The Human Element: Why People-First B2B Communities Deliver Results

It seems that every day, another B2B brand launches a community initiative. In fact, Gartner reported a 74% jump in client inquiries about customer communities from 2022 to 2023. And the Commsor Community Led report revealed a 22% increase in organisations with community teams since 2020. 

More and more, companies are recognising the potential value of communities as a versatile business asset. They offer a direct feedback loop for product development, enhance customer support through peer-led solutions, foster brand loyalty and advocacy, and serve as hubs for innovation and talent. 

Yet many initiatives will fail. Why? Because creating a space where your most valuable customers genuinely want to spend their time takes more than just picking a platform, creating some content, and waiting for the magic to happen. 

To succeed, a B2B community must offer a compelling value proposition that speaks directly to its members' needs. This means creating an environment that nurtures collaboration, builds trust, and facilitates meaningful interactions. It’s about making your community an essential part of your customers' professional lives.

Let's explore what that looks like together.

What Makes a B2B Community?

A B2B community isn't just another digital marketing channel. It's an ecosystem that reshapes how your customers experience and interact with your brand. It offers them a space where they can learn, and grow together.

But without some key ingredients, even the best ideas for community initiatives risk falling flat. 

Clear Purpose and Vision

This cannot just be about your company’s goals. Does your community have a compelling reason to exist from the members' perspective?

Successful B2B communities fulfil three key needs:

• Immediate Value: Quick access to solutions, peer insights, and resources that help members solve pressing challenges

• Professional Growth: Opportunities to build expertise, enhance skills, and advance careers through knowledge sharing and mentorship

• Networking: Meaningful connections with peers and industry leaders who face similar challenges

People will only join and stay actively engaged with communities that clearly articulate how their involvement will benefit them. Whatever that means for your particular community, your goal is to create an environment where helping members succeed automatically helps your company succeed too.

Strategic Alignment with Business Objectives

A community needs to be more than an interesting initiative - it must align with and actively advance your company's broader business strategy. Without demonstrably contributing to key business goals like brand loyalty, customer retention, or product improvement, it risks being a 'nice to have' rather than a necessity.

Consider how different strategic objectives shape community focus. A retention-driven community might emphasise customer success forums and peer mentorship programs, while an innovation-focused community could prioritise co-creation sessions and structured feedback loops. A brand-building community might spotlight thought leadership and industry expertise.

The key is ensuring every community initiative serves both member needs and business goals. For example, when members help each other solve problems in support forums, they simultaneously reduce your support costs and deepen their product expertise. When they participate in product feedback sessions, they shape features to better serve their needs while helping you build a more competitive offering. This dual-value alignment helps deliver tangible business results while enhancing the member experience.

Member-Centric Approach

A member-centric approach is all about adapting to your audience’s needs, motivations, and evolving preferences. To achieve this, it’s essential to view your community as an ongoing dialogue—where the insights gathered from your members guide your strategy at every step.

The better you understand your members, the more effectively you can design a community that fosters lasting engagement, collaboration, and mutual growth. 

Use direct feedback as well as interaction data to uncover their interests, professional goals and challenges, as well as what they hope to gain from being part of the community.

You can then ensure that you create opportunities for participation that are both relevant and rewarding. You might curate exclusive industry insights in a daily newsletter, facilitate relevant discussions in the community, or create tailored events like webinars or expert panels. The key is ensuring that these offerings resonate with members and make their experience richer over time.

Planning for Engagement

Early engagement is crucial to get the community off the ground and to establish a culture of participation. The first few months of a community’s life define the experience for members and set a tone for ongoing activity.

Successful engagement planning starts with carefully selecting founding members—individuals who are not only interested but also passionate about the community’s purpose. These initial members help set the pace by modelling the type of participation that others will follow. 

High-quality content, thought-provoking discussions, and events that encourage interaction all serve as foundational elements that make members feel their involvement is valuable from day one.

Facilitating connections between members is another important aspect that shouldn’t be overlooked. By identifying individuals with shared interests or complementary expertise, community managers can foster organic connections that add value and strengthen the community’s integrity.

Commitment to Long-term Growth

Building a community is a long-term investment. Creating an initial buzz is important, but once the excitement has worn off, sustaining a vibrant community requires consistent effort and strategic resource allocation.

Success depends on three key commitments:

First, you must continuously evolve the value you provide. This means actively listening to member feedback, iterating on your offerings, and finding fresh ways to keep content and discussions engaging. What works at launch may not serve your community six months later.

Second, you will need to invest in skills and resources. For example:

• Dedicated community management to facilitate discussions and maintain positive engagement

• Content support to develop valuable, relevant material

• Active moderators to ensure a healthy environment

• Campaigns to help new members discover your community

• Recognition programs that celebrate member contributions and maintain enthusiasm

Third, you will need clear processes for measuring community health. Regular tracking of engagement metrics, participation rates, and member feedback helps identify improvement opportunities early. This data-driven approach ensures your community evolves in response to actual member needs rather than assumptions.

