# Create communities and groups

Communities and groups let you organize imported videos around a shared theme, audience, or use case inside your Business Account. You can build them out manually with custom names and settings, or let Genuin auto-curate them for you as videos are imported.

This guide walks through creating a community, configuring its settings, creating groups within it, and using both when importing videos.

## **Overview**

A **community** is the top-level container tied to your brand. Each community can hold multiple **groups**, which are more specific collections within that community (for example, a "Travel Footwear" community might contain "Hiking" and "Trail Running" groups).

You don't have to create communities and groups manually — Genuin can auto-curate them based on the videos you import. Manual creation is useful when you want a specific name, structure, or set of permissions.

## **1. Create a community**

1. From the Manage module, go to the **Communities** section. If you haven't created any communities yet, you'll see an empty state with a **New Community** option.
2. Click **New Community**.
3. Enter a **name** for the community (for example, "Traveling Footwear").
4. Set the **community handle**. You can either type a custom handle or let Genuin generate one automatically from the community name.
5. Enter the **purpose** of the community.
6. Choose the community's visibility — **Public** or **Private**. You can change this later.
7. Click **Create Community**.

On success, you'll see a confirmation and be redirected to the new community's page. The community is created under your brand, and you're automatically added as its owner and sole member.

## **2. Edit community details**

From the community page, you can update most settings at any time:

- **Name and purpose** — Editable at any time; changes save and reflect immediately.
- **Handle** — Cannot be changed after creation.
- **Image and banner** — Upload your own, or generate one with AI. Enter a prompt describing what you want and click **Generate**. Click **Accept** to use the result, or generate again if it doesn't fit.
- **Community links** — Optional links to related pages (for example, a discussion page), if you want to point members elsewhere.

### **Switch community visibility**

If you created a community as Public and want to restrict it later:

1. Open **General** settings.
2. Click **Private**.
3. Confirm the switch when prompted.

The community becomes visible only to members who already have access.

## **3. Manage members**

You can add members to a community using their **email, phone number, Genuin ID**, or by **importing a list**.

1. Go to the community's member settings.
2. Add a member using one of the available methods.
3. Click **Add Members**.
4. Refresh the page to see the new member listed.

### **Set group creation permissions**

Under **General** settings, choose who can create groups within the community:

- **All community members** — Any listed member can create a group.
- **Admins only** — Only members with admin rights can create groups.

By default, the community owner is automatically an admin. You can grant admin rights to other members from this same settings page — adding a member as admin gives them group-creation rights when the permission is set to admins only.

### **Add community guidelines**

You can add guidelines to set expectations for the community:

1. Use one of the suggested guideline templates, or
2. Add a custom guideline with your own **title** and **description**.

This step is optional.

## **4. Create a group**

Groups live inside a community, so a community must exist before you can create a group.

1. From an open community, click **Create Group**. The community destination is pre-filled with the community you're currently in.
2. Enter a **group name** (for example, "Hiking").
3. Enter a **description**. It's recommended to write a description that reflects the type of content you plan to curate into the group — this makes it easier to import and organize videos consistently later.
4. Click **Create Group**.

On success, you'll see a confirmation. Click **Done** to see the new group listed under the community, along with:

- **Created by** — shows the brand ID that created it.
- **Posts, subscribers, and members** — empty until you add content or members.

### **Edit a group**

Open a group to reach its edit page, where you can update its details. You can also reach this page from **Manage Group** in the group listing.

Changes save and reflect immediately.

### **Set group visibility**

From the group's edit page, choose who can see the group:

- **Visible to everyone**
- **Group members only** — requires the group to have members added.

As with communities, the owner is automatically a member. Add more members from the group's member settings as needed.

### **Create a group from the Groups section**

You can also create a group directly from **Manage Groups** rather than from within an open community:

1. Click **Create Group**.
2. Since no community is pre-selected here, choose the **community destination** manually.
3. Enter a group name and description.
4. Set visibility (for example, **group members only**).
5. Click **Create Group**.

The new group appears both in **Manage Groups** and under its parent community.

You can repeat this process to build out multiple communities and groups.

## **5. Use communities and groups when importing videos**

Once your communities and groups exist, you can use them to organize imported videos:

1. Go to **Import Videos** and choose **Social Import**.
2. Add a handle, or import videos directly.
3. Select **Communities and Groups**. You'll see the communities and groups you've created.
4. Choose which to use, or click **Auto-Curate** to let Genuin generate a community and group automatically based on the imported videos.
5. Click **Select All** to apply auto-curation.

### **How auto-curation resolves conflicts**

When you auto-curate, Genuin first checks whether a video fits into a community you already created manually:

- **If it matches** an existing manually created community, the auto-curated suggestion is discarded and the video is added to your existing community instead.
- **If it doesn't match** any existing community, the video is added to the new auto-curated community.

This keeps manually curated communities and groups as the source of truth, while still giving you an organized fallback for everything else.

***Note***:

When a user creates a brand network relation through **Retail, Consumer, or Media**, and provides **Community Content Access** while creating the relation, the associated communities and groups are also automatically listed under **Manage → Community** and **Manage → Group**, respectively. Therefore, [creating a network relation is another way for communities and groups to be added to a brand.](https://begenuin.com/developers/get-started/business-account/how-do-you-connect-your-brand-network-and-add-consumer-brands)

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Related Links:\
[How Do You Configure Settings in your Business Account for Full Control and Governance?](https://begenuin.com/developers/get-started/business-account/how-do-you-configure-settings-in-the-business-account-for-full-control-and-governance)

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