I’ve seen talk about celebrating big membership spikes or post counts, and I want to throw in a perspective. Vanity metrics are the babysitting story we all know: telling the parent, “The kids had so much fun tonight!” while conveniently skipping over the fact that they didn’t eat dinner, stayed up until midnight, and never touched their homework. On the surface, it sounds like a win, but underneath, the stuff that really matters got missed.

That’s exactly what happens when you focus on likes, signups, or surface activity. It feels great to share those numbers, but that’s Return on Ego (ROE). It gets attention in the moment, yet it rarely proves anything about long-term community value.

The real measure is Return on Investment (ROI). Instead of saying, “We got 2,000 new members this month,” it sounds a lot more powerful to say, “Our community saved the support team 200 hours in tickets this quarter because members helped each other.” Or instead of bragging on 100 likes, you highlight how member feedback shaped a product update that reduced churn. That’s ROI, and it’s the version of the story that gets leadership to view the community as a business driver, not a side project.

ROE is a sugar rush. ROI is the lasting meal that sustains the whole system. If you want your community to have staying power, track and talk about the metrics that actually change outcomes, not the ones that just look shiny on a dashboard.

Vanity metrics feed the ego but don’t fuel community health or business goals. Think in terms of Return on Ego (ROE) versus Return on Investment (ROI) to make smarter choices that actually grow and Over the years sustain your community.