Playbook: How to Build More Depth Inside a Growing Community

# Community

# Format: Playbooks

A practical approach to creating smaller, more meaningful community experiences without losing the value of a broader program.

June 5, 2026

Leslie Barber

Joshua Zerkel

One of the easiest assumptions to make in community is that growth should naturally create depth. If more people are joining, more people should be connecting. If more content is being published, more conversation should follow. If the top-line numbers keep moving, the community must be getting stronger.

Sometimes that is true. Often it's not.

A broad community can do a lot of important work. It can give people a common front door. It can make resources easier to find. It can help members understand what kind of company they are dealing with and what kinds of conversations are possible there. That broad layer matters. It gives the community shape and visibility.

What it usually does not do on its own is create the kind of closeness that makes people feel known.

That is where a lot of programs start to flatten out. The team builds the larger environment, sees some early momentum, and assumes that intimacy will emerge naturally from scale. In practice, that deeper layer usually needs more care than that. It needs clearer design, better facilitation, and more specificity than a broad community can often sustain on its own.

A layered community strategy is one that combines a broad shared environment with smaller, more focused experiences built around identity, geography, role, stage, or need.

That tends to be the more useful model for most community teams. The choice is rarely between scale and depth. More often, the work is about understanding what each layer is actually for and then designing accordingly.

The strongest signals are usually already there

One reason this kind of work is more approachable than it sounds is that you usually do not need to start from zero. The clues are often already inside the community.

People tend to enter a community through one broad shared identity, then look for a more specific place where they can relate more fully. That second layer is where a lot of real connection starts to happen. It might be based on geography, language, role, company stage, industry, or some shared challenge that changes how people experience the work.

That pattern matters because it helps teams move from abstract thinking into practical design. You do not need to guess endlessly about what members might want. You can watch how they already behave.

Some of the most useful signals look like this:

Repeated Conversations Between Similar Members

Requests For More Role-Specific Or Region-Specific Connection

Higher Response Quality In More Focused Discussions

Side Conversations That Feel More Alive Than The Main Feed

Clear Clusters Around A Shared Challenge Or Stage Of Work

These are not side notes. They are often the earliest signs that the community is ready for something more intentional.

When you start to see those patterns, the job is not to create endless new subgroups. It is to notice where members are already pulling toward one another and support that motion in a more deliberate way.

Specificity usually creates stronger belonging

A lot of community design still gets built around openness alone. Make it broad enough for everyone. Make it easy to join. Make sure no one feels excluded. Those instincts are understandable and often well-intentioned, but when they become the only design principle, the experience can start to lose its shape.

The wider the aperture gets, the harder it can be for people to feel that a given moment is really for them.

Specificity changes that. When a smaller experience has a clear sense of who it is for and why it exists, people tend to settle into it more quickly. They ask better questions. They offer more useful context. They are less likely to posture and more likely to participate like themselves.

That does not mean every part of a community should be narrow or exclusive. It means teams should understand where breadth is useful and where precision creates the stronger result.

In practice, more resonant smaller spaces are often built around:

A Shared Role Or Responsibility

A Shared Challenge Or Transition

A Shared Geography Or Local Context

A Shared Stage Of Product Adoption

A Shared Identity That Shapes How Members Experience The Work

The broader community still matters. It gives people a place to enter. But the smaller spaces are often where people begin to feel recognized, and recognition is often what makes them return.

The host should not stay at the center forever

In the early stages of any community experience, the team is going to do more of the work. That is normal. You are setting the tone, welcoming people in, asking the first questions, and proving that participation will be met with care.

But if all of the energy continues to depend on the host, the community is not deepening yet. It is still orbiting the team.

A healthier pattern starts to appear when members begin answering each other, welcoming each other, and building on each other’s ideas without waiting for the host to create every opening. That is one of the clearest signs that a space is becoming more than an audience.

Teams can help that happen by making a few steady shifts in how they facilitate:

Ask Questions That Invite Lived Experience, Not Just Opinions

Highlight Member Responses, Not Just Team Posts

Give Members Chances To Lead Or Frame Parts Of The Conversation

Recognize Behavior That Strengthens The Room

Make It Easier For Members To Respond To Each Other Than Only To The Brand

The goal is not for the host to disappear. It is for the host to become less central because members are finding more reasons to engage with each other directly.

Build one strong layer before you build several weak ones

When teams first start thinking about community depth, there is often a temptation to overbuild. Suddenly every cluster looks like it needs its own group, series, channel, or program. That usually creates more complexity than connection.

A better move is to start with one smaller experience that has a clear reason to exist and build it well.

Choose a group where the need is already visible. Pick a format that matches the kind of interaction you want to create. Keep it small enough that you can actually observe what happens. Then listen closely.

One well-designed layer can teach you a lot:

Whether Members Actually Want More Connection Or Just Say They Do

What Kinds Of Prompts Bring People Forward

Whether The Format Supports Candor And Trust

How Much Facilitation The Group Really Needs

What The Rest Of The Business Can Learn From Watching A More Intentional Space Work

That is usually more valuable than launching a broad architecture of loosely defined spaces all at once.

Key takeaways

A broad community and a deep community serve different purposes, and most healthy programs need both.

The strongest opportunities for smaller, more resonant spaces are usually already visible in member behavior.

Specificity often creates stronger belonging than broad accessibility alone.

One of the clearest signs of depth is when members begin carrying more of the conversation themselves.

One well-designed smaller experience will usually teach more than several loosely defined experiments.

FAQ

Do I need to rebuild my community to create more depth?

No. In most cases, the better move is to keep the broader layer and add a smaller, more intentional experience inside it.

How do I know what smaller group to create first?

Start with the strongest existing signal. Look for repeated interaction, shared needs, or a narrower identity that members are already organizing around.

Can smaller spaces still support business goals?

Yes. They often create the trust, candor, and repeat participation that lead to stronger product insight, advocacy, and retention over time.

What should I watch for after launching a smaller experience?

Watch whether members respond to each other, come back without heavy prompting, and begin to shape the conversation themselves.

▶️ Watch the full replay from our webinar here.

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