Closeness Circles: Scale Communities with Trust-Based Communication Systems
A solid Community Architecture includes contribution-based layers of intimacy and interaction. That's what the concentric Closeness Circles framework is about.
“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”
―Ernest Hemingway
There are some things you share first with your family, and some you tell your closest friends - but wouldn’t share on social media. Having layers of communication is natural to humans. Our relationships grow from interactions which create familiarity and trust. The key variable for closeness is vulnerability.
Trust is both built and maintained by authentic communication. The closer you get to someone, the deeper your conversation becomes, the more you commit by sharing and communicating authentically with them. In most cases, people will become aware of their privilege - being trusted - and reciprocate by also sharing openly and communicating with you authentically. Trust is a two-way road.
Your responsibility as a community builder is to create communication systems that build and maintain trust.
This concentric Closeness Circles framework illustrates a communication system with multiple levels of intimacy and interaction. In practice, each layer represents a unique cadence (frequency) and depth (intimacy) of communication between you and other people within your community.
Its purpose is not to place people in bubbles but to help you organize your communication, creating a system that:
Strengthens bonds with those you’re closer with;
Allows newcomers to step closer to your core at their own pace.
Let’s dive in.
The Closeness Circles: Trust Leads to Growth
As your community grows, you inevitably create space for new roles within it.
A well-designed communication system allows people in the outer layers to get to know you better while growing into a closer level of trust, and rewards people in the innermost circle for their contribution.
The variable in this diagram is vulnerability. The closer to the core, the more vulnerable you are with the people included.
The best way for a member to move deeper into the core of the Closeness Circles is through wholehearted (genuine) contribution. The closer to your inner circles, the more their role in the community becomes essential.
Those who feel the most belonging will likely develop a sense of ownership towards it and raise their hands to help it grow. Ownership leads to higher contribution. Your top contributors are often the ones you must communicate with the most. As relationships deepen, so does communication. By allowing people to create value within your community, you welcome highly committed members to your core circle, making space for them to step into your inner circle.
Closeness brings in more intimate conversations, which implies trust.
Exploring Closeness Circles
1: Core
2: Inner circle
3: Network
4: Crowd (beyond the circle, outer layer)
The more inward we dive, the deeper we go within a community.
For example: sharing something with your broader network that has not yet been communicated to your team is unreasonable.
The more aware they are of the happenings, the shortcomings, and the latest news, the closer they feel to you. In other words, communication can build trust and engineer closeness levels within your community. Most importantly, belonging to these layers must be a transparent and merit-driven process based on how much people have given back to the community. It is not a competition.
Belonging to the innermost circles should not represent a reward, although it should be an honor to belong there. The most collaborative are likely get in first.
The core and inner circles should be represented by the people who have given the most to your community, worked the hardest to give back to others and helped create a safe space for everyone.
Practical notes:
Number of Layers: I advise thinking of three levels as a minimum because it helps build and keep balance within a community.
When there are only two levels, you can create an inside/outside dynamic with some people boasting or trying to attain the power they do not own. In contrast, others may feel excluded, compromising the sense of trust and safety in the community. At three levels, you lessen the risk of polarity—from there, you can grow into more layers outwards, depending on the complexity of your community.
Transparency: While the structure of the closeness circles may be evident to someone at the core level, it often remains undisclosed to those in the outer layers to avoid creating negative group dynamics where newcomers feel excluded.
It really depends on the intention of your community to define if these communication layers are evident or remain undisclosed to newcomers. For instance, in some cases you can leverage transparency as a motivation for members to become top contributors. For example, some communities choose to advertise the benefits of becoming an Ambassador and lay a path for people to join their Advocacy Program.
User Contribution Journey and Lifecycle: if translated into a linear framework, the Closeness Circles would reflect your User Contribution Journey and Lifecycle. Generally, these imply transparency: allowing people to see a clear path ahead, from new member to top contributor. I’ll delve deeper into these concepts in my next article. For a quick overview:
User Contribution Journey: defines a clear path for people to grow within your community (through participation and contribution), from new to top contributors.
User Contribution Lifecycle: data-driven understanding of the time elapsed from the moment someone joins your community as a new member to when they become a top contributor, and finally to when they "retire" and open space for new top contributors.
These frameworks help you sustainably architect your community by defining 1) how members can actively contribute to delivering your core value proposition and 2) how long they will do that.
Core Circle vs. Cool Kids Club
While people at the very core of your community become a crucial part of it, it is essential to note that walking into your inner circle should not resemble joining a Cook Kids Club.
