What actually makes a community a growth channel

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I am part of a travel community called Yes Theory. People in it push each other to do uncomfortable things. They travel to unknown places and say yes when everything in them wants to say no.

Nobody is selling anything or tracking engagement. People just show up because they genuinely want to be there.

I have not seen a brand replicate that feeling yet. Most of them are not even trying to. They are creating Slack groups, Discord servers, Facebook groups, and calling it a community.

That is a group with a name, not a community.

This newsletter is about what actually separates the two. What real community looks like, what many brands get wrong when they try to build one, and why it is one of the most underused growth levers a business has.

Community became the next big thing in marketing, and everyone jumped on it.

Every company now has a group somewhere. They announce it, invite people in, post a few updates, and then wonder why no one shows up.

They picked the right platform. They just never gave people a real reason to be there.

Research shows 62% of people join a community because they want to belong. Buying comes later, if at all. 

Walk into most brand communities, and you’ll see the same thing: product updates, launch news, and the occasional discount.

That is not why people stay.

People stay for something worth their time, like someone who understands their situation.

Having a group does not mean you have a community. What happens between the people inside it does.

An audience needs you to show up, but a community shows up without you.

When you post to an audience, the relationship moves one way. The moment you stop posting, it ends. Nothing is holding it together except your next piece of content.

A community is different. People show up for each other, not just for the brand. The brand is the reason they met, but not the only reason they stay.

Notion saw this in Korea. They had no full-time person on the ground when they launched there. Their community handled everything. People organised sessions, gave interviews, and answered questions from new users. One session had 8,000 attendees.

Notion was barely present. The people who cared about the product just took over.

That is what most brands are actually trying to build. They just do not know how to get there yet.

Two things.

First, they treat it like another place to push content. The group becomes a broadcast channel with a friendlier name, with announcements, offers, and updates. Nothing that gives people a reason to talk to each other.

Second, they use freebies to grow it.

Giving away free things does not build community. It builds a group of people who want free things. The moment the freebies stop, so does the engagement.

Notion's CRO, Olivia Nottebohm, put it well when talking about their community strategy: "Don't try to own or regulate your community engagement. Don't ask people to behave in a certain way or follow strict policies."

The moment a brand tries to control too tightly, people stop showing up on their own terms. And that is when it stops being a community.

I built a learner community at LearnApp. People came in to discuss financial strategies and investment methods with one another. They were not there for discounts or free resources. They showed up to learn from others going through the same financial journey.

That shared interest did the work. We just created the space.

Decathlon is worth looking at, too. Their customers talk about the brand without being asked. They recommend products to friends, show up to events, and bring other people in. Nobody paid them to do that. It happened because people connected over a genuine shared love of sport and outdoor life.

When a community is real, people become the voice of your brand on their own. You do not have to ask them.

Paid channels buy attention, but community earns it.

When you run an ad, you pay for someone to see you once. When you have a real community, people bring others in without being asked. They stay longer, buy more, and refer people who already trust the brand before they have ever spoken to you directly.

A 2026 analysis of 312 companies found that engaged community members show 31% higher retention than customers who are not part of any community. And according to Harvard Business Review, a 5% increase in retention alone can boost profits by up to 95%.

The moment you stop running ads, the results stop too. A community you have built properly does not work that way.

Most people think community only helps at the awareness stage. Someone talks about your brand, a few new people hear about it, and that is it.

It goes much deeper.

Think about what happens after someone clicks your ad. They visit your page, and it could go either way. Some sign up, some leave.

But when real people are talking about your product, it feels different. They share how they use it and answer questions. So the decision doesn’t depend only on your page anymore.

A strong community builds trust first. So your ads feel more real, your emails get opened more, and your sales calls are easier because people already know you.

As Olivia Nottebohm said about the community's role across the funnel: "Community is a force that should power every stage of the funnel, not just the top."

Stop treating the community like a separate channel. Think of it as something that supports everything else you’re already doing.

Community is one of the most overused words in marketing. Most brands say they have one, but what they actually run is a group where the team is doing all the work.

The test is simple.

If your brand went quiet for 30 days, would your community keep going, or would it go silent?

If the answer is silence, you have an audience. Not a community.

Building a real one takes time. But when it works, it gives your brand a voice that is not yours. And that is something no ad budget can replace.

Are you building a real community or just a group with content going into it? Reply and tell me.

See you at the next edition,
Arindam