialogue, solidarity and mutual understanding.

Awareness days for August

August 9 – Book Lovers Day (Global)
August tends to be a quiet time in workplaces and communities as colleagues and customers take holidays. Book Lovers Day is a light-hearted, low commitment way to engage people in conversation – what you are reading, what would you recommend, what’s your favourite book on a certain topic?

August 10 2024 – International Update Your Bio Day (Global)
Dr. Jason Jones of Stony Brook University is behind this "new, fun, made-up virtual holiday celebrating introspection and self-presentation". But there's a serious message behind the silliness - your online bio on every platform is part of you personally expressed identity and can show trends in disclosure, inclusivity and social concerns. At Guild, we encourage members to spend time on their Guild profile for improved networking and community experience. As far as we're concerned, every day could be an 'update your bio day'.

Awareness days for September

September 5 2024 - International Day of Charity (Global)
Another UN day, established with the aim of "sensitizing and mobilizing people, NGOs, and stakeholders all around the world to to help others through volunteer and philanthropic activities." Within your community you could invite members to share the charities they support or volunteer with – by inviting people to do something on behalf of someone else, you may motivate people who are usually a bit more reticent or shy. And you'll get to do some good at the same time!

September 23-27 2024 - International Week of Happiness at Work (Global)
International Week of Happiness at Work invites businesses to examine and celebrate workplace satisfaction. Ideas include team bonding events, inviting expert speakers, or creating a new workplace manifesto. This is an ideal opportunity to celebrate and share your values and what your business does well - as well as ask your community for ideas and inspiration.

September 26 2024 - European Day of Languages (Europe only)
The European Day of Languages is an annual event created by the Council of Europe. Millions of people take part in activities to celebrate linguistic diversity. It's a good opportunity to highlight the lingusitic and cultural richness of your community.

Awareness days for October

October 2024 – Black History Month (UK only)
Black History Month is an annual observation across the UK. It was first celebrated in 1987 and has evolved significantly since then. The Building Inclusive Cultures community on Guild have shared resources and learnings to improve racial equity in the workplace.

October 2024 – Global Diversity Awareness Month (Global)
Global Diversity Awareness Month takes place every October to recognise multicultural traditions, and to celebrate how different ethnicities, cultures, heritages and experiences contribute to more dynamic, innovative, richer and efficient workplaces.

October 4 2024 - World Smile Day (Global)
World Smile Day takes place on the first Friday of each October. It was born from the idea that everybody should devote one day each year to acts of kindness throughout the world, regardless of politics, geography and religion. The first World Smile Day was held in 1999 in Worcester, Massachusetts, and today is celebrated in numerous countries around the world.

October 7-13 - National Work Life Week (UK only)
Working Families is the UK’s national charity for working parents and carers. National Work Life Week is its annual campaign to get employers and employees to find ways to improve wellbeing at work, showcase flexible working practices and improve work-life balance for all.

October 10 2024 – World Mental Health Day (Global)
World Mental Health Day is organised by the WHO. It is celebrated around the world to raise awareness of mental health issues and to mobilise efforts in support of mental health. The day highlights work being done on mental health issues, as well as the progress needed to make mental health care a reality for people worldwide.

Awareness days for November

November 2 2024– National Stress Awareness Day (UK only)
On the first Wednesday of November, National Stress Awareness Day is celebrated in the UK as a way of highlighting the importance of managing stress in our daily lives. It aims to raise awareness of stress and its impact. It also aims to reduce stigma and promote wellbeing and stress reduction for individuals.

November 11-17 2024 – Global Entrepreneurship Week (Global)
Celebrated in November each year, this is a celebration of enterprise and entrepreneurial people. Global Entrepreneurship Week is described as a “worldwide movement of entrepreneurial people, with millions unleashing their enterprising talents and turning their ideas into reality.” Check out some of entrepreneurial communities on Guild that you can apply to join.

November 29 2024 - Black Friday (Global)
Black Friday falls on the Friday after Thanksgiving in the US and it is the busiest shopping day of the year. In more recent years, Black Friday is celebrated as a shopping holiday event in other countries around the world, with many retailers offering highly promoted sales on, or around, this day. If you run a paid community you could choose to run a special membership offer for Black Friday, or you could choose to actively opt out.

Awareness days for December

December 2 2024 - Cyber Monday (Global)
Cyber Monday is the Monday following Thanksgiving and Black Friday, and is the online equivalent of Black Friday, recognising the amount of e-commerce transactions that typically occur on this day. It was created by retailers to encourage consumers to shop online.

December 3 2024 - Giving Tuesday #GivingTuesday (Global)
Giving Tuesday is a global day of giving. In 2024 it will take place on December 3rd. Individuals, organisations and businesses can support charities and the initiative with donations, time, or action. It's a great time to explore ways of giving back in your community.

December 3 2024 – International Day of People with Disability (Global)
The International Day of People with Disability (IDPWD) is celebrated around the world on 3 December each year. This UN-sanctioned day was introduced to celebrate and value the diversity of our global community and to understand and learn from the experiences of people with living with a disability.

December 5 2024 - International Volunteer Day (Global)
The UN Volunteers (UNV) programme organises International Volunteer Day on to celebrate and promote the work of volunteers around the world.

December 12 2024 – Christmas Jumper Day (UK only)
Workplaces, schools and groups of friends come together to dress up in something festive, raise money for Save the Childrenand feel part of something bigger. Not everyone celebrates Christmas but it’s more about the charity and togetherness – take the opportunity to share photos in your team or community.