With these foundational elements in place, your community can grow and evolve alongside its members, remaining an indispensable asset to both your company and participants.

Learning from The Best in SaaS

Now that we’ve discussed the core principles for building and nurturing a B2B community, let’s turn to some real-world examples. 

Community is a core growth pillar for many successful Software as a Service (SaaS) companies, driving product adoption, customer retention, and user advocacy. Learning from these examples can provide actionable insights into creating communities that thrive, support business growth, and build lasting member engagement.

Miro

Miro's community has been instrumental in driving the company's market leadership. With over 35 million users and 130,000 clients globally, Miro has built a community that facilitates collaboration, innovation, and content sharing on a large scale. It also provides the company with content and strategic insights that benefit multiple departments. 

The dedicated community subdomain supports product development through user feedback and fosters strong user advocacy by highlighting customer success stories and encouraging peer-to-peer mentoring. It includes resources like an event calendar, member leaderboard, and featured tutorials section. 

However, the Miroverse is where the community really shines. The Miroverse is a user-generated content initiative featuring community-generated templates. It allows people to share their expertise and explore what people have created using Miro. The library has nearly tripled the number of official templates on offer through the platform and is a starting point for millions of users seeking proven workflows, projects, and frameworks.

Miro’s success is backed by substantial investments in community roles. With around 325 employees dedicated to community building, alongside significant content marketing and event marketing efforts, community remains at the core of Miro’s strategic approach.

Notion

While Miro demonstrates the power of centralised community building, Notion took a different but equally successful approach. 

Their community has also been a key driver of growth, creating an organic flywheel of content, adoption, and referrals that has contributed to its valuation surpassing $10 billion. However, Notion’s community began organically, with enthusiastic users sharing knowledge and showcasing their setups. 

One such user, Ben Lang, created community resources independently after discovering Notion on Product Hunt. Recognising his efforts, Notion hired him as Head of Community, and he became pivotal in expanding and nurturing this community from the ground up.

The community has grown across multiple platforms, including Reddit, Facebook, YouTube, and Discord. It also encourages localised community management in universities, businesses, and cities around the world.

While embracing a decentralised approach, Notion also maintains a brand-owned community hub built on its own platform. This community hub serves as a central point for directing users to resources and encourages participation through its event calendar, tutorials, and forums. There is also an integrated template library offering user-generated resources.

Notion’s community initiatives include an Ambassador Program and a Champions Program. The Ambassador Program focuses on empowering passionate community members to host events. They host around 60 events each month globally, contributing to an environment of knowledge sharing and connection. The Champions Program is aimed at internal advocates within companies using Notion. Champions are given exclusive perks such as early feature access, AMAs with the Notion team, and regular live webinars. This helps internal advocates become power users and spread Notion adoption within their own companies.

Translating SaaS Success to B2B Professional Services

While Miro and Notion are SaaS giants, the strategies they’ve used to foster successful communities are not exclusive to technology companies. Professional services firms can learn a great deal from these examples, particularly in how to foster authentic engagement, leverage existing networks, and build loyalty. 

Here’s how you can apply these tactics to your own community initiatives.

Organic Growth with Real Advocates

The most authentic community growth starts with your strongest allies: existing clients who already champion your brand. Rather than trying to build momentum from scratch, leverage these natural advocates who understand your value and can articulate it to others.

Begin by identifying a core group of enthusiastic clients who embody your ideal community member. Look for those who:

• Actively engage with your brand

• Demonstrate deep understanding of your solutions

• Show enthusiasm for sharing knowledge

• Have influence within their professional networks

• Express genuine interest in connecting with peers

Just as Notion's community flourished through its passionate users, your advocates can help shape the community's direction, contribute valuable insights, and attract like-minded professionals. Their authentic enthusiasm creates a magnetic effect that draws others in, establishing credibility and momentum far more effectively than top-down recruitment efforts.

The key is empowering these advocates while ensuring their participation feels natural and rewarding. Support their involvement by giving them early input into community initiatives and recognising their contributions, but avoid making it feel like work.

Leverage Existing Networks Before Expanding

Before investing in a dedicated community platform, tap into the networks where your audience already gathers. This approach lets you test engagement strategies, build meaningful connections, and understand what truly resonates with your target members.

LinkedIn offers a natural starting point for B2B community building. Begin by:

• Sharing thought leadership content that sparks discussion

• Participating authentically in relevant industry conversations

• Connecting your subject matter experts with target accounts

• Creating opportunities for peer-to-peer knowledge exchange

Start small but strategic. Host focused online events like roundtables or interactive workshops that bring together professionals around specific challenges or opportunities. These gatherings help you identify potential community members while demonstrating the value of peer connection.

You could also consider creating a private LinkedIn group as your pilot community. Use it to experiment with different content formats, discussion topics, and engagement strategies. Pay close attention to:

• Which topics generate the most engagement

• How members prefer to interact

• What times and formats work best for events

• Who emerges as natural community contributors

This "test and learn" approach provides valuable insights about your audience's needs and preferences before committing to a dedicated platform. It also builds a ready audience eager to join your full-fledged community when the time comes.

