Best Of

I joined the AI Study group call with @Nicole and @MariusCiortea yesterday (future events here https://success.vanillaforums.com/search?domain=event&query=study%20group&scope=site&source=community) )

Marius introduced the group to MCPs and we talked about how people are using AI with their Vanilla communities.

I wanted to share how I'm using it, in case it sparks some ideas for you.

1. Custom HTML Widgets: super easy, I tell Claude what I need, share my colors, branding guidelines, and the links or copy I need and it delivers the exact code I need for Vanilla. (I also mention I'm creating a Vanilla Community Custom HTML Widget, so it will look for the information on how to do this).
   
2. Assign Badges: Claude taught me to turn on terminal, access the vanilla api and create and run scripts to give all of our employees a badge.
   
3. Send Private Messages to new users: Claude helped me set up a script to run when I want to send the newest members a welcome message. This went through terminal as well.
   
4. Researching Vanilla documentation: I tell Claude (or any AI LLM) what I'd like to do in Vanilla and it helps me find ways to create a solution for what I'm trying to do.
   
   1. Group Directory search: Right now I'm using this approach to build a group search for the new group directory page.
      
5. Widget Builder: We have access to the widget builder so I turned our new Resources sidebar widget into a global widget by asking Claude to code it for the Widget Builder. Now, instead of copy/pasting the same code over and over, I select Custom Widget and choose this sidebar widget from the list.
   
6. Compare member lists for badging & invites: I've downloaded my members list and compared it to the list of badges and cross referenced it with our new Ambassadors list to see who is badged but hasn't joined (for outreach opportunities).
   
7. Browser Automation: I sometimes use Claude in browser to:
   1. help me makes lists of members (such as the badged members that have no export option),
   2. answer questions,
   3. figure out what CSS I need to change, etc.

Finally, I'm looking forward to this event with Marius, https://success.vanillaforums.com/events/163-how-ai-is-changing-the-way-community-teams-work to learn how we can use future MCPs for our communities.

How are you using AI with your Vanilla community?

Hi all! We're Peter (@padams) and Maureen (@mrice) and we lead customer enablement and customer marketing at ChurnZero, an industry-leading customer success platform that helps subscription businesses keep customers and keep growing. Our community is where our customers share ideas, learn from each other, and engage with our brand meaningfully.

After a dip in engagement in 2023, our primary goal for 2024 was to improve our members’ experience in the community. We revisited everything from UI and UX to content and engagement strategies—and saw immediate boosts in both the quantity and quality of member engagement that validated the data-backed theories that drove our re-design. Here's what's worked, what hasn't, and where we're headed.

Don’t overcomplicate your community’s purpose

Communities often suffer from "mission creep"—trying to do too many things at once. Early on, we found ourselves pulled in a thousand directions: Should we focus on product feedback? Technical support? Peer-to-peer discussions? After listening to our customers (and honestly, some candid feedback from our internal teams), we realized we needed to narrow our focus.

Our community is now purpose-built for two things:

1. Fostering discussions about customer success strategies.
2. Driving product adoption.

That clarity transformed how we prioritize initiatives, design content, and measure success. It also made it easier to communicate our community's role internally. If a feature or program didn't support those two goals, it didn't make the cut.

Takeaway: The clearer your purpose, the easier it is to align your efforts and resources.

Measuring community data alongside customer data for deeper insights

If you don't measure it, you can't manage it—or at least, that's how we approach our community strategy. Here are the key metrics we track to evaluate success and prove value across the business:

• Discussions started and comment rate: Our leading indicators of engagement.
• Days spent using ChurnZero (Community Members vs. Non-Members): On average, community members log 112% more days working in ChurnZero per quarter.
• Support ticket deflection: Active community members log significantly fewer support tickets, freeing up our CS and Support teams for higher-value activities.
• Impact on customer health scores: Customers with high community engagement show consistently better health scores, which helps us retain and grow accounts.

By connecting community activity to broader business metrics, we've been able to demonstrate ROI in a language that resonates with executives.

Takeaway: If you're not integrating community data with your CRM or customer success platform, you're missing critical insights.

Lessons learned: What's worked (and what hasn't)

Streamlining our community’s UX/UI

When we launched our original community design in early 2021, we thought we'd hit the mark. Turns out, we'd made it harder for users to find what they needed. Our redesigned interface brought discussions front and center and made it easier for members to engage. The payoff?

• 564% increase in discussions started.
• 97% faster response times.
• 402% growth in comments posted.