Six ways to use awareness days to create content and engage your community

Create a poll or survey
Ask your community to share their experiences or plans to mark a particular day
Share your own experiences or story if the day is relevant to you
Plan ahead and invite your community or organisation to share their experiences and insights in a piece of content
Hold a webinar, AMA or lunch and learn with an expert or guest speakers
Take part in an activity or donate to the cause behind the day - tell your community why it's important to you

Awareness days and holiday calendars

Alongside these widely recognised awareness days, why not look for some events and diary dates celebrated within your specific industry?

Here are some additional resources to explore:

Days of the Year

There is a Day for That

UN list of Days and Weeks

Bank Holidays and Observances in the UK

NHS Employers - calendar of campaigns and awareness days

Examples of awareness day content on the Guild blog

Stress Awareness Month

Giving Tuesday

International Women's Day

Community Manager Appreciation Day

Data Privacy Day

Join a dedicated community for community managers to discuss this and more

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Community Trends 2024

Michelle Goodall — Thu, 07 Dec 2023 13:17:23 GMT

Welcome to our annual global trends in community building.

These are our predictions for the community building and community management industry, using a combination of horizon scanning, community data and discussions with community experts around the globe.

In summary: “What a year!”

The one thing we’ve learned this decade is that there is only one constant - and that is constant disruption.

2023 has been a year of climate chaos, conflict, recession and fears of another pandemic (see expert predictions for community in 2023). But in troubling times, communities, connections and belonging become even more important if things feel existentially ‘out of control’.

Kudos to the community builders and their members who are reversing harms that we are doing to the planet. To those managing communities supporting those most impacted by conflict, layoffs, the cost of living crisis and health/mental wellbeing challenges, we salute you.

So, let’s look forward and share the trends that will shape the community industry and community building in 2024.

Here are the 11 community trends for 2024:

Community as a core Go-to-Market strategy accelerates

Community Everywhere = community roles will adapt

The impact of an unravelling Twitter > X

Community Tech - the big vendors need to adapt

Nano, micro and small trusted community spaces flourish

Community delivers against broader organisational goals - but progress (and investment) could still be slow

AI will be fully embedded into the community journey

More hyper-personalised community experiences

A tighter focus on trust and safety in community moderation

Workplace and talent communities set to flourish

The global community industry professionalizes

Community as a core Go-To-Market strategy accelerates

For a few years now, community has evolved beyond being purely customer support focused.

In 2024, community will become an integral part of B2B marketing strategies. Those who haven’t harnessed the power of communities to support their marketing and growth objectives will take steps in the right direction in 2024. Those who don’t risk being left behind.

Our recent webinar Unlocking Growth: Online Communities for Demand Generation / Lead Generation (watch on-demand here) looked at one important aspect of marketing + community - how to generate demand and leads to power growth.

But…marketers take note! Remember, community is about people and not platforms, dialogue not dominance, it takes time to build reputation and trusted spaces.

"Community is about people and not platforms, dialogue not dominance."You must successfully navigate potential pitfalls in delicate community ecosystems and, like brand building, community is hugely valuable, but takes effort and resource. Skill up in 2024 and get ready for the ride!

“Community will accelerate as a Go-to-Market strategic pillar in 2024. Smart marketers understand that community creates an irresistible flywheel.

Community is moving beyond merely building a social media presence, to being active participants in connected communities AND building engaged prospect and customer communities that deliver deep audience intelligence, market insight and ‘pains’.

These insights can power highly relevant campaigns, content and events - the content that resonates best with customers and prospects uses words they’ve said out loud.

They can also drive product / service development and innovation, which in turn drives customer acquisition and loyalty.

Community members and happy customers become ambassadors. They pull others into your communities, and recommend and advocate for you through other channels.

I’m surprised the Community Based Marketing penny hasn’t dropped with many more B2B businesses. I predict that we’ll see more of this happen in 2024 and I’m here for it.”
Michelle Goodall - CEO & Founder - Michelle Goodall Ltd

"Now, more than ever, is the time for brands to invest in community-building as a form of advocacy. It's a two-way street: the brand supports the community, and the community supports the brand.

This is not just marketing; this is building a sustainable, value-driven ecosystem."
Katy Howell - CEO - immediate future

Community Everywhere = community roles will adapt

“Community Everywhere” is a term we should credit to Richard Millington.

In this article, he explains what Community Everywhere means: fans of a brand or business as well as detractors, prospects, and members will choose many digital and physical spaces to cluster and engage as groups.

Perhaps the brand or business only offers and manages a few official or owned community spaces, and the customer journey or community journey today is fragmented and messy.

In the webinar mentioned above, Derek Weeks talked about the ‘3 orbits of community’ - Product, Brand and Existing Communities - as a similar concept.

Community Everywhere (personally, I prefer the term ‘Community Ecosystems’) in comms and PR is a familiar, understood and well-practised concept and is classified under ‘stakeholder mapping’.

This is the process of identifying the channels, creators/influencers, communities, groups or networks where your industry, organisation, brand or product is being discussed - whether that’s owned and managed by you or not - and then creating a listening and engagement strategy around these ecosystems.

I’ve had conversations with community professionals this year, who are uncomfortable with the concept that their owned communities may not necessarily be the only place where they need to operate: “we’re already massively over-stretched” or “our focus is on our community platform” et cetera.

I totally get this viewpoint.

But there are others who, like me, feel there is an opportunity for community professionals to do what we do well, and that 2024 will be a year where we’ll see community remits, roles and approaches broaden and adapt to ‘Community Everywhere’ / ‘Community Ecosystems’.

“Community Ecosystems: or platform-agnostic communities, or “Community Everywhere” as some say. Communities used to be a forum or controlled space (usually by an admin or a brand) that was called community.

