# Skill Card — Suede Community Marketing

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Release record for the `suede-community-marketing` skill, following the NVIDIA skill-card template (<https://docs.nvidia.com/skills/skill-cards>). It tells a reviewer what the skill does, who owns it, what it needs, what could go wrong, and what evidence backs the release — without requiring them to open the source first.

## Description

Suede-owned community-growth discipline for member purpose, platform choice, seeding, rituals, moderation, health metrics, and earned advocacy.

Status: production. Ships in the `suede-skills` plugin (the full pack) at release 0.19.0; loads as a Claude Code / Codex agent skill from this directory's [SKILL.md](./SKILL.md).

## Owner

Jason Colapietro, Suede Labs AI (<https://github.com/JasonColapietro>). Security contact: `info@suedeai.ai` per [SECURITY.md](../../SECURITY.md).

## License / Terms of Use

MIT ([LICENSE](../../LICENSE)). The pack's combined license expression is `MIT AND BSD-3-Clause`; this skill bundles no third-party licensed material of its own.

## Use Case

Target users: developers and creators running the skill inside a Claude Code or Codex CLI session.

Use when starting, auditing, or growing a Discord, Slack, forum, subreddit, or comparable product community.

Out of scope — public social-channel content (use suede-social), referral-program mechanics (use suede-referrals), or customer-interview research (use suede-customer-research).

## Deployment Geography

Global. The skill is a prompt-and-script package that runs locally inside the invoking agent session; it pins no region-specific service of its own.

## Requirements / Dependencies

- A Claude Code or Codex CLI session with the `suede-skills` plugin installed (install options: <https://skills.suedeai.ai/>).
- Bundled files loaded relative to this directory: `agents/` (1 file).
- Credentials: none are bundled or required by the skill files. Any tool or API credentials come from the host session; never paste credentials into skill files, prompts, or outputs.

## Known Risks and Mitigations

- Risk: an agent treats a quality gate as autonomous authority. Mitigation: every gate in the pack is advisory — it changes what is reported, never what the user decided; only extreme-risk findings (data loss, credential exposure, legal/rights violations, payment mistakes, irreversible public damage) pause for the user's explicit choice.
- Risk: a skill instruction is used to act outside its mandate. Mitigation: the hard limits in the skill body's "Boundaries" section, quoted below.

From "Boundaries":

- Do not claim membership, engagement, retention, sentiment, or advocacy without a defined source, window, and denominator.
- Do not create spaces, invite members, assign roles, moderate, remove content, or publish announcements without explicit authorization.
- Do not manufacture activity, impersonate members, conceal incentives, or present paid advocacy as organic.
- Do not decide enforcement outcomes beyond the documented community rules and escalation path.

## References

- Skill source: [`skills/suede-community-marketing/SKILL.md`](./SKILL.md)
- Rendered reference page: <https://skills.suedeai.ai/skills/suede-community-marketing.html>
- Security policy and reviewed scanner exceptions: [SECURITY.md](../../SECURITY.md) and [`.plugin-scanner.toml`](../../.plugin-scanner.toml) at the repo root

## Skill Output

Structured Markdown returned in the agent's response, shaped by the output contract defined in the skill body: "Output Formats". The skill publishes, posts, and sends nothing without the user's explicit authorization; delivery decisions stay with the user.

## Skill Version

0.19.0 — the pack is single-versioned, so every skill releases together; see [VERSION](../../VERSION) and [CITATION.cff](../../CITATION.cff) for the release identifier this card describes.

## Ethical Considerations

- The skill produces recommendations for a human decision-maker. Publishing, sending, payment, and rights decisions stay with the user.
- Its gates require verifiable claims and honest reporting; do not use the skill to fabricate claims, evidence, metrics, or attribution.
- Report suspected misuse or a security concern privately per [SECURITY.md](../../SECURITY.md); do not open a public issue for it.

---
name: suede-community-marketing
description: "Suede-owned community-growth discipline for member purpose, platform choice, seeding, rituals, moderation, health metrics, and earned advocacy. Use when starting, auditing, or growing a Discord, Slack, forum, subreddit, or comparable product community. NOT FOR: public social-channel content (use suede-social), referral-program mechanics (use suede-referrals), or customer-interview research (use suede-customer-research)."
metadata:
  version: 2.0.0
---

# Suede Community Marketing

Use this Suede community-growth playbook to create genuine member value and measurable business outcomes without manufacturing engagement.

## Before You Start

**Check for product marketing context first:**
If `.agents/product-marketing.md` exists (or `.claude/product-marketing.md`, or the legacy `product-marketing-context.md` filename, in older setups), read it before asking questions. Use that context and only ask for information not already covered.