Sometimes, the simplest solutions are the most effective.

Example: 2024 community redesign - before and after

Example: 2024 community redesign - homepage real estate intentionality

Empowering internal teams with community data

We realized that our CSMs are the bridge between our community and our customers. By integrating community metrics into their dashboards, we gave them real-time insights into their accounts' activity. For example:

• Automated alerts notify CSMs when their customers post in the community.
• Engagement reports highlight which accounts are thriving and which need attention.

This small shift brought strategic attention to our community as a proactive tool for customer success and account management.

Example: Automated alert notification via community data

Example: Engagement report sample

Establishing Member-engagement personas

Not all users engage with a community in the same way. Coupling community analytics with customer data, we established personas—like observers, contributors, and engagers—to segment levels of engagement activity. This data informs content and strategies, like adoption campaigns, to drive awareness and spark engagement for underrepresented personas.

Example: Member-engagment persona filters

What's next: Expanding the impact

We're proud of what our community has accomplished, but we're just getting started. Here's where we're focusing our efforts in 2025:

1. Content expansion: Building out tailored resources for executives and technical administrators who don't naturally gravitate toward the community.
2. Adoption campaigns: Reaching and converting currently non-community users to active community members through personalized outreach and onboarding.
3. Deeper integrations: Strengthening the connection between community activity, ChurnZero, and other systems to inform strategy across teams.

Our vision is to make the community indispensable—not just for our customers, but for our internal teams as well.

Your turn: Share your community journey and plans for 2025

Managing a community is as much art as it is science, and we're all learning as we go. Have you integrated your community data into your customer success platform? What's worked for you? Drop your insights in the comments below—we'd love to hear your thoughts.

Good day Community, and thank you @Kirstie Macfarlane.
Normally I am asking questions, today I am sharing :-)

As Community Managers, we build trust, strengthen brand loyalty, educate clients, reduce formal tickets, and minimize churn. How do we achieve these goals, prove community value, and its impact on the organization? The answers lie in data. Dashboards are the ultimate tools to demonstrate community health, uncover member insights, and identify growth opportunities. In this blog, I’ll share three dashboards that highlight community health metrics, measure content popularity, and identify potential advocates.

1. Community Health Dashboard

Understanding your community's health is essential to proving its value. Month-over-month growth in these metrics demonstrates that your community and engagement are growing. Tracking Accepted Answer Views highlights how the community serves as a self-sustaining knowledge base, reducing the need for formal support tickets while improving the customer experience. By visualizing this data, you can provide leadership with a clear picture of how the community drives value and supports broader business objectives.

2. Content Popularity Dashboard

Too often, brands create content based on assumptions about what their audience wants. I want to identify which topics resonate most with community members. By analyzing blog views and engagement rates, you can work with your content creators to help them understand content your customers value (and what they don’t). For instance, if you notice a spike in interest around a particular topic, you can collaborate with internal experts to create more of what your audience is asking for. This data-driven approach ensures that your content strategy aligns with your members’ needs, fostering trust and long-term loyalty.

3. Potential Advocates Dashboard

Every vibrant community depends on its advocates: those passionate, knowledgeable members who go above and beyond to contribute. This dashboard highlights key behaviors such as:

• Visits by Customers
• Searches by Customers
• Questions asked by Customers
• Comments provided by Customers vs Employees
• Questions Answered by Customers vs Employees
• Customers with the Most Accepted Answers

Identifying these contributors allows you to engage with them on a deeper level. Reach out, thank them for their efforts, and make them feel valued. Their participation strengthens the community while providing valuable insights into how customers use and perceive your product. As the movie Apollo 13 taught me, customers care about what your product was designed to do (internal knowledge) AND what it can do (external knowledge). By nurturing these advocates and encouraging their contributions, you create a powerful blend of internal expertise and external experience that benefits the entire community.

Let’s Collaborate

I hope these dashboards inspire you to think about how data can transform your approach to community management. I’d love to hear about the dashboards you’ve created and the insights they’ve uncovered. What metrics do you prioritize? How do you present your findings to stakeholders?

If you have questions about why I’ve chosen these dashboards or want to collaborate on new ideas, let’s have a conversation. Together, we can continue to unlock the full potential of our communities.

Cheers,

Toby

Hi everyone!

My name is Anna Yardley and I am the Community manager at Domo. I spend my day-to-day in our online Community Forums, which are hosted on Vanilla.