We’ve since outgrown these spaces, and people want to engage in different ways and places. Communities have become ecosystems, and companies are starting to realize that now.

The rise of platform-agnostic communities is a trend I find exhilarating. We already juggle between places, and I start a conversation with a friend on WhatsApp, move to Instagram DM and suddenly find myself commenting in a specific tool or forum as if we were having a pub crawl online.

Tech is enabling more seamless conversations to happen. New generations are not on forums anymore but use TikTok, Lemon8 and other tools as their search engine, community, shopping, telephone, dating and everything else.

Companies that optimize for cross-platform will win.”
Edu Giansante - Head of Community - Persona

Laura Zug - Community Strategist

The impact of an unravelling Twitter > X

The big story in social media in 2023 was the impact of Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover. Commenting about the current situation risks being out of date virtually the minute you publish.

There is a fresh set of weekly headlines from X Towers. But the impact is very real. Not least around what happens when a key technology platform lays off employees, loses advertisers and reorganises trust and safety councils.

X wasn’t the only social media platform hitting the headlines in 2023. Reddit faced a backlash from community and subreddit owners in the wake of its pricing and policy changes.

And Meta continues to battle lawsuits across the globe. One of the latest in 2023 from Spain, cites that a "massive" and "systematic" use of personal data of its Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp users constitutes unfair competition for media owners.

Community builders are having to make constant decisions about whether they leave social media platforms like X and Facebook and find new platforms, or stick it out. Expect to see more of the same disruption in 2024.

“I think one big issue that 2023 has exposed is that in the wake of a couple of major big tech upsets (Twitter/X, Reddit drama, etc), nothing has really come along to “replace” some of the larger online hangouts in their entirety

Instead, what we’ve seen through 2023 is people discovering new platforms, and a fracturing of where they spend time online. This is an opportunity for 2024 - there’s potential for a lot more either hyperlocal, or hyper-specialised, communities to crop up.”
Andy Piper - Open Source consultant

“People are tired of aggressive ad formats that prioritize engagement for profit. They’re seeking alternatives that prioritize their well-being – and we have every indication they are willing to invest in spaces that offer curated knowledge in an environment free from the toxicity and polarization of social media.

As we stand on the threshold of 2024, the dichotomy between social media and distinct online communities is becoming more pronounced.

People yearn for spaces that promote understanding, empathy, and genuine connections, free from algorithmic manipulation and commodified attention.

The clamor for online communities that foster a thoughtful exchange of information and prioritize psychological safety marks a significant turning point in the Internet’s evolution. By embracing the ethos of genuine community and curated belonging, we pave the way for a more humane and intentional digital world.

This won’t be the death knell of social media by any stretch of the imagination, but more and more people will be willing to bid farewell to the hatred and noise of social media and willing to pay to spend more of their digital time and attention elsewhere.”
Laura Zug - Community Strategist

Community Tech - the big vendors need to adapt

And what about non social media community platforms in 2024?

Some experts said that they felt older community platforms have been slow to evolve, and risk being replaced with newer tools that integrate much better into evolving techstacks.

With hundreds of community tech options available, including Guild, it’s set to be a year where community professionals will be testing, evolving and potentially migrating their communities, as well as adding specialist community tools to optimise performance.

“For many years now we've seen intentional communities migrating away from populist social media spaces to smaller, community-orientated platforms. 2024 will see this trend seep into large community platforms that have previously dominated the market.

These players have become bloated and inflexible, and are increasingly unable to serve communities competitively. Smaller, DIY and stacked tech tools will grow their market share as community owners look to craft customised, affordable, 'community everywhere' experiences for their people.

The next generation of community managers are weaving together tech stacks of smaller, bespoke tools, and view larger platforms as unnecessarily unwieldy and costly.”
Venessa Paech - Director & Founder - Australian Community Managers

“10 years ago and I could name the only 3 tools we had available to build communities. 5 years ago and the list became 10. 2023 and I lost count of the sheer number of options to build, enhance and track communities.

Tools that focus solely on tracking users, enhancing their data with social network crawling, track in-product events and add them to user profiles.

No-code tools to get community off the ground. Slack-like tools, in-app tools, SaaS tools, AI tools, community-event tools, you name it.

It’s getting intensely more complex. That’s great but also makes the community manager’s job broader as the tools can be helpful but also a new burden to learn, optimize, monitor and have budgets allocated for.

There are so many tools that I foresee community managers becoming more 'operators', helping with RfPs, implementation and operation of the tech stack and resources available.

This is game-changing for the industry, but just like other more mature areas like marketing and software development, we will see more specialized tools and tools coming with professional services as an add-on. We just need to see more maturity around budget, and P&L so that what used to be 1 line for the CFO to approve (”community tool”) is now a whole spreadsheet!”
Ed Giansante - Head of Community - Persona

Blaise Grimes-Viort - Chief Executive - Is The Answer

Nano, micro and small trusted community spaces flourish in 2024

Whatever happens at X in 2024, it increasingly feels that there is no single social media platform that offers a natural home for communities, and the trend towards smaller, specialised, trusted groups across multiple platforms will continue into 2024 and beyond.

A trend both Ed Giansante and I have witnessed first-hand is in-person, small, niche, ‘concierge’ type communities of senior decision-makers, convened in small, private communities, either as a part of a membership offering, or as a smart customer retention or business development tactic.

Evoking the thrill of secret societies and hidden speakeasy doors can be intoxicating if you’re lucky enough to be invited to join. Shhhh…just don’t tell anyone that you’re in the club, or the mystery has gone!