The ones closest to the core get insider benefits and privileged information, but also more responsibilities. They must keep acting towards the common good and represent the community, ensuring their actions and words reflect its core.
In absolute: people closer to the core and inner circle should not be people-pleasers who consider themselves more special than the rest. They are, first, committed to giving. Belonging to your inner circle should be a merit-driven privilege. A contribution-led system might also increase the odds that your inner circle feels like a diverse collection of top contributors - instead of a self-serving squad of “like-minded-peeps” and “look-alikes.”
Diversity ensures representation, which means a broader range of ways of thinking and feeling are covered. Statistically speaking, diversity also says good things about you and other leaders within your community: you’re welcoming people based on shared values represented by actions.
Being closer to the inner circles of a community doesn’t mean a reward, although it is a position of honor. It is a place reached by those who give first, work harder, and help others more frequently.
The core circle of a community is a place meant for those who help your community grow - and make more space for others. It belongs to the high contributors who live by your community values and express it daily.
The Process of Getting Closer
It’s likely your closest friends are people you’ve known for a long time or have been with you through ups and downs. They might be people you’ve known since childhood, with whom you spent much time or shared intense experiences.
While you are likely to grow closer to people who have been in your community for extended periods, different variables matter to building closeness. There are other factors that contribute to relationship-building, beyond time.
Last article, when describing the variables we can control to Engineer Serendipity, we’ve mentioned frequency, density (relevance) and catalysts.
For example, it is also likely that you build faster ties with a close friend’s friend (inherited trust). Your close friend plays a catalytic role in this case. In another example, the frequency of encounters between people and their level of engagement with others highly influences how close they get to your community’s core over time.
Regardless of how long a person has been in your community, some people become intimate faster by adding value first. Usually, these fast-contributors are people who intrinsically share . They are people who:
Have a predisposition to “give before taking” (Abundance mindset);
Comprehend (and deeply believe) that “we rise by lifting others” (Humility);
Act accordingly to these values with sincerity (Authenticity).
In doing so, they naturally act per the core values of the community: Abundance, Authenticity and Humility (as seen in this article).
[Bonus Track] Origins of the Closeness Circles
The Closeness Circles framework is inspired by Robin Dunbar, an anthropologist and psychologist whose work gave rise to the idea that a person’s network could reach no more than 150. This is a simplification. Dunbar meant that our direct contact group is within a range of one hundred to two hundred people, depending on how social you are. These are the people you’d call for a large party.
There are also different layers to this network. The closest five are the most essential to you, including family members. Next, there are around fifteen people you would call your closest friends. Then, up to fifty are the ones you’re likely to invite to a casual party. From fifty to 150 are the rest of your friend group. The groups could also grow beyond 150 to five hundred—your acquaintances—and out to 1,500, representing your broader network.
I developed the closeness circles by considering a simplified version of Dunbar’s theory. At the very center are your core people. In the outer layer, your inner circle. In the third and outermost layer, your network.
These circles, together, represent your community.
You could draw more layers within your community, but I prefer keeping it simple. These categories are the fundamental ones. You can add layers as they fit your needs. For example, in a company, the circles could comprise:
1. At its core, our team
2. At the second layer, clients and the advisory board
3. At its third layer, partners and ambassadors
4. At fourth, our community (regular readers and subscribers)
5. At its final layer, our broader network
This structure defines how you should design communication systems and relate with different community members.
Next Steps
Draft your community Closeness Circles based on the ideas we’ve explored.
Below, I’ve shared an example I used with a company I founded in 2017. Note that it was a consulting business, in which I considered the clients my closest fellows after my team because I wanted them to feel that way.
Whenever good news came, my team would hear about it first, and then they would prepare an appropriate communication to my clients via email. Partners and ambassadors would listen later. Our crowd of loyal subscribers would hear about it through the monthly newsletter. The broader network would find out through public media (news channels and social media). This way, our clients felt close to us, even in minor details. By organizing our communication system to include “closeness” as a variable, we could engineer belonging and make some key people understand how special they were to us.
This example merely illustrates how your communication strategy (channels, message, frequency) can be conceptualized and organized by the Closeness Circles.
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In my next Article, we’ll dive deeper into User Contribution Journey and Lifecycle. Would love to hear your thoughts and experiences with the Closeness Circles Framework, in the meantime.
Note: the contents from these article are adapted and updated from Chapter 17 (From Seed Head to Flying: Closeness Circles) of Hacking Communities.