10 Ideas for Community Engagement to steal this week
If you've ever run a community, whether online or in real life there's something you've learned. Making people show up within a community is awesome. However, getting them involved and enthusiastic about being there is even better.
And sometimes that can be a challenge. It's sometimes difficult to get people to jump in and get engaged. There are those who prefer to sit on the sidelines for an extended period. If you're not able to keep participants to be involved it's possible that they might drop out completely from your community.
Let's get to the worrying stuff. There's a bright side, it's not really hard to get individuals involved in the community.
Actually, with the proper tools and strategies, you can get member engagement rolling next week.
What's the funniest thing about engagement? Engaging members can act as an iceberg. When more of your members are involved as they become engaged, the more people who are engaged help their fellow members get more engaged. So, the efforts you make to get your members involved will have long-term, lasting effects that you can't even imagine.
So if you're ready to get started with your community, these tips will assist. Here are 10 strategies for community engagement that to try this week!
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The article...
1. Customize the new member experience
5. Know your Ideal Member with a Big Purpose
1. Personalize your new member's user experience
Okay, let's talk about the most important point of a member's journey beginning with their first minutes, hours, and days in a community.
This is the most terrifying part for the new family member. This is like becoming the new student in school. It seems that everyone else knows each other and knows the situation, but it's not easy to be the first to get involved.
You need to create to provide to provide a fantastic welcome experience for new members. It is important to ensure that everyone who comes into your community understands how and where to begin. The goal is to get them into discussions to make them feel welcomed to show them where the opportunities are , and the possibilities, and let them know that you are there to help.
in an online community This can be accomplished through building a great online experience for new members.
As an example, in the Mighty Network, we created a new member checklist that you can customize and make your own. Everyone who joins the network sees this, and it walks them through the steps of setting up their member profile by saying "hello" in the community or asking their first question or responding for their first live event.
What you do with the experience is entirely up to you. However, what's certain is that an amazing user experience for new members won't be a disappointment to anyone. People will join and immediately begin taking part.
*We offer free classes on building a magical new members experience within the Mighty Community! *
2. Go live... a lot!
We love live streaming. It doesn't matter if it's an event planned or an unexpected surprise, live streaming adds an element of real in your online network.
Live streaming may be accompanied by the occasional "um", but don't get hung up on the. Even with all the flawlessly created social media channels available, a little bit of human nature is always welcome.
If you're looking to boost member engagement by going live frequently, you should try it. You can talk about what you've learned, chat with a community member or an outside guest, or even have an open-ended question-and-answer time or an An AMA.
And, before you ask Yes, the butterflies the moment you start live stream are completely normal. It's a little intimidating to stream live if you've never tried previously. If you rip off the Band-Aid and try it, you'll be amazed at what you'll see. Engagement is increased.
And by the way the presentation abilities of your students will improve over the course of time. The butterflies will also go away. Give it a go!
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3. Email updates
OK, now that you think about your community engagement strategy, think about the role of email.
One of the best things about an awesome community platform, especially one that comes with an amazing, integrated app, is that your users don't have to be bombarded with emails on everything. They should be getting notifications with their community platform (and an excellent platform will give them options to customize their notifications). ).
It gives you the chance to be really strategic about how you use email. There is no need for emailing your members every single day. But you can email information or let them be aware of certain events. If people have been away from the site for some time, this could be an effective strategy to bring them back.
And when life gets busy, which it does, a weekly roundup of the events in your community can help people stay connected and help them get ready to dive into the next round of activities.
4. Play with Incorporate
Community members should have fun. At times, we can have the tendency to become too serious, especially if members are charged for membership. It is possible that you are feeling the pressure to create an event that appears... "professional. "
There's a time and a place for that. It's not that we're saying you shouldn't behave professionally.
Being "professional" isn't always about that you have to be serious at all times. The best community will come with some fun built-in. If you are able to get your members laughing together, connecting over the vulnerability of being silly and playful, you will be building an amazing experience for your members.
Try incorporating some fun things. A virtual game show. Karaoke. The things that can break your community away from seriousness and build engagement with entertainment. If you are looking for ways to make your virtual events more enjoyable, we have a full collection of suggestions here.
5. Know your Ideal Member and Big Purpose
There's something that we recommend conducting during the planning phase of your community. It's called Community Design(tm). But even if you skipped this step at the time of planning It's not too late to do these exercises now.
Each community requires two essential elements. The first is that there must be an ideal member. It is essential to understand who your community is for. As specific as you can about these members; know who they are, what their goals and hopes as well as what they are passionate about.