In 2024, there will be 70 elections and more than half of the global population (4.2 billion people) will be able to vote in them.

In larger communities, expect a rise in bad actors, misinformation, polarisation and potential trust and safety issues. Another reason why we’ll likely see a flight to smaller, hyperlocal and trusted communities.

Community professionals need to be prepared for heightened emotions and an onslaught of generative AI content in 2024. They will need to work hard to ensure their community spaces are safe and free of misinformation.

It’s going to be a ‘perfect storm’ and a very busy year. We must make sure we protect our community members and consider a potential need for smaller community spaces that feel more connected and trusted.

“There’s a challenge of staying relevant as you grow. That’s because new members will need a different level of attention than veterans, but that’s not scalable unless you break down into smaller groups. That’s when niches start. Niche communities can be extremely powerful in driving ROI as they can curate the right membership, dialogue and outcome.

Private or ‘secret’ communities are getting bigger now, but they’re still secret or private! That’s the key to making them so fascinating. I had the experience of having lunch at a secret place that’s hidden in plain sight. A small door, you walk through a small corridor and are greeted by a host. The host asks you for your code. You call out your code, they’ll match to your face and have all your usual requests ready for you: your preferred meal, drink, table, etc.

They don’t bother you with asks or bills. It’s all settled as part of your membership.

Everyone there has a very interesting profile, and you can sit at the bar and talk to someone and it will be extremely valuable.

Guess what? You can’t apply for membership. Members who have been there for a while can nominate new members but there’s a cap per year, so not even nominations get through. No one talks about it, and I still don’t know the name of the place I was in.

High-quality ‘environment’, high-quality interactions and people. And IRL. Astonishing.”
Ed Giansante - Head of Community - Persona

“We've seen a significant rise of misinformation, led by bad actors and powered by quick AI content. Online community members want to be able to trust who and what they are interacting with in their chosen digital spaces.

Platform providers who want to head this growing challenge off will develop new and improved trust & safety capabilities to help community leaders and members identify content source and veracity, as well as report anything that could harm authentic engagement.

As a direct counter to this, I believe we will see a rise in internet users seeking smaller community groups to join and participate in, collaborating around content creation and seeking direct validation from their peers. Evidencing member backgrounds through verification badges, earned and not paid for, will help in developing new safe spaces to engage in.”
Blaise Grimes-Viort - Chief Executive - Is The Answer

"In a world that's more fractured than ever, a sense of belonging isn't a luxury; it's a necessity."

With increasing social and political divides, online communities are becoming refuges where people find a sense of belonging. When 72% say that these communities are important to their sense of belonging, we're talking about a lifeline, not just a leisure activity.

Brands can't afford to overlook this. Creating a space where people feel they belong is the ultimate brand loyalty strategy. It's not just about your product or service; it's about the community you're building around it."
Katy Howell - CEO - immediate future

Michael Shillingford – Senior Community Strategy Manager - SS&C Blue Prism

Community delivers against broader organisational goals - but progress (and investment) could still be slow

A downturn in the global economy meant that there were many community layoffs in 2022 and 2023. The industry was quick to support those affected. Many have found new jobs or ways of using their community superpowers in connected roles.

In 2023, community professionals had to work out innovative ways to do more with less, break down silos and prove the value of community.

Other departments experienced a similar transformation, and many began working much more closely with those responsible for community in their organisation.

Our experts had different views about how quickly community is being embedded into the organisation and whether it is getting the support, focus and budgets it deserves from business leaders.

Michael Shillingford believes that it will be increasingly recognised as a method for organisations to prove their values and in 2024 and highlights just how close community is to reputational value and the delivery of brand purpose and promises.

Kevin Sutherland feels that the commercial logic of investing in community will only be realised if things improve economically in 2024.

Personally, I’m hopeful, even if the economy doesn’t improve in 2024. I’m working with clients who can see evidence how community can positively impact growth and support a number of departments and organisational goals.

However, community professionals and organisations do need to be willing to share the impact of their community efforts on their bottom line with others, to accelerate investment in community building across all industries. That’s my wish for 2024!

“As 2023 draws to a close, the dust has begun to settle after a marked 'cull' of community projects, teams and budgets, fuelled by the decline of online/community products/platforms and loss of commercial confidence in an uncertain World.

The concept of community is maturing in various industries and companies have resumed efforts, albeit slowly and carefully.

This can be seen as an opportunity a la 'dot-com boom and bust' of the 2000s - a restart with a better, deeper understanding of community buy-in, and a great precursor to deeper executive buy-in and community projects.

Hold on a little longer if you've been under the weather for some time - time to put your ear firmly to the ground.”
Ilker Akansel - Community Strategy Consultant - ilkerakansel.com

“We have captured the attention of department heads who would otherwise ask everything for the community without contributing themselves. Now they see themselves as community resources - not just benefactors.

That's great for us because it means a lot of inter-departmental and cross-disciplinary eyes are on our industry now.

We are going to need to spend a lot more time thinking about how we have our meetings. What were siloed conversations focused on who's important in an organization, will now be deliberative meetings focused on activating the voices of everyone who wants to be in the room. We will need to get feedback more frequently and work more diligently to deliver that feedback.

Now, as community professionals this is our specialty. We're very adept at doing this with our wider communities at scale, but in 2024, I suspect we'll have to turn our social listening tools a little more inward.”
Samantha ‘Venia’ Logan - Founder and CEO - SociallyConstructed.Online

“As much as money makes our community teams sustainable, and measurable value is how we get that money, I think we’ll become better at the non-monetary value of community in the coming years. We’ll see more brands deploying community teams to prove that their mission statements, brand promises and purposes are real.

