Why Community Isn't Just Another Marketing Tactic
How to integrate community experiences into your business ecosystem
I had the pleasure of recently interviewing
, community strategist, founder of the Hive Community and writer at Community Matters. She shared a sneak peak into what she’ll be workshopping at the Build Your Influence Ecosystem Summit June 17-18, if you’re intrigued, check out the replay here:
She is an O.G. Substack writer and I invited her to additionally share with us the nuances of building community “beyond the membership trap,” as she puts it so well and thinking beyond old paradigms of community. Please share with us your thoughts on how her article resonates!
Michele
If you've been told that community building means launching a $49/month membership and hoping people show up, that's Community 1.0 thinking. It's probably why so many brilliant entrepreneurs try community once, burn out, and never try again.
The problem isn't that community doesn't work—it's that most of us have been taught to build it wrong.
More importantly, most of us haven't learned that community can create real transformation, not just recurring revenue.
When designed well, community becomes more than a business asset—it becomes a space where meaningful change happens.
Community isn't a one-size-fits-all solution. It's a highly personalized strategy that should fit your business model, your energy, and your life. But more than that—it can become one of the most meaningful parts of your business and your members' lives.
Beyond the Membership Trap
The traditional advice sounds simple: create a Facebook group, charge monthly fees, provide regular content, watch it grow. This cookie-cutter approach ignores a fundamental truth about human connection and transformation.
Real community creates spaces where your people connect with each other. They become resources for one another, not just passive recipients of your content. When people feel genuinely seen, heard, and understood by peers, they often discover parts of themselves they hadn't accessed before. Community creates change that solo programs can't replicate.
The shift from "how can I deliver more to my community?" to "how can I help my community members connect with each other?" transforms your role from content creator to connection facilitator.
Start Small, Trust Your Instincts
Entrepreneurs often try to build their "forever community" from day one. They get stuck perfecting the platform, the pricing, the onboarding sequence—and never actually start.
Build WITH your members, not FOR them. Don't waste time perfecting something in isolation. Get it out there. Share it with people. Allow it to help them. Evolve it with their input and suggestions. When you see something working, double down on it. Scratch what doesn't.
Perfecting it in your head serves no one—and often your best guess is flat wrong. You can't know what will bomb and what will take off until you road test it with actual members.
Start with a time-bound experiment instead.
Launch a 4-week focused group around helping participants achieve one specific goal related to your services. "4 weeks to clarity on your niche" or "Launch your first workshop in 30 days." Or try a half-day in-person retreat with follow-up sessions. Keep it small, keep it focused, see what happens.
Treat your first experiment as more than just a pilot program—design it as a place where your members can experience real progress and deeper understanding of themselves.
Design for results, but also for connection. Consider: What do you want your participants to walk away feeling? What would it mean for them to feel different, not just know more?
But here's the key: avoid the freemium trap that burns out so many community builders. Don't give away your best guidance for free and hope people upgrade. When members get transformation without investment, they rarely see the need to pay for more.
This approach delivers three things:
Validation that people want what you're offering
Feedback on how you actually enjoy facilitating
Stories and case studies that prove your ability to spark real change
You don't need to know where this leads. You just need to know if you like it and if it works—and if it's creating the kind of change that's worth expanding.
Finding Your Community Sweet Spot
Not every business needs the same type of community. Your ideal model depends on your audience size and pricing—what I call the Reach/Revenue Matrix™.
With a smaller audience but higher-value services, an intimate cohort model works well. Think 12-15 people going deep together over several months, creating space for real reflection and genuine breakthroughs.
With a larger following and accessible pricing, a newsletter-based community on Substack could be perfect. Lower price point, connections happen in comments and discussions, and transformation unfolds over time through dialogue and shared learning.
Somewhere in between? Consider a tiered approach where people engage at different levels based on their needs and budget.
Match your community structure to your existing business reality. Don't force yourself into someone else's blueprint.
Your 30-Day Community Experiment
Ready to test the waters?
Week 1: Identify one specific outcome your ideal clients want to achieve in the next month. Something concrete and achievable.
Week 2: Create a simple landing page describing a 4-week focused group around that outcome. Include the dates, what you'll cover, and how people will connect with each other.
Week 3: Invite 8-12 people to join. Start with your warmest connections—people who already know and trust your work.
Week 4: Launch it. Show up fully, facilitate connections between participants, and pay attention to what energizes you and what doesn't.
After four weeks, you'll know more about community building than months of planning could teach you.
Community as Connection, Not Content
Stop thinking of community as another place to deliver content.
Start thinking of it as a place to facilitate connection, transformation, and belonging.
Your role isn't to be the constant source of wisdom. You're the connector, the question-asker, the person who helps others discover what they have to offer each other.
These moments of shared vulnerability and insight create real change—when someone speaks a truth out loud for the first time, or sees their story reflected in someone else. When people realize they're not alone in their struggles, they can move past the inner blocks that tactics alone can't solve. When you wrestle with ideas alongside others and practice living things out with feedback, you make progress that's impossible to achieve through DIY learning alone. These are the moments that turn members into genuine advocates.
When you create space for peer-to-peer learning, member-led discussions, and genuine relationship-building, your community becomes self-sustaining. People show up because of what they get from each other - not just what they get from you. That's when you know you've built something that lasts.
The Real Value of Community
Done right, community becomes the backbone of your business ecosystem. Not because it generates the most revenue (though it might), but because it creates something money can't buy: shared experiences, shifts in how people see themselves and what's possible, and genuine relationships with the people you're meant to serve.
Your community members become your best collaborators, your most thoughtful feedback providers, your enthusiastic referral sources.
They understand your work at a level that goes beyond transactional.
The communities that truly last are the ones where people experience real personal transformation. Not just through your curriculum - but through co-creation, support when things get hard, and opportunities to contribute meaningfully. When people actively participate and feel their voice matters, they develop new perspectives and capabilities.
This doesn't just benefit your individual members - it creates a virtuous cycle. As members transform, they become better contributors - sharing deeper insights, asking better questions, offering more thoughtful support to others. On a macro level, this collective wisdom is what sets thriving communities apart from static content.
People don't pay for more things to consume - they pay for real change. And nothing delivers transformation like a community where everyone's growth elevates everyone else's experience.
Facilitating this kind of transformational space is deeply rewarding - and will stretch you as a leader in ways you can't imagine. To sustain it, you need a model that aligns with the life you want to lead. That means finding the sweet spot between your natural gifts, what you genuinely enjoy, and what generates enough revenue to avoid burnout.
When you nail that alignment - when community taps into your zone of genius rather than draining your energy, you've found a winning strategy.
Start small, trust your instincts, and build something that works for both your members and your life. The best communities aren't built from someone else's blueprint. They're designed around the unique value, and transformational potential only you can provide.
 | A guest post by
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