Understand the situation (ask if not provided):

1. **What is the product or brand?** — What problem does it solve, who uses it
2. **What community platform(s) are in play?** — Discord, Slack, Circle, Reddit, Facebook Groups, forum, etc.
3. **What stage is the community at?** — Pre-launch, 0–100 members, 100–1k, scaling, or established
4. **What is the primary community goal?** — Retention, activation, word-of-mouth, support deflection, product feedback, revenue
5. **Who is the ideal community member?** — Role, motivation, what they hope to get from joining

Work with whatever context is available. If key details are missing, make reasonable assumptions and flag them.

---

## Community Strategy Principles

### Build around a shared identity, not just a product

The strongest communities are built around who members *are* or aspire to be — not around your product. Members join because of the product but stay because of the people and identity.

Example: r/homelab — the identity is tinkerers who self-host, and every ritual,
channel, and recognition mechanic in it reinforces that self-image.

Always define: **What identity does this community reinforce for its members?**

### Value must flow to members first

Every community touchpoint should answer: *What does the member get from this?*

- Exclusive knowledge or early access
- Peer connections they can't get elsewhere
- Recognition and status within a group they respect
- Direct influence on the product roadmap
- Career opportunities, visibility, or credibility

---

## Playbooks by Goal

### Launching a Community from Zero

1. **Recruit 20–50 founding members manually** — DM your most engaged users, beta testers, or fans. Don't open publicly until there is baseline activity.
2. **Set the culture explicitly** — Write community guidelines that describe the *vibe*, not just the rules. What does great participation look like here?
3. **Seed conversations before launch** — Pre-populate channels with 5–10 posts that model the behavior you want. Questions, wins, resources.
4. **Do things that don't scale at first** — Reply to every post. Welcome every new member by name. Host a weekly call. You are buying social proof.
5. **Define your core loop** — What action do you want members to take weekly? Make it easy and reward it publicly.

### Growing an Existing Community

1. **Audit where members drop off** — Are people joining but not posting? Posting once and disappearing? Identify the leaky stage.
2. **Create a new member journey** — A pinned welcome post, a #introduce-yourself channel, a DM or email from a community manager, a clear "start here" path.
3. **Surface member wins publicly** — Showcase user projects, testimonials, milestones. This reinforces identity and signals that participation has rewards.
4. **Run recurring community rituals** — Weekly threads (e.g., "What are you working on?"), monthly AMAs, seasonal challenges. Rituals create habit.
5. **Identify and invest in power users** — participation is usually heavily
   skewed toward a small minority (Inferred; verify against this community's own
   posts-per-member distribution before quoting a ratio). Give the observed top
   contributors recognition, early access, moderator roles, or product input.

### Building a Brand Ambassador / Advocate Program

1. **Identify candidates** — Look for people who already recommend you unprompted. Check reviews, social mentions, community posts.
2. **Make the ask personal** — Don't send a generic form. Reach out 1:1 and explain why you chose them specifically.
3. **Offer meaningful benefits** — Exclusive access, swag, revenue share, or public recognition — not just "early access to features."
4. **Give them tools and content** — Referral links, shareable assets, key talking points, a private Slack channel.
5. **Measure and iterate** — Track referral traffic, signups, and engagement driven by advocates. Double down on what works.

### Community-Led Support (Deflection + Retention)

1. **Create a searchable knowledge base** from top community questions
2. **Recognize members who help others** — "Community Expert" badges, leaderboards, shoutouts
3. **Close the loop with product** — When community feedback drives a change, announce it publicly and credit the members who raised it
4. **Monitor sentiment weekly** — Look for patterns in complaints or confusion before they become churn signals

---

## Platform Selection Guide

| Platform | Best For | Watch Out For |
|----------|----------|---------------|
| Discord | Developer, gaming, creator communities; real-time chat | High noise, hard to search, onboarding friction |
| Slack | B2B / professional communities; familiar to SaaS buyers | Free tier limits history; feels like work |
| Circle | Creator or course-based communities; clean UX | Less organic discovery; requires driving traffic |
| Reddit | High-volume public communities; SEO benefit | You don't own it; moderation is hard |
| Facebook Groups | Consumer brands; older demographics | Declining organic reach; algorithm dependent |
| Forum (Discourse) | Long-form technical communities; SEO-rich | Slower velocity; higher effort to post |

---

## Community Health Metrics

Track these signals weekly. Label every number by evidence class — Boundaries
below forbids stating any of them without a source, window, and denominator:

- **Observed** — read directly from the platform's admin view or export. Name
  the view and the date pulled.
- **Computed** — derived from observed values. Show the formula and the
  denominator (`new member post rate = new members posting within 7 days /
  members who joined in the same window`).
- **Inferred** — a hypothesis to test, including any benchmark taken from
  outside this community. Never word it as this community's fact.
- **Unknown** — the platform does not expose the measure. State what would
  resolve it.