Every business tells prospects that their customer support is world class, but the ones who prove it with an open forum filled with collaboration on problems make the lives of their sales teams much easier. Your brand can sing to investors that you’re going to improve the creator economy, but until you actually unite creators together to fix the ways they’re exploited, it’s just words on paper.

Community teams; our skills, our technologies, our passion for people, can (and will) become the delivery methodology for brand, and I can’t wait to see it.”
Michael Shillingford – Senior Community Strategy Manager - SS&C Blue Prism

“Pausing community investment to focus on short-term, transactional marketing investment to feed the sales funnel or protect EBITDA may have a strong commercial logic, but all the data show that firms that continue to invest in building relationships should expect to see bigger benefits over the long term.

Right now though it seems that many are swapping the nourishment of community-building for the empty calories of funnel-filling. Even if we know that we should be getting our 5 a day, in tough times the dopamine hit of fast food is seductive.

But if we assume that Things Can Only Get Better in 2024 with an improving economic situation and a greater willingness by companies to invest then we would expect to see renewed interest, and investment - a slingshot for community-led growth in B2B.”
Kevin Sutherland - Strategy Partner - VOLUME

AI will be fully embedded into the community journey

In 2023, we highlighted AI as a key community trend.

Community experts Richard Millington and Vanessa Paech joined us in April to discuss the likely implications for community builders (do watch the excellent ‘Community and AI - opportunity or risk’ on-demand).

In 2024 community builders will need to work closer than ever within the organisation to think about the experience AI brings to all aspects of the customer journey and community.

Hopefully we all benefit, as more platforms integrate AI effectively to support moderation frameworks, flag up harmful content/conversations and personalise the experience for their community members.

“The companies that ignore what's coming will be left behind by their competition. Every community builder (actually anyone) needs to ask these three questions.

What are the manual things today that can be automated using AI?
What are the things AI could handle with suitable investment and experimentation?
What are the things that will continue to need human intervention, and can AI assist nonetheless?

Here is an example of how I can see such things playing out:

AI can help with such things as identifying members based on their profile who could benefit from connection to one another. AI could likely create the messaging, but the human community professional can make the space and actual connection in an intimate setting at a conference, but more likely a tiny local gathering in a city or smaller venue.”
Adrian Speyer - Vice President Marketing & Community – Community Leaders Institute

“AI is THE trend word of 2023. Full stop.

AGI - or AI 2.0 (just came up with the term) is where machines start to bring cognitive tasks to life. They learn, generalize and apply this knowledge to plan future actions. If we leave the details aside, AI is already playing a huge role in how we work everyday.

I can’t recall not opening an AI tool everyday to help me with some specific tasks:

Summarizing calls (webinars, 1:1 zoom calls with community members, presentations)
Helping generate ideas, titles, emails, newsletters, posts and whatnot.
Editing videos and podcasts
AI focused in SEO, onboarding etc.

This is not by any means removing the human element of communities. This is offloading repetitive, binary, boring, admin tasks to let community leaders flourish in what they’re best at.

This is not coming back and if leaders are not pairing with their favourite AI tools, they’ll be far behind in 2024.”
Ed Giansante - Head of Community - Persona

Katy Howell - CEO - immediate future

Hyper-personalized community experiences

So, what will the impact of “more AI” mean in real terms for community members?

The 4 categories of AI that that support community building mentioned by Venessa Paech at the Guild Community Summit were:

- reducing harm
- automating burden
- organising meaning
- deepening insights

And deep insights, ordered in a meaningful way, automating experiences, connections or content that meet an individual's need within a community should be something we all welcome as a way to build more value in our communities.

Our experts predict improved personalisation at scale as a key benefit of AI adoption in 2024.

"2024 is the year where one-size-fits-all communities are as outdated as dial-up modems. Welcome to the era of hyper-personalization.

With machine learning and AI technologies becoming increasingly sophisticated, brands can now offer highly personalized community experiences. This is crucial when 81% of consumers say they are more likely to do business with a company that shares their values.

Imagine a community platform that knows you're a vegan, a parent, and a tech enthusiast.

It curates content, conversations, and even product recommendations based on these multi-layered facets of your identity. Brands that get this right will see engagement rates go through the roof.”
Katy Howell - CEO - immediate future

Marjorie Anderson - Founder and Principal Strategist - Community by Association L.L.C..

A tighter focus on trust and safety in community moderation

Another positive impact of AI in community building in 2024 will be supporting community moderation.

Many community platforms currently rely on member reporting and human moderators to catch harmful content and remove it, but we will see more community platforms integrate AI to support and speed up moderation processes in 2024.

And hopefully this will go some way to counter the torrent of misinformation on social media platforms.

“In 2024 there will be a tighter focus on online trust and safety in community moderation.

With the continued rampant spread of disinformation in online spaces, community professionals have a responsibility to their communities to ensure that the information they receive is credible and that the spaces that their community members inhabit allow them to engage in conversation/discourse without causing harm.”
Marjorie Anderson - Founder and Principal Strategist - Community by Association L.L.C..

“The big social media platforms will have their hands full with so many elections around the globe in 2024. We will definitely see an impact of the loss of the trust and safety council from X, but Meta, Reddit, TikTok will also feel the full force of bad actors and misinformation.

With generative AI, there is the opportunity to create fake and harmful imagery and video that can spread in minutes.

Community managers will need to operate in these ‘perfect storm’ conditions and do everything they can to maintain conditions for respectful debate whilst stopping the spread of misinformation.