Foster Knowledge Sharing and Collaboration

Your clients face complex industry challenges that rarely have simple solutions. A well-structured knowledge-sharing environment turns these challenges into opportunities for collective learning and innovation.

Create multiple pathways for knowledge exchange. These might include:

• Curated resource libraries featuring proven frameworks and templates

• Facilitated discussion forums where peers can share solutions

• Expert-led deep dives into emerging industry trends

• Interactive workshops that translate insights into action

• Case study spotlights highlighting member successes

The most valuable insights often come from members themselves. Your role is to facilitate these exchanges and ensure the knowledge shared becomes accessible, actionable resources for the entire community.

The key is to make knowledge sharing feel natural and rewarding. Encourage members to document their problem-solving approaches and share lessons learned from their initiatives. Ask challenging questions that spark discussions where users can contribute their expertise in their specialty areas and build on others' insights with their own experiences.

By making peer learning a cornerstone of your community, you create an environment where every challenge becomes an opportunity for collective growth.

Develop Tailored Programs for Member Segments

Like Notion’s Ambassador and Champions Programs, professional services communities can benefit from targeted initiatives that encourage different types of participation.

Different members bring different value to your community. By creating structured programs that recognise and nurture these distinct contributions, you can maximise engagement while delivering targeted value.

For example, you might create a Client Advocate Program and invite key clients to raise their profile by participating in thought leadership panels, roundtables, or webinars. A Practice Leaders Program, on the other hand, could help internal champions within client companies share their experiences and foster best practice adoption, further embedding your services into their daily operations.

Find ways to ensure each program delivers clear value to both participants and the broader community. Structure these initiatives to create natural pathways for growth, allowing members to progress from casual participants to recognised leaders.

Remember, these programs should feel like opportunities, not obligations. Focus on making participation rewarding and aligned with members' professional goals.

Create Both Online and Offline Touchpoints

While digital platforms enable continuous connection, the deepest relationships often form through face-to-face interaction. The most successful B2B communities embrace this reality by creating a seamless blend of online engagement and in-person experiences.

Take inspiration from Notion's hybrid approach, where virtual discussions naturally evolve into local meetups and regional events. This combination maintains daily momentum while creating spaces for deeper relationship building. Online conversations spark ideas that can be explored in depth at quarterly workshops, while connections made at in-person events strengthen online engagement between gatherings.

Consider how different formats serve different purposes. Virtual platforms excel at knowledge sharing and quick problem-solving, while in-person advisory boards foster strategic discussions that benefit from nuanced, face-to-face dialogue. Small, focused workshops allow for intensive collaboration, while larger industry events create opportunities for broader networking and celebration of community achievements.

The key is ensuring these touchpoints feel cohesive rather than disconnected. Each interaction, whether digital or physical, should reinforce relationships and deepen trust. This layered approach creates the kind of personalised experience that professional services clients expect – one where every engagement adds meaningful value to their relationship with your brand and their fellow community members.

Align Community Goals with Service Outcomes

Your community should act as a force multiplier for your professional services, amplifying value in ways that directly impact customer success. This means moving beyond general networking to create specific pathways that enhance service delivery and outcomes.

Start by understanding what success looks like for your clients. Are they trying to navigate complex regulatory changes? Accelerate digital transformation? Improve operational efficiency? These core challenges should shape your community initiatives. When a consulting client shares how they overcame an implementation hurdle, or a financial services client explains their approach to new compliance requirements, they're not just sharing information – they're creating invaluable resources that make your services more effective for everyone.

Use your community as an early warning system for emerging client needs. Active discussions often reveal challenges before they become widespread, allowing you to develop solutions proactively. These insights can inform everything from new service offerings to improved delivery methods, ensuring your firm stays ahead of client demands.

The strongest B2B communities don't just support your services – they become an integral part of how you deliver value. When community participation directly contributes to better outcomes, engagement becomes self-sustaining as clients recognise the tangible benefits of their involvement.

People-First: The Key to B2B Community Success

A B2B community thrives not because of the platform it is hosted on or the content calendar that drives it, but because it speaks to the fundamental human desire to connect, learn, and grow alongside peers who share our professional challenges and aspirations. 

When organisations commit to nurturing these human connections - investing in facilitation, empowering advocates, and creating genuine value for members - they build more than just another marketing channel. They create an ecosystem that enriches both their business and their members' professional lives. 

As more companies embrace community initiatives, those that remember to put people before platforms will be the ones that transform their communities from nice-to-have programs into indispensable professional networks that enrich everyone involved.

Thinking about building a community to support your business and customers? 1827 Marketing's deep understanding of professional audiences, content, and marketing technology means we can help you create engagement strategies that resonate and deliver measurable results. Get in touch to discuss your plans.