Signal
A meaningful observation from community, ambassadors, support, or content performance (friction, requests, language patterns, objections) that can be tagged, routed, and acted on.
Last updated: December 12, 2025
Definition
A meaningful observation from community, ambassadors, support, or content performance (friction, requests, language patterns, objections) that can be tagged, routed, and acted on.
In practice
- Capture signals with a minimal schema and route them into product decisions, docs, and journeys.
- Close loops publicly when possible (ship → return to the original thread with the outcome).
Common mistakes
- Leaving signals to rot in a UI (no tagging, no owner, no status).
- Collecting “insights” without tying them to entities (hard to act on or measure).
Related terms
- Entity model — A small, stable set of entities (problems, use cases, roles/personas, industries, etc.) and their fields/relationships that power content, analytics, automation, and LLM retrieval.
- Signal schema — A minimal, consistent set of fields for capturing signals so Product, Sales, and Support can act without losing context (source, ICP segment, lifecycle stage, tags, severity, status, and link).
- Loops (community operating system) — The repeatable mechanisms that turn community work into a compounding engine: presence loop, signal loop, conversion loop, reliability loop, and personalization loop.
- Conversion engine (if → then rules) — A lightweight ruleset that turns repeated questions and high-signal threads into durable assets (docs, templates, pSEO pages) instead of re-answering forever.
- Traits — Machine-readable tags derived from page views and behavior (tied to entities) that feed analytics, automation, and CRM without manual interpretation.