History has handed down to us the names of great navigators—Magellan, Columbus, Vasco da Gama. Their exploits are dazzling: they discovered new trade routes and entire continents using only primitive maps, wooden ships, and a will of steel. Their success was so spectacular that it created the illusion: all you need to do is dare to sail, and you can follow in their footsteps.
Little has changed in human nature since then. Inspired by the examples of Wikipedia, Reddit, and Stack Overflow, people around the world enthusiastically rush to launch their own ships, online communities, without any understanding of the rules of navigation. But the harsh truth is that if all you have at your disposal is intuition, enthusiasm, and tales of great treasures awaiting you, there’s a high chance your community, too, will sink in the first storm of drama or the slightest lull in activity.
It’s important to note that centuries later, navigation has become an ordinary activity, as people have the oceans on a map, developed GIS, communication systems, and much more. A ship is now steered not by a daring crew relying on luck, but by an entire ecosystem of technologies ensuring safe and predictable travel from point A to point B.
We believe a similar transformation is long overdue in the online community management industry. We’ve already created the first version of our “maps,” the benchmarks and metrics, which show what to expect overall and what the future may bring to your community specifically. We’re now smoothly moving on to building a “course navigation” system—an AI-based community manager assistant that, based on data, can suggest the most optimal course of action to achieve your community goals.
Let’s walk the talk. The first iteration of the assistant
So,
Our mission is to transform community management from time-consuming guesswork into a simple, streamlined, data-driven process that delivers measurable business value.*
In other words, by knowing how certain dynamics impact an online community’s success based on historical data, we can recommend the most effective actions to growth your community or/and find critical gaps in it at an early stage based on your data.
While we’re still working on a fully-featured recommendation system, our app already gives you access to:
1. A list of the community’s main problem areas, if any, based on user, content, and engagement data.
2. Metric overview via key assessments of your community
3. A list of positive and negative dynamics in your community
All of the above is displayed on the updated overview page in the app.
Ready to start growing your community effectively and safely reach your destination? Sign up for the app and get access to reports and recommendations today for free!
If you’re interested in data-drive recommendations for your community, but you’re using a platform other than Discourse or Vanilla Forums, please email me! I’d be happy to consider adapting our app for your platform!