If you develop a particular Ideal Memberfor your community, it can aid in the engagement of your community. Instead of throwing things against the wall and seeing the results, you'll be able to just focus on helping your
Ideal Members solve the problems that they are facing. It's a recipe for those who show up and participate.
The second part of this is to create what we refer to as the Big Purpose. The Big Purpose of your organization outlines what you are in your community and how you can aid them to achieve. This is how it looks.
And, by the way We offer absolutely free tutorials on how to identify both your Ideal Members and your main purpose in our mighty community.
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6. Moderate that thing
Having great community engagement does not just revolve around the things that are within your local community. The main thing is the fact that there are certain items that your community should not have.
And that's how a robust community moderation approach comes in.
The members of your community should feel secure in the community. They must be assured that they'll never be bullied, or harassed. They should trust that they won't see posts which are racist, sexist or homophobic or another form of discrimination.
If you're looking to build a community in which residents feel safe, you need to build an effective moderation plan. Make sure your users know what expectations they should be following, and remind the guidelines regularly. Do not be afraid to utilize the moderator tools available within your community platform to filter or remove inappropriate material. Consider securing the most active and loyal users to assist in the process of moderated content.
Moderation isn't super exciting at the outset. No one gets excited from sitting down and writing out guidelines.
However, we can assure you that the mental security of your community members will be worth it. If people are secure and secure, they're more inclined to be involved.
7. Create rituals
Imagine that you can travel back in time to those human settlements that were in existence hundreds of years ago. Our ancestors would gather around campfires. What was it that helped those communities stay together?
The main reason for communal bonding was the strength of rituals. Rituals were used to mark belonging in the community. They were used to mark major changes in life, such as the rituals that marked the transition between being a child and being an adult. Or, they were used to mark the passage of time. They were used to mark the passage of weeks, months and even years.
The community you live in can reap the power of rituals too. While you're going through your life as a member of your community, pay attention to moments that deserve to be performed in a ritual. Perhaps you've done something with new members and you'd like to continue doing to everyone, like the new member experience mentioned above. Perhaps once or twice a year, you hold a particular type of community-based event that people look forward to. Perhaps it's the monthly community happy hour.
In creating these events by naming these moments, and making them unique it is creating rituals. And that's just something humans have always done, making rituals a potent instrument for community involvement.
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8. Ask questions
As we've looked at the communities we've found one factor every time that has created involvement. This isn't a secret.
The point is...questions!
Questions can draw people in. The questions ask them to think about something. They force them to draw off their own experiences and knowledge, something we all get happy about. The short answer is that questions could be the key to member engagement.
We care about questions so much that we put together this fantastic guide for 1,000 discussion questions you can use to get your community talking. Get it here for free.
9. Go on quests
Another thing we've put into the game that we're really thrilled about. Quests. Just like knights from the past they take the community in a quest. And we have a full and free training on creating quests within Our Mighty Community too!
10. Unscript
Another tip for getting into the mind-blowing power of community engagement. Do you have the right tools?
Unscript.
Community managers is tempting to manage everything. It is tempting to scrub everything. To make everything look impeccable. But ask anybody who's lived in a community and they'll tell you that the most powerful moments are often the ones nobody expects. The unscripted ones.
It might be the live stream where the guest isn't allowed to participate and the discussion that follows ends in being much more effective than that session would be. It might be the moment where a community member breaks to tears as you watch the others jump into support and cheer their fellow members.
It's obvious that there's no way to plan for spontaneous events. This would be a detriment to the goal.
Do however create space and time to be with each other in ways that don't seem to be perfectly scripted, and be willing to let the magic happen.
11. Empower your best people
Community, as the word suggests, shouldn't be done on its own. And leadership of a community shouldn't be performed alone also.
One of the secrets to amazing community engagement is to draw people in rather than trying to make it a one-person show. It might mean formally hiring a community manager. However, often it is just that you empower the people who are there.
This can be done with something like an Ambassador Program, that gives your members a reward to invite new members. You could also consider promoting your most popular members to be co-hosts or moderators. This could be unpaid or paid positions or even moderators, and you may be stunned to learn those who are committed to your neighborhood love the opportunity to take on the role of a leader and dig deeper.
Are you ready to get started?
The tips we've provided should have you excited to bring an exciting new dimension to your neighborhood. Keep in mind that having thousands of members doesn't do much good in the absence of engagement. These tips can help you bring members to your community and maintain them. We've seen repeatedly, people may join the communities to benefit from classes, however people stay in communities long-term because of the bonds that they make there.
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