The practical guide to professional communities
Free, practical guides on building and running professional communities: what a community is, community management best practices, onboarding, engagement, moderation, metrics, ROI, strategy frameworks, and a glossary of community terms.
Foundations
What a professional community is, how it differs from an audience or a network, and the forms it takes.
What is a professional community?
A professional community is a group of people connected by a shared occupation, industry, or goal who interact over time to exchange knowledge and support. Learn the definition, the main types, and what separates a community from an audience or a network.
Read the guide → FoundationsCommunity vs. audience vs. network
Audiences receive, networks connect, communities belong. A plain-language explanation of the differences between an audience, a network, and a community, why the distinction matters, and how one turns into the next.
Read the guide → FoundationsTypes of online communities
A guide to the main types of professional online communities, including communities of practice, member associations, founder peer groups, customer communities, alumni networks, and creator communities, with the strengths and typical challenges of each.
Read the guide →Community Management
The day-to-day craft: the community manager role, engagement, onboarding, and moderation.
What does a community manager do?
A community manager is responsible for the health and growth of a community, including onboarding, engagement, moderation, programming, and measurement. Learn the responsibilities, skills, and how the role differs from social media management.
Read the guide → Community ManagementCommunity engagement best practices
Practical, proven ways to increase participation in a professional community, including the 90-9-1 rule, rituals, prompts that work, recognition, and how to move members from lurking to contributing.
Read the guide → Community ManagementCommunity onboarding best practices
How to onboard new members into a professional community so they reach a first contribution quickly, including the first-session experience, welcome sequence, introductions, and what to measure.
Read the guide → Community ManagementCommunity moderation and guidelines
How to write community guidelines, moderate a professional community, handle self-promotion and conflict, and protect confidentiality, with a template for guidelines and an escalation ladder.
Read the guide →Measurement
How to know whether a community is working and how to prove its value to leadership.
Community metrics and KPIs
The metrics that matter for a professional community, organized by health, engagement, growth, and business value, with definitions for active members, engagement rate, retention, response rate, and how to connect community to business outcomes.
Read the guide → MeasurementCommunity ROI and the business case
How to build the business case for a community, including the main sources of community value (retention, support, acquisition, insight, revenue), a simple ROI model, and how to present it to leadership.
Read the guide →Strategy
Launching, designing, and scaling communities for associations, founder groups, and creator networks.
How to launch a community
A step-by-step playbook for launching a professional community, including defining the purpose, recruiting founding members, seeding the first conversations, choosing a platform, and the first 90 days.
Read the guide → StrategyCommunity strategy frameworks
An overview of the frameworks community professionals use to design and run communities, including the CMX SPACES model, the Orbit model, the Community Canvas, the Community Roundtable maturity model, Dunbar's number, and the community lifecycle.
Read the guide → StrategyHow to choose a community platform
A vendor-neutral guide to evaluating community platforms for associations, founder groups, and creator networks, covering owned vs. rented spaces, privacy, membership and payments, directories, events, branding, data ownership, and total cost.
Read the guide → StrategyAssociation member engagement
How associations and membership organizations use private online communities to engage members between events, improve renewal rates, support chapters and special-interest groups, and answer the "what am I getting for my dues" question.
Read the guide → StrategyHow to run a founder peer group
A practical guide to running a founder or executive peer group, including group size, member selection, confidentiality rules, the monthly meeting format, the hot seat, facilitation, and how to scale by adding groups.
Read the guide →Put these practices to work
Common Bonds gives associations, founder groups, and creator networks a private, branded, members-only community with onboarding, directories, events, and AI help built in.