Ever since starting Jenny.Community, Notion has been the most talked about tool I’ve heard of in my work circles. “Do you have a Notion for that?” “Are you on Notion?” “Oh, you should make that in Notion.” I couldn’t help but wonder…what IS Notion?!
Finally, I set up an account and gave things a try, and naturally, I had questions. What’s the first thing I do in a situation like this? I check to see if they have a community. And they most certainly do!
What I love:
Strong international user group presence. I counted 32 locations around the globe, and that’s only listing the groups with at least 50 members. That’s pretty darn impressive for a site that launched only 5 years ago! In addition, I love that the information on HOW to start a new location is easily accessed and understandable.
Smart partnership with social media creators. Notion offers the opportunity to sponsor creators who meet certain criteria. While it’s not clear as to the details of a sponsorship, it’s a smart move to utilize the Notion fans and reward them in some way.
ALL of the essential onboarding info is one place. The community home page lists everything a new member needs to know about where to find their preferred Notion community and the rules and opportunities associated with being a member.
The Ambassador Program. You know I’m a sucker for a program like this! I believe that every ambassador program should have a “program home page” such as this one. It addresses every aspect: how to join, who can join, benefits of joining, expectations, etc. It’s through and clear, and honestly, the only thing I would add are some testimonial bubbles and pics from current program members.
My wish list:
One community, on one platform. If I could offer one tip to the Notion Community, it would be this one. The home page today is actually more like a directory. As Notion evolves as a company, I’d love to see them centralize onto ONE platform. I know…that won’t be easy. My worry is that, by having so many different communities on different platforms (all linked on this page), users are missing out on a true unified experience with all of the other community members. For example, someone might feel more connected to the Discord community and identify as a Discord Notion member, while people in the Facebook Group identify with that community, and each are missing out on the great knowledge being shared in the other platform. Also, a centralized community will be easier to measure to prove success in the future. I could go on and on and on about the benefits of doing this…but that’s another post for another day.
Make the submission of templates a member benefit. From what I can tell, it looks like anyone can submit to the Template Gallery. But what if only community members could do? Notion would probably see a spike in community registrations if so.
List the Community as an official resource. Because it is! Today, on the home page for Notion, there’s a Resources section in the top menu. Adding Community to that drop-down would not only be informative, but it would also likely generate a lot more traffic to the Community home page.
In the end, I found the answers I was looking for, so kudos to Notion’s community team and users! And now, I also have a fun new tool to use for my business and my clients 😃. (Special thanks to Danielle Maveal for taking the time to show me how she uses Notion!)
What do YOU think of the Notion Community? If you’re reading this in your inbox, just hit reply to send me your response privately. If you’d like to share publicly, scroll to the comments section below (or, again, if you’re reading this in your inbox, click on the title at the top of the email. Then, scroll down to the comments section.)
This is part of a weekly series where I’ll select a community I’m inspired by and write about it. Sometimes they’ll be ones that I’m a member of. Sometimes they won’t. Sometimes they’ll be clients. Sometimes they won’t. Each post will share what I enjoy the most about that community, and if you’re familiar with it, I hope you’ll share what you like about it, too.
Do you have a nominee for Community of the Week? If so, send me a brief email with the name, URL, and a few sentences as to why I should highlight it and check it out.
Lessons From 10 Years in the Field of Community
If you’re curious to know a bit more about me, and how I got into this field, check out this podcast episode, hosted by my dear friend Pablo Gonzalez. Clicking the image below will open Apple Podcasts, but the show is also available on Spotify.
Replays from Community Thrive now available
Did you miss the recent Community Thrive Virtual Summit? Good news! Replays of all sessions are now available. There was a wealth of great community knowledge shared that day, including my talk about how to align in-person events with your community (starts at 20 seconds in).
Random
Community Memes Galore (Miro board created by Rosie Sherry). You’re welcome.
Community of the Week: Notion
Love your point about having a dedicated page for your ambassador program!
I really love few things you mentioned and I totally agree with you. 1. Unified experience is the most important one 2. For sure, it should be part of resource
Adding to your suggestion : Template submission made only for community members further adding to this - Only members of the community can submit the template that has 3 votes from the community or minimum vote. Community is all about inclusion and this could help in creating that bond and others would automatically want to share something that community likes and with this validation the templates can be ranked too and members can further benefit from max used templates that come from community gets template of the day types
PS: Love this post and I am going to check this regularly.
- Varu Dwarak