What do the credit & lending industry, the creative software industry, the media & gaming industry, and the project management SaaS industry all have in common?
They all invest heavily in communities and social because that's where their customers live.
Yes, some companies may "only have a Discord" but others have a fully managed Community presence. You could call it an ecosystem of engagement for their customers. It syncs the marketing, sales, and customer support teams with their CRM and adds modern AI and automation delivering a deep, engaging experience.
In short, it augments each moment of the customer journey.
As a tool, Communities are stronger than ever
Gone are the days when Communities were a bunch of forums, unmonitored and underutilized. Somewhere along the line, companies got smart. They now realize that if they want to make an investment in trust - a pact with their customers - that online communities are the place to do it.
Like Demand Generation, a well-run Community is a holistic, data-driven marketing engine that focuses on creating and nurturing long-term interest among current and potential business clients. Since nearly every engagement between a company and its customers happens in a forum or a social site, then that's where trust is also built. A community is where trust finds its mirror.
Examples:
- Trust through osmosis: a user learns to trust the company by seeing how they treat other customers.
- Kill 'em with Kindness: angry customers get de-escalated by interacting directly with the company's Community Team or Product Managers.
- Support Deflection: a company's Customer Experience Team conducts social listening and works with the Digital CSM Team to proactively reach out to customers, intervening early to help reduce the number of active tech support tickets.
For customers, a high performance community provides self-support. It helps customers avoid the need to create tech support tickets (90% of customers prefer this). they can browse the knowledge base, and find ways to obtain onboarding materials to learn the software faster. They can chat with peers and find up-to-date information on product news and software updates.
For the company, a well constructed Community provides:
- data capture & sync to your CRM
- support portal linkage
- support deflection
- user profile notifications (which add to your eComm reach-out)
Specifically, who inside the company benefits?
Sales Teams
It's Lead Generation, plain and simple. Especially since communities benefit sales in two distinct categories.
- Public communities like Reddit, Facebook Groups, and dedicated forums of all other flavors all contain lead-gen data that can be captured, segmented, and stored in your CRM. Though rooted in D2C, in routine EBRs this info can be added to the agenda for review.
- Private communities for B2B (such as only allowing access with that account's email addresses) shine a bright light on expansion opportunities while also acting as a early detection mechanism for risk. So in a way, this is more for a CSM team that lives in the sales org.
B2B & Enterprise Sales Renewal Teams
Your renewals team probably lives in the sales org, but I would categorize it separately here because the workflows involved in retention and renewals are colossal. Communities, be them public to your general user base or private to your specific B2B customers and purchasers, are a lightning rod for predictive data.
eCommerce Teams
Communities provide the big footprint. Got an eCommerce campaign that you've segmented for a specific tier of product and a specific subscription expiration window? Only using email to do so? Yeah... Add the Community and your rates of open/read/action can jump over 500%.
Marketing & Lifecycle Teams
You may have the best GTM strategy, the best onboarding materials ever created, perfectly scaled and segmented 0-30-day adoption lifecycle emails, bolstered by SMS texting... But you still need a community. They are where demand generation, user engagements, and trust are in an endless feedback loop.
Product Teams
Running a software or hardware company? Don't wait until the trade shows to hear product feedback. Don't browse reddit where most of the posts are complaints inflamed by clickbait providers supplying manufactured outrage. Host a calm, support-friendly Community and have representation there from your product team answering questions and making posts about future roadmapping.
Customer Teams (CSMs, CX, etc)
Modern communities provide secure, private communities for enterprise-level customers.
Community as a "Trust Engine"
Yes... This means a return to the old "forums"... but modernized.
A Community is the first "non-product product" you should build for your customers.
No product is perfect. No customer is perfect. A modern community fixes this. Your customers have expectations for how they get treated in a 2025+ world, and communities are a huge part of that.
Community as a strategy
- One SSO for all user profiles, tied to their accounts in your CRM.
- Private (NDA-verified) user communities for beta & alpha testing.
- Private (NDA-verified) user communities for B2B customers, which can be paid upgrades as part of a Premium Support model.
- Public user communities for each product.
- Numerous communities for users in D2C, SMB, and B2B.
- Semi-private forums for bug tracking, support escalations, and offline chatter.
Support Deflection
- Peer-to-Peer: Customers can ask questions and receive answers from other users or experts without waiting for formal support.
- Shared knowledge: Community members often share best practices, use cases, and workarounds that may not be in official documentation.
Retention
- Increase footprint of Lifecycle Campaigns: Higher open rates and retention rates for lifecycle team promotions and campaigns.
- Tie Community data directly into your CRM. In fact, having your Community sign-up REPLACE your subscription account sign-up is a key trend now, because it forces participation.
Enablement
- Onboarding Content: Whether using a formal Knowledge Base or an Enablement Hub, communities are where introductory marketing emails can point to FAQs, guides, tutorials, and troubleshooting tips.
- Feed Google with "Living Documentation": Unlike static documentation, community content evolves dynamically as products and use cases change.
Engage!
- Sense of belonging: Being part of a community builds emotional ties to the brand.
- Active participation: Engaged customers are more likely to continue using the product and advocate for it.
Product Teams
- Direct feedback loop: Communities give customers a platform to suggest features or report issues.
- Early warnings: Trends in complaints or bugs can alert Customer Success or Product teams to widespread problems.
Data Capture
- Behavior tracking: Engagement levels in the community can indicate customer health or churn risk.
- Cohort & Persona building: Helps Customer Success teams better understand user types and tailor outreach.
Community as a profit lever
AI and Agentic workflows for Communities & Social
A Community is a primary tool and profit lever in any company's suite of solutions.
You've been hearing a lot about AI and agentic workflows lately. These new solutions, involving all forms of automation, need a physical place to "set up camp" -- a platform to capture the constantly updating data about your customers, their usage, their conversations, their needs, and so on. That's a community!
Modern communities continue to be the top choice for bolstering your CRM, your AI (and thus your segmentation) with such information. Communities are an always-on solution. They are the engine that feeds AI, surveys, and digital automation.