The Domo Community Forums are the go-to space for connecting with and learning from the vibrant Domo community. You’ll get help solving challenges through collaborative support from thousands of other Domo enthusiasts while also growing your expertise of the Domo platform.​

I've been in my role for 2.5 years and have seen massive engagement transformations in our Community as we've implemented different programs. Below, I'll share some of the most impactful things we've done for the health of our community. I hope they can spark your curiosity and help you as well! Happy to answer any questions and continue conversation in the comments below.

Building an Advocate and Rewards Program

We started seeing significant results on our Forum once we implemented a rewards program. Our highest ranked members (we call them Coaches) are invited to participate in our advocate program that rewards them for answering questions on our Forum. Logistically, we did this by connecting Vanilla with an advocate-specific platform to aid in automatically rewarding members with gift cards as they answer questions.

Since implementing this, we have a 100% answer rate (our internal teams RARELY intervene to make sure a question gets answered) and our average time to answer consistently sits around 30 min! This has been a game-changer for our Community. Our customers know that if they come to the Community, they will get an answer (likely) faster than any other support resource. As we share this statistic with our new and current customers, it's an easy "sell" to get them to sign up to start getting value from our Community Forum.

Business Results – ROI uncovered

We bring all our Vanilla analytics into Domo, our data and analytics platform, to understand the bigger picture and impact our Community has on the company as a whole. It's no secret that proving the value and worth of Community can be SO hard because measuring the ROI seems near impossible. However, this last year, using the power of Domo, we uncovered the most important metric for our Community team. By joining our community data by account, we've learned that:

• Accounts that have at least one active community member are 30% more likely to renew their contract compared to accounts that have no members in the community

This statistic shows that the Community directly impacts ACV – which is one of our top company priorities and health metrics.

Account Team Community Sign-ups Competition

Because the metrics above illustrate how crucial it is that every customer uses the Community, our team's #1 objective is to make sure every account has at least one active member in the Community (but hopefully even more). One of the things we do to increase community membership is hosting an annual competition among our CSMs to encourage their customers to sign up or log back into the Community Forums. Throughout the 3-week timeline, the CSMs with the most points get a nice reward. Here are the logistics:

• When a new user signs up for the Community Forum = 2 points to their CSM
• If an existing user logs back into the Community Forum (active user) = 1 point to their CSM

Using the power of Domo, we've created a leaderboard that updates in real time as CSMs accumulate points. The points are allotted automatically because of the integration we have between Domo + Vanilla. As we send out communications throughout the competition, our CSMs are reminded of the importance of the Community and want to share it with their customers. This has increased internal and external Community visibility.

Conclusion

The last 1.5 years has been substantial for our Community as we've implemented new programs and uncovered key statistics to measure our impact. Our Community is extremely active and engaged, which becomes a great selling point for prospective customers. Our Community members are passionate about our product and want to help and learn from each other.

I'd love to connect with you and answer any questions you may have about our Community program.

I used Claude to build a script to pull data, that was helpful.

Hi Community!

The Blackbaud Community hosts a quarterly Partner Spotlight Series webinar featuring partner solutions in 10-13 minute speed demos. The Spotlight Series is a valuable way for our members to discover and learn more about these partner solutions.

As the catalog of sessions grew, so did the need for a more intentional, scalable way to surface that content after the live events.

Instead of letting recordings live in disconnected posts or external libraries, I set out to create a centralized video repository within the community itself—one that felt cohesive and easy to maintain.

To do this, I built the Partner Spotlight Series page entirely from scratch using Vanilla’s custom pages functionality. Starting with a blank canvas gave me full control over layout. I was able to design the page with how members consume this type of content in mind.

One of the most impactful tools in this project was Vanilla’s new rich text editor. Using the editor’s flexible content blocks, I linked the video URLs hosted externally in Wistia while keeping the viewing experience seamless within the community page itself. This made it possible to leverage Wistia for video hosting and analytics, while still presenting the content natively to members. From a community perspective, this is a powerful reminder that you don’t have to choose between external tools and an integrated community experience—you can thoughtfully combine both.

I also used the same rich text editor blocks to add supporting resources beneath each webinar, including a call to action linked to an interest form and bulleted links to the Partners’ Blackbaud Marketplace listings.

This approach also ensured the page could evolve over time as new webinars are added, without requiring structural changes or additional development support.

This project reinforced an important principle: your community platform can be more than a place to host discussions—it can be a destination for curated, evergreen content. By combining custom pages with Vanilla’s widgets, it’s possible to turn one-time events into long term resources that continue to deliver value.