The Business of Belonging: How to Make Community your Competitive Advantage

by David Spinks

members! Every time a member levels up into a new group or identity, you have an opportunity to onboard them again. If someone reaches a Power User status like the Airbnb Super Host community, you can onboard them and think through what you want them to know, feel and do when they first get inducted.

These leaders are going to be representing you and your brand, and they will be interacting directly with other community members, sometimes in difficult situations.

Examples of extrinsic motivations for communities are things like point systems, badges, or getting a shout out from the community manager.

You need members who are there not to receive external rewards, but because they genuinely care about the community and the other members.

It can be highly impactful for a member who's relatively new to your community to get a note from you, or another member, letting them know that they're happy to have them in the community.

Ultimately rewards, whether intrinsic or extrinsic, are about how they make us feel about ourselves. Everything we as humans experience comes from within. The trigger may come from outside, but how we perceive it and respond to it will impact how we feel.

So when you give someone a reward, the question is: How does the reward make that person feel about themselves? Does it make them feel important because the reward was very personal and thoughtful? Does it make them feel bad about themselves because they had higher expectations? Does it make them feel accomplished because they had to do something specific to earn that reward?