Expect to see community platforms building in AI and machine learning models to prioritise content that is likely to be violating content policies, moving those items to the front of the queue for community moderators, or suppressing them in some way.

LinkedIn is adopting this to support its human moderation team to scale up and handle the large volume expected.”
Michelle Goodall - CEO & Founder - Michelle Goodall Ltd.

Venessa Paech - Director & Founder - Australian Community Managers

Workplace and talent communities set to flourish

COVID changed work culture forever. A mixed model of home and office working has become the norm for many of us and research studies over the past 2 years have all made separate productivity cases for home, office and hybrid.

But most of us understand the importance and value of community at work. And increasingly, businesses are talking about developing workplace ‘communities’ to support, connect, reward, attract and retain employees.

Like ‘workplace culture’ before it, it will be interesting to see how businesses move from ‘talking about it’ to operationalising community in the workplace in 2024.

“Remote and distributed work, 4 day work weeks and other transformative shifts in our working lives are here to stay. With them comes the need for workplace online communities that can host asynchronous collaboration, and support organisational culture outside a built environment.

In 2024 we'll see forward thinking orgs investing more in internal community managers and shared digital spaces for their people, adopting community management approaches to thrive in the new world.”
Venessa Paech - Director & Founder - Australian Community Managers

“According to research published in HBR, “Rekindling a Sense of Community at Work” - when people have a sense of community they are 58% more likely to thrive, 55% become more engaged, and 66% are more likely to stay with their organization.

There’s a need for strategy and operational expertise to help businesses build communities that enable their people to thrive and achieve and as the fight for talent looks set to continue in 2024, we’d expect to see increased investment by businesses in this area.

It’s not just corporates that are investing in community, shared workspaces typically curate a programme of events, from L&D experiences to networking and showcases of their members’ businesses supported and enabled by a member community.

For instance Soho Works, the workspace brand of the Soho House Group, has successfully built an international community of creative entrepreneurs that join for the workspace and stay for the community. Members have access to a mobile app that enables them to share skills, experience, trade services and collaborate at events. One recent educational event ‘Raising Investment’ resulted in a community member raising £250k investment from another attendee - a great example of the power of a niche community where there is a common goal in sharing and helping each other.

With further growth forecast in the supply of flexible co-working space we would expect to see increased competition between brands looking to attract and retain their members, with community building a central part of their member retention and growth strategy.”
Kevin Sutherland - Strategy Partner - VOLUME

“After a year of brutal layoffs and cost reductions, particularly in the B2B SaaS space, will 2024 be a year when hiring returns and brands invest more in customer engagement and loyalty?

Last year I mentioned that I thought using community as a tool to drive employer brands, help attract new talent and help to develop existing talent across the company would be key. The economic situation didn't allow that to happen as much as I thought but I still think this is something to keep an eye on.

The potential of alumni communities across businesses could be the key to winning the talent war going forward especially with the different attitudes of Gen Z coming into the workplace.”
Laura Roth - Global SMB - AWS

The global community industry professionalizes

And finally, one of the best things to happen in 2023 has been the unwavering support that community professionals gave to one another in both free and subscription communities around the world, with examples including Guild Community Collective, Rosieland, CLI and Community Pros of L.A and London.

Personally, I hope that more people in 2024 chose to become community professionals. It’s a great career and I’m happy to provide support, training and coaching, as are many other community experts.

Global leaders in community are mindful to maintain a strong sense of community in the profession, to develop benchmarks, share best practice, define standards and continue supporting one another.

Whether that support and continued professionalism stems from self-organised, grassroots gatherings, or whether it’s supported by associations, community platforms or sponsors is something that we’ll find out.

“In 2024, we're going to get better at doing community for community people. There's been a rise in people doing the work to support our industry. No longer is it going to be dominated by companies. The people are rising and taking action through connections, writing, speaking, entrepreneurship, grassroot meetups and more authentic events.

This is exactly what our industry needs and it can only lead to a brighter community future.”
Rosie Sherry - Community Executive Officer - Rosieland & Ministry of Testing

“The traditional 'watering holes' of community professionals - umbrella communities, gatherings and organizations of community pros - have gone through a boom and a bust of their own; some changed hands, some waned and some others are suffering from the commotions of their sponsors.

What's left is a burning need for a new, all-encompassing industry body that is recognized across the industry. This conversation is held in every corner of the industry in every corner of the World - expect something really big to surface in 2024.”
Ilker Akansel - Community Strategy & Consultancy - ilkerakansel.com

What's your take on Community Trends for 2024?

Join Guild Community Collective and meet some of our contributors and 1000+ other community professionals. Discuss these trends and share your own insights and expectations for the world of community in the next 12 months.

Thank you to these expert contributors

The author and Guild would like to thank the following community experts for their help in producing these trends:

Ilker Akansel, Community Strategy & Consultancy, ilkerakansel.com

Marjorie Anderson - Founder and Principal Strategist - Community by Association L.L.C.

Ed Giansante - Head of Community - Persona

Michelle Goodall - CEO & Founder - Michelle Goodall Ltd.

Blaise Grimes-Viort - Chief Executive - Is The Answer

Katy Howell - CEO - immediate future

Venessa Paech - Director & Founder - Australian Community Managers

Andy Piper - Open Source consultant

Samantha ‘Venia’ Logan - Founder and CEO - SociallyConstructed.Online

Laura Roth - Global SMB - AWS

Rosie Sherry - Community Executive Officer - Rosieland & Ministry of Testing

Michael Shillingford – Senior Community Strategy Manager - SS&C Blue Prism

Adrian Speyer - Vice President Marketing & Community – Community Leaders Institute

Kevin Sutherland - Strategy Partner - VOLUME

Derek Weeks - Author - Unfair Mindshare

Laura Zug - Community Strategist

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Case study: Thread & Fable connects FCDO student ambassadors with Guild community

Team Guild — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 09:19:41 GMT

Marketing and communications agency Thread & Fable specialises in sport, education, youth and the public sector. Founder Rebecca Roberts was successful in securing a contract with the UK government's Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office to deliver its student-voice campaign on safe international travel.

