Field guides for community builders
Playbooks, worksheets and templates from running Bettermode's own community. Every guide is free, one short form each, and new ones land here as we write them.
The guides
Each guide has its own page and download. Start with the one closest to what you're working on.
How to grow a successful online community
From a silent room to a community that runs itself. Which of the six types you're building, where new members really come from, and the eight steps in the order they work.
The 90-day community visibility playbook
Make your community the answer Google and AI tools reach for. A 90-day plan to find the questions buyers ask, make your answers citable, and keep them current in half an hour a month.
The community leader's toolkit
Walk into the budget conversation with proof. Pick the use cases that pay off, the KPIs that show it, and fill in a one page scorecard your exec can say yes to.
What you'll find inside
A sample from the current guides.
The community flywheel
Attract, onboard, engage, retain, advocate. Each stage feeds the next, and skipping one is exactly why the wheel grinds.
Where members actually come from
Ranked by what works: your own product first, then email to customers, search, existing members, events. Pick two to start, not five.
Eight use cases, split by timing
Four that earn discovery and demand before the sale, four that compound retention and advocacy after it.
A KPI menu, not a dashboard
Pick three numbers: a leading indicator you can move this month, a channel KPI you report monthly, and the executive metric it ladders to.
The source-ready edit
Title, opening, proof, trust, discovery, path. Six passes that turn a buried thread into a page search and AI will actually use.
Why communities fade
No owner, no focus, an empty launch, vanity metrics, a neglected loop. Five causes, every one of them avoidable.