Favorite Customer Communities best practices exchange - where

It really really depends on what type of community you are creating. Are you doing a support community, a relationship community, a groups community ect.

Id recommend going to each platform out there and see who won an award in the last 3 years. Id comb through each of their communities and understand their layout and see what they are pushing. Find a few you like and go to LinkedIn and reachout. Others in the space will take the time to meet with you if you ask nicely! 

There are “influencers” in the space. Depending on your manager(s) they might be only looking at them for the source of truth. You have to pay attention but do whats best for you and your community over what someone else says. You know your community the best and you dont have to do everything that people in the space cover. 

Hi ​@Stela Koleva! There are lots of great Community industry resources out there that offer best practices and tips. Ultimately, you have to find what resources—and what strategies—work for you, but I’ll share some of the ones I use and keep an eye on. 

• The Gainsight Community here is always great for GS-specific tips and strategies. Also, attending Pulse. 
• CMX is one of the premier organizations supporting Community Managers globally. Their annual Summit conference is helpful, and most of the sessions end up online afterwards on their YouTube. They have a helpful Academy for training, regular virtual events, and a very active Slack workspace to ask questions and interact with other Community builders. And they also have a number of free guides and reports that can help jump start your programs.
• Led by Community is another good one; lots of virtual events and a very robust newsletter. 
• Richard Millington and his consultancy Feverbee offer a wealth of free research, virtual events and recordings, and a great newsletter. 
• The Community Roundtable also offers events, annual research, and other resources.
• And of course, I recommend following Community builders on LinkedIn; many of them post very insightful commentary on the industry, best practices, etc.

I hope that’s helpful, and not overwhelming! 😅

I follow the ones ​@atwhite mentions as well and next to that I also follow Brian Oblinger. 
And i did a lot of research on other already existing community, how have they set things up (why reinvite the wheel yourself  😉) so our on boarding manager showed a lot of communities as well. 

Ow and a nice podcast is the Community ROI! I still need to catch up a lot, but they have a lot of great speaker that I have also seen on stages!

Ow and also follow at Jillian Bejtlich from the Community Nerd! 

There are soo many resources out there!

Everyone has shared some great stuff here.🔥
My list is very similar too - also love the community thoughts that Max Pete shares. I don’t know how to say it, but he’s got such a human touch to his thoughts around community that all of us can relate to.

Also, ​@mitchell.gordon - you couldn’t have said it better!

You have to pay attention but do whats best for you and your community over what someone else says. You know your community the best and you don’t have to do everything that people in the space cover.