The project involves supporting student ambassadors to create and distribute articles and social media content to amplify crucial foreign travel advice in a way that resonates with young people. Each participant receives ongoing support, training and updates over the year. To deliver this, Rebecca needed an efficient way to communicate and ensure all ambassadors had easy access to the resources they needed.

She chose to build a private group on Guild because it’s a trusted, safe and privacy-focused community platform. She told us why this allowed her to deliver the project efficiently as well as provide the security that both the client and the student ambassadors needed.

Results in brief

Efficient onboarding and training of student ambassador team
Streamlined provision of resources and communications throughout a year-long project
Frictionless collaboration with contributors and project partners
Privacy compliance and duty of care on behalf of public sector client

Why did you want to create a community for the Travel Aware Student Ambassadors programme?

“The programme is all about authentic voices championing an issue that can change and save lives by helping young people to travel abroad more safely.

It’s crucial that our ambassadors' voices come through clearly. We needed to collaborate, not tell them exactly what to say or do.

At the same time, they needed lots of support, advice and resources along the way.

A community meant we could both collaborate and communicate efficiently.

We had a space to share messaging and assets, updates, advice and resources to help ambassadors develop their skills, and keep everyone in step with the campaign.

At the same time, our ambassadors could ask questions and support and learn from each other, which added to their creativity and confidence. That wouldn’t have been possible if we were working with everyone individually.”

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Why did you choose Guild to build your community?

“I wanted a community platform that was safe, simple and separate from the social media platforms that we were using to deliver the project. As soon as I set up a trial on Guild it was clear it was the right choice.

Guild is intuitive, makes it easy to structure discussions and resources, and our group is completely private.

It also feels professional. Many of our participants are taking their first steps in the world of work. A professional platform reinforces that we're all here to get things done.

Guild feels very human and personal but it reminds us we’re here to get things done. It was good to set that tone from the very start.

It was also great value for money. There are no frills yet it still has all the features you need. Working with both young people and a public sector client means all those aspects are important.

Looking to the future, the option to be part of Guild’s wider network is also a plus. It gives us the opportunity to bring in experts or even recruit participants, while still keeping our own private space”.

What do your members like about Guild?

“One thing I notice is that the DMs are surprisingly important. Sometimes people are a bit shy about asking a question, so it really helps that they know they can ask me or each other for 1-2-1 support.

It takes away fear and uncertainty. People can ask for help and make progress so much more quickly.

The community allows ambassadors to get ideas, see results, and celebrate successes together.

At times we’ve been working on quite quick turnarounds if a topic is in the news. We could share vital information with everyone at once, and follow up with the feedback and reassurance they need to get creating. That’s helped the students feel more confident and motivated.

Mobile access has been a bonus too. Our members are often travelling and don't always have WiFi, or are keeping up to date with the group while busy with lectures and university life. With Guild, they don't waste time looking for information and it's easy to ask for support from us or their peers.

Plus, I know I've got all those resources and answers in one place. Often the same questions come up repeatedly. Not having to rewrite or resend the same thing saves a huge amount of time. I can simply point people to a resource or a pinned conversation.

And if I do need to bring in support from an assistant or partner, again, they can just jump into the community and get to work.

Being in a group together lets members support each other with applause, feedback or share each other’s content. Our ambassadors are in universities all over the UK. Working remotely like this it’s really motivating to see what others are doing and get a bit of a boost from your peers.

Email campaigns and newsletters just can't provide that feeling of momentum that you get in the community.

Finally, it's a huge bonus that our members are learning to network and collaborate as well as create. That’s going to be an amazing skill in their future careers.”

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“Our experience is that Guild is ideal for working with students and higher education ambassador programmes.

Even though your participants are adults you still have a duty of care to offer them a platform that’s trusted and safe. They’re building skills and confidence, so starting with a professional atmosphere really sets the right tone.

Also, using Guild is more than building a community. It’s also incredibly efficient.

People need to know basics like where to send documents, how to get paid, or how to submit work. Questions and answers in the group have saved so much admin and let our participants spend time on the work that matters.

You know that if one person has a question, it’s likely that it’s relevant to everyone else in the programme.

We don’t need to worry if people have a certain type of software, set up lots of different logins, or keep resending information. We just make sure that the latest information is in the Guild group. It’s so straightforward to use. People just find their way around without having to ask for help.

Our participants know that Guild is the first port of call for anything they need and if things change, we can let everyone know at once.”

Want to support your project with an online community? 🤝

See for yourself how the Guild experience is different to WhatsApp, Slack, LinkedIn or Facebook Groups.

Guild is a safe space to connect, communicate and collaborate with others.

Join us on a platform that is purpose-built for creating groups, communities and networks on mobile.

Just want to join some groups? Simply join Guild and then look through the discoverable groups and communities to find relevant ones to join
Thinking of running your own community? With an elegant and simple to use, mobile-first UX you've got everything you need to start a community - custom branding, analytics, group and user management and support. Get started with your own community here with our free and paid options

Unlocking Growth: Online Communities for Demand Generation / Lead Generation - webinar

Team Guild — Wed, 29 Nov 2023 10:55:22 GMT

Community-led Growth, Community-led Marketing, Community-based Marketing… Whatever you call it, there is excitement around how online communities can be used in B2B marketing to drive demand and deliver leads to power growth.

