When I work with clients, one of the key things they want to understand is how they track community growth and react to the data they are seeing. This can be a complex business: community platforms provide bazillions of metrics. Which ones should you track? Or, should you track them all?
Definitely don’t track everything. That is a fast-track to driving yourself bonkers.
Much to the chagrin of metrics nerds, tracking too many things can be a distraction. A better approach is to decide on a key set of dimensions and track those things effectively. Focus less on the number of graphs and more what you want to learn from the data.
Today I want to recommend what some of these metrics should be. For the purpose of this article, I am using Discourse as an example; they are a platform I commonly I use with clients.
The graphs you will see below are from a client of mine who are running a fairly specialist niche technical community that pre-launched late last year (who gave me permission to anonymously share the graphs). This are early stages for the community, but I think they are making great traction and these these graphs are illustrative of what you might want to measure and how you evaluate the data.
AI-generated summary
According to erlend_sh, citing Jono Bacon’s article, tracking community growth in forums can be complex due to the numerous metrics available. Instead of tracking everything, it’s recommended to focus on key dimensions. Using Discourse as an example, Jono Bacon suggests identifying the most important metrics to track and evaluating the data effectively, rather than getting overwhelmed by multiple graphs. He shares an example of a client’s early-stage community growth data to illustrate what metrics to measure and how to interpret them.
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