Metrics:

- **DAU/MAU ratio** — Stickiness (Computed: daily actives / monthly actives).
  A 20% floor is an Inferred cross-industry benchmark, not this community's
  healthy line; compare against its own trailing weeks.
- **New member post rate** — % of new members who post within 7 days of joining
- **Thread reply rate** — % of posts that receive at least one reply
- **Churn / lurker ratio** — Members who joined but haven't posted in 30+ days
- **Content created by non-staff** — % of posts not written by the company team

**Warning signs:**
- Most posts are from the company team, not members
- Questions go unanswered for >24 hours
- Engagement concentrates in a handful of accounts — compute the share of posts
  from the top 5 posters over a stated window before calling it a warning
- New members stop posting after their intro message

---

## Output Formats

Depending on what the user needs, produce one of:

- **Community Strategy Doc** — Platform choice, identity definition, core loop, 90-day launch plan
- **Channel Architecture** — Recommended channels/categories with purpose and posting guidelines for each
- **New Member Journey** — Welcome sequence: pinned post, DM template, first-week prompts
- **Community Ritual Calendar** — Weekly/monthly recurring events and threads
- **Ambassador Program Brief** — Criteria, benefits, outreach template, tracking plan
- **Health Audit Report** — Current metrics, diagnosis, top 3 priorities to fix

Always be specific. Generic advice ("be consistent," "provide value") is not useful. Give the user something they can act on today.

### Community Strategy Doc — exact headings

```markdown
# <Community name> — Strategy

## Identity
Member identity reinforced: <who members are or aspire to be>
Who is explicitly not the member: <exclusion>

## Platform Choice
Chosen: <platform> | Rejected: <platform> because <watch-out from the table>
Evidence class for any cited benchmark: Observed | Computed | Inferred | Unknown

## Core Loop
Weekly member action: <one action>
What makes it easy: <mechanic>
How it is rewarded publicly: <mechanic>
Where new value re-enters: <mechanic>

## Seeding Plan
Founding members (20–50, manually recruited): <source list>
Pre-launch seed posts: <5–10 topics that model the behavior>
Culture statement: <what great participation looks like here>

## 90-Day Plan
Days 0–30 | Days 31–60 | Days 61–90 — for each: goal, rituals live,
owner, primary metric with its denominator

## Measurement
Primary metric: <metric> = <formula> / <denominator>, window <n> days
Diagnostics (2–4): <metric + evidence class each>

## Open Gates
<authorization or evidence still missing; use the halt contract below>
```

The other five deliverables use these headings:

- **Channel Architecture** — Channel | Purpose | Who posts | Posting rules | Success signal
- **New Member Journey** — Pinned post / DM template / Day 1–7 prompts / First-win definition / Drop-off checkpoint
- **Community Ritual Calendar** — Ritual | Cadence | Owner | Member job | Kill condition
- **Ambassador Program Brief** — Criteria / Benefits / Outreach template / Disclosure requirement / Tracking plan
- **Health Audit Report** — Metrics with evidence class and denominator / Diagnosis / Top 3 priorities / What would disprove the diagnosis

---

## Halt Contract

Use this exact format when authorization, evidence, or an enforcement decision
blocks the requested result — including the space-creation, invite, role,
moderation, removal, and announcement gate and the enforcement-outcome gate in
Boundaries:

```text
HALT — <one-line blocker>
Why it blocks: <specific missing authority or evidence>
Resolve with:
1. <option>
2. <option>
3. <option, when useful>
Waiting for: <the exact item or approval>
```

Continue with safe drafts, plans, or worksheets only when they remain useful
and do not imply the blocker was resolved.

---

## Boundaries

- Do not claim membership, engagement, retention, sentiment, or advocacy without a defined source, window, and denominator.
- Do not create spaces, invite members, assign roles, moderate, remove content, or publish announcements without explicit authorization.
- Do not manufacture activity, impersonate members, conceal incentives, or present paid advocacy as organic.
- Do not decide enforcement outcomes beyond the documented community rules and escalation path.

## Routing

- Need referral or ambassador incentives -> use `suede-referrals`.
- Need public social content -> use `suede-social`.
- Need member-language research -> use `suede-customer-research`.
- Need retention diagnosis beyond community behavior -> use `suede-churn-prevention`.
- Need graphics for welcome posts, ritual announcements, or ambassador assets -> use `suede-image`; for video assets -> use `suede-video`.
- Need a final anti-slop pass on member-facing copy before it ships -> use `suede-deslop`.
- From those skills, route community purpose, platform, rituals, and moderation design back to `suede-community-marketing`.