The tech/SaaS world may be the early adopters in this fast-emerging discipline but other sectors are doing it too, from professional services to membership and media organizations.

We hosted an expert-led webinar to learn how you can leverage online communities as a powerful tool for driving demand in products and services.

Our panellists Derek Weeks, Katy Howell, Matt Phelan and Michelle Goodall shared strategies to nurture and generate leads effectively, and explained how marketing and sales work together on community strategy.

They covered:

the "three orbits" of community-led marketing
why selling has little place in your community
the different types of community
misconceptions about community
where leadership teams get community wrong
why a focus on short-termism and "traditional" marketing can harm your community strategy
how community helps you understand your market
examples of community-generated leads

And much more!

See the full recording here:

Speakers

Derek Weeks is a 4-time CMO / VP Marketing and author of Unfair Mindshare: A CMO’s Journey to Community-led Marketing in a Product-led World

Katy Howell is 'The Social Media MVP'. CEO and Founder of Immediate Future, she's an expert in social media, community and how an ecosystem approach to community and social can power demand generation.

Matt Phelan is Co-Founder of The Happiness Index, a SaaS technology business that helps organisations measure levels of employee engagement and happiness. It has a successful community-led growth / community based marketing approach that is admired by many.

Panel host Michelle Goodall is a community and network-building consultant. Over 25 years she has worked with many brands including Direct Line, Paramount and London2012, and developed, delivered and aligned community/social media strategies to marketing, sales and organisational goals.

Join the discussion with digital, marketing and community professionals

Want to ask further questions or discuss your impressions with peers and experts, including our panellists and sponsors?

Apply to join Digital/Marketing Pioneers to make connections or ask questions.

More community strategy and training

Community Strategy and Community Management resources hub

How to align Community to your organisation or business goals

What is Community Based Marketing (CBM)?

Join Guild 🤝

See for yourself how the Guild experience is different to WhatsApp, Slack, LinkedIn or Facebook Groups.

Guild is a safe space to connect, communicate and collaborate with others.

Join us on a platform that is purpose-built for creating groups, communities and networks on mobile.

Just want to join some groups? Simply join Guild and then look through the discoverable groups and communities to find relevant ones to join
Thinking of running your own community? With an elegant and simple to use, mobile-first UX you’ve got everything you need to start a community - custom branding, analytics, group and user management and support. Get started with your own community here with our free and paid options

Guild blog: community building best practices, trends and insights

CommunityBot - info and resources

About CommunityBot

Contributors & Partners

Jobs

Dedicated community jobs boards:

Job site aggregators with community jobs:

Guild to close

On 1st October 2024 Guild will close down.

Guild wind down and closure - FAQs

1. When will Guild officially close?

2. Why is Guild closing?

3. What should I do before the platform closes?

4. Will I receive a partial refund for my paid plan?

5. Will there be any impact on external integrations linked to my community?

6. How do I export my personal data?

7. How do I export my community data?

8. How do I delete my personal account?

9. How do I close my community?

10. What steps do you recommend when closing a community?

11. What will happen to my data after the closure?

12. What alternative community platforms do you recommend?

13. Do you offer consultancy / advice for selecting a new community platform and migrating to it?

14. Might Guild still get acquired or investment to keep going?

15. What if I have further questions that are not covered here? Here’s how to get in touch before the closure on 1 October 2024:

Platforms for building professional communities - on mobile and web

1. Conversations & Messaging Apps

2. Membership Platforms

3. Newsletter platforms that offer subscriptions or memberships

4. Payment platforms for subscribers or members

5. Professional networks where you can run a group or community

Joining a community on Guild - what’s in it for you?

1) Grow your professional network

2) Get practical and confidential advice in a safe space

3) Benchmark your knowledge with peers

4) Find better jobs, faster

5) Find quality candidates for your job roles, faster

6) Make better choices - finding suppliers, technology, partners, consultants, advisors, agencies and more

7) Learn to run a community - from the experts

8) Find people who share your challenges or circumstances

9) Kick-start your career

10) Take a step up in your career

11) Stay up to date with what’s going on in your industry

12) Get a head-start on an unfamiliar topic

13) Expand your professional interests

14) Increase your visibility in your industry and further afield

15) Build your reputation as an expert

16) Find collaborators and expert comment

17) Offers, opportunities and unexpected benefits

18) Have fun and make friends

19) Escape the algorithms

20) Owning the product, rather than being the product

More about the benefits of being a community member

Communities you can join today

Join Guild 🤝

Case Study: International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology builds member community with Guild

Results in brief:

Why was creating online communities important for ISUOG?

Why did you choose Guild as your community platform?

How has your Guild community helped with ISUOG's work?

What are the next steps for ISUOG's community on Guild?

What would you advise other professional associations who are thinking about building a membership community?

Other membership organisations building communities on Guild

Are you a membership organisation or association looking for a better way to engage with your members?

Ways to use Guild: charity and volunteer groups

Why do charities use online communities?

10 ways charities can use online communities

Why charities build communities with Guild

More examples of how charities use Guild:

Join a dedicated community for charity and non-proft professionals

More ways to use Guild

Join Guild 🤝

Community Conversation - engaging volunteers with an online community

Further resources

Join community peers

Join charity and non-profit peers

Join Guild 🤝

What is Community Manager Appreciation Day?

What is Community Management?

Community Management is a strategic discipline that includes: