Onyi NProduct Marketing Manager, Quely · Product Marketing Manager at Quely

The Biggest Mistake Companies make when building Communities

16 Mar 2026 · 1 min

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1:05

In this talk, the speaker outlines common pitfalls that organizations encounter when attempting to create a community. First, many companies launch a community without determining whether they actually need one, failing to define a clear purpose. Second, they misunderstand what community management entails, often hiring for social‑media or influencer‑marketing skills instead of true community‑building expertise. Third, they treat a community as a quick fix for product problems—expecting rapid reviews, support, and brand advocacy—without recognizing that community development is a long‑term effort. Finally, the speaker emphasizes that building trust and loyalty through a community takes time and cannot be rushed, urging organizations to adopt realistic expectations and a strategic, purpose‑driven approach.

Chapters

The first thing is that organizations, the first thing they get wrong about community is that most of them don't even know if they need a community or not. And the way you know communities that don't even, or organizations rather, that don't even understand what community management is, is you can see the jades on social media. You're putting out a role for a community manager, but you're asking for someone that can manage social media. You're asking for someone that can do influencer marketing and all of those things, right? Community management is not social media management. Organizations have not sat down to understand their why. Why do you want to have a community and why are you building that community? They think that community is a very quick fix, right? Oh, you have a terrible product. What do you do? Boom, open a community. Tell the community manager, oh, get us reviews. Let people talk about it on social media. Let community just act as a support. They think that community management is a quick fix. They expect like the biggest results in a very, very, very short timeline. So community management takes time. Right. You're building trust, you're building loyalty, and it's not something that You do need it.