The 2022 Community Industry Report
Our annual report is here, packed with community industry trends, benchmarks, salary data, and more!
This Year’s Key Takeaways
01. Community management is moving from a growth to a mature industry.
22% report having a dedicated community department, up from 15% last year. Community roles are also becoming more specialized, with 35% of teams having at least one person focused full-time on Community Operations.
02. Organizations believe in the value of community, but continue to struggle to measure that value.
87% agree community is critical to the company’s mission and 79% believe community has had a positive impact on their organization’s objectives. But, only 10% say they can financially quantify the value of their community and only one-third can connect their community data to their customer data.
03. The community software market is a blue ocean, with no clear winners (yet).
90% of community programs include an online forum/message board. However, the range of tools used to host communities is vast. The most common platforms businesses use to host their online communities are free tools like Slack, Facebook, and Discord, but the platforms that they’re most satisfied with are white-labeled tools like Khoros, Discourse, and Discord.
04. In-person is making a comeback AND virtual is here to stay.
29% of communities hosted an in-person event in 2021, despite the surge of COVID-19. 90% of those who host events for their community report hosting virtual events in 2021. 72% of those plan to offer the same number or more virtual events in 2022. Almost 4 in 5 community professionals who haven’t hosted in-person hybrid events yet plan to do so when it is safe to gather.
05. Community-led events are gaining in popularity.
44% of those who run events report that some or all of their events are community-led (hosted by members). 25% of those who have community-led events just started them in the past year. Of those who are not yet running community-led events, 49% plan to do so in the coming year.
06. Communities are cautiously dipping their toes into Web 3.0
15% of communities are actively working on Web 3.0 focused projects and an additional 17% are considering it. Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) are the most common form of Web 3.0 project that community teams are working on.
07. Community programs are increasingly focused on driving growth.
19% of community programs are focused on acquisition as their top objective, up from 13% last year. Customer support and success continue to be the most popular objectives, but customer support decreased slightly from 26% last year to 24% this year. This represents a shift in how businesses are thinking about the value and focus of community.
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