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Become great at community building

Build a community of raving brand advocates.

By Carrie Melissa Jones,

Founder & Chief Strategist @ CMJ

Course length: 2h 23min

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English subtitles Certificate included

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Community is your key to meaningful brand connection

“Community” is the hottest word in marketing since “social”, and for good reason. Strong communities help brands unlock unprecedented wins across innovation, customer retention, marketing, and employee engagement. And in our increasingly isolated era, we need communities in our lives more than ever.

In this course, you’ll learn how to create communities that inspire meaningful brand engagement. Discover research techniques and growth strategies to help you shape and build a powerful community experience.

Calling something a “community” doesn’t make it one

Many brands think they’re building a community. But they’re feeding transactional relationships. Or calling their audience-building efforts “communities” in the hopes that one will magically appear. The only way to build a true brand community is with a solid foundation and tactical plan from the start.

This course will demystify the components of strong communities, giving you the language and tools to gather your first brand community members. Learn how to gather, lead, and grow an engaged brand following. Avoiding common pitfalls and costly mistakes along the way.

After taking this course you’ll…

  • Know how to distinguish between a real community and a mirage community, and identify the necessary conditions for a community to take shape
  • Craft a compelling purpose statement to set your community apart and help you focus on who and what really matters
  • Be able to use community research techniques to define and build a solid community of fans
  • Have a set of realistic goals and projections for engagement, leadership and growth
  • Develop a complete set of founding member requirements to inspire high-touch member engagement
  • Gain the confidence to gather the people important to your success in a meaningful community experience that inspires trust, advocacy, and loyalty.

This course is essential for you if…

  • You’ve tried creating Facebook groups, Slack teams, forums, or Discord/Whatsapp channels, but the results feel random, lackluster, time-consuming, or all of the above.
  • You want to build an authentic and exciting brand community that creates value for your organization and your community members
  • You know that community building is powerful but you don’t know where to begin. You want a clear step-by-step approach to erase the overwhelm and get you unstuck.

This course is NOT for you if…

  • You expect immediate results and won’t invest in building relationships with your members, experimenting, and iterating over 6-18 months.
  • You want to create a community that manages itself. There is no such thing as a self-managing community. It requires an ongoing commitment, even if you have brought on volunteer community leaders.
  • You want growth hacks, quick tips and tricks. Authentic community building is not extractive. It focuses on generating value for all involved using durable principles.

Skills you will master

Brand communityCommunity buildingCustomer Lifetime ValueCustomer retentionReferral marketing

Carrie Melissa Jones

Founder & Chief Strategist @ CMJ

Carrie Melissa Jones is an author, community builder, and researcher of online communities. Her work has influenced the world’s leading online brand communities including the American Medical Association, Patreon, Google, and two U.S. presidential campaigns.

She is the author of the award-winning book Building Brand Communities: How Organizations Succeed by Creating Belonging with Charles Vogl and a student, teacher, and researcher of virtual communities at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Your course curriculum

Community building

1 Brand Community & Belonging Foundations

Grasp the key concepts to avoid the most common community mistakes Topics covered: Get in the right mindset to build true brand communities, so you avoid the traps that most community builders fall into Define key terms needed to build community proper …

2 Defining Your Strategic Goals

How to envision your outcomes and determine concrete goals for your brand community Topics covered: Recognize why and when to invest in your brand community efforts based on the current challenges within your organization Identify the seven most common …

3 Quick & Dirty Community Research

Understand your members before you attempt to gather them – and save yourself a whole lot of time Topics covered: Learn how to write a screener survey to clarify who you would like to interview, saving you hours of time and meaningless data analysisInv …

4 Crafting Purpose & Values

Write a compelling purpose statement grounded in unique values to set your community apart Topics covered: Clarify what you want your community to do for your members and organizationWrite a compelling, moving strategic community purpose statementSelec …

5 Setting Growth Expectations

Recognize the four distinct stages of growth to invest efforts properly at each stage Topics covered: Envision how typical community growth looks to avoid falling for shortcuts or growth hacks that undermine your community-building effortsRecognize the …

6 Gather Your Founding Members

Choose your first members and plan your first gathering! Topics covered: Define what founding members are and how they differ from other members, so you can craft a high-touch strategy for working with themQualify your founding member requirements and …

This online course comes with a certificate to prove completion

Completing this training earns you a CXL certificate of completion you can add to your Linkedin profile.

What our students say about our online marketing courses:

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Learn how to build a community: FAQ

Who is this course for?

This course is essential for you if…

  • You’ve tried creating Facebook groups, Slack teams, forums, or Discord/Whatsapp channels, but the results feel random, lackluster, time-consuming, or all of the above.
  • You want to build an authentic and exciting brand community that creates value for your organization and your community members
  • You know that community building is powerful but you don’t know where to begin. You want a clear step-by-step approach to erase the overwhelm and get you unstuck.

Some careers that will especially benefit from this course are community manager, content strategist, product marketer, brand marketer, and social media manager. 

What will you learn?

After taking this course, you will:

  • Know how to distinguish between a real community and a mirage community, and identify the necessary conditions for a community to take shape
  • Craft a compelling purpose statement to set your community apart and help you focus on who and what really matters
  • Be able to use community research techniques to define and build a solid community of fans
  • Have a set of realistic goals and projections for engagement, leadership and growth
  • Develop a complete set of founding member requirements to inspire high-touch member engagement
  • Gain the confidence to gather the people important to your success in a meaningful community experience that inspires trust, advocacy, and loyalty.

What does the course include?

Our Community Building training includes 7 lessons, 11 downloadable resources, 2h 23min of video material, several assignments, and a final exam.

Are subtitles available for the lessons?

Lessons have English subtitles and transcriptions available.

Will I receive a certificate of completion?

After taking this course, you will receive the Community Building  Certification from CXL, with credentials that you can add to your LinkedIn profile.

What is the refund policy?

All plans come with a 7-day refund period .

How long will it take for me to finish it?

This is entirely up to you – it’s how many study hours per week you can put in. This course is 2h 23min long.