Any creator who has tried to create a thriving community knows that it's vital to keep members engaged. But figuring out how to create a more interactive and energizing experience for your community members is worth the trial and error to figure it out.

This is why you probably need a community engagement strategy for your brand. Imagine if you could inject a spark into your online community. Imagine if members came online to talk to each other and not just to you. Imagine a space where people feel inspired and engaged.

That’s what a good community engagement strategy does. Learning how to engage community members means less work for you, more interactivity between your members, and more growth for your brand.

And in this post, we’re going to show you some amazing community engagement strategies that you can implement this week.

Try these 11 community engagement tips and watch what happens!

11 effective community engagement strategies

1. Build a dedicated community space

Maybe it’s not a huge surprise we’d lead with this, since we build these types of spaces. Obviously we care a lot about dedicated community spaces!

But seriously, this is such an important step and so many people don’t get it. If you throw your efforts into creating content in a space where your members can’t see or engage with it, you’re wasting your time!

This is exactly what happens for many people who have built a following on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

They have hundreds, and even thousands of followers, yet they hear crickets when they post. (BTW, did you know Facebook makes you PAY to reach your own followers?)

Having more followers—the metric that seems to matter most on social media—doesn’t always translate to engagement. In fact, it’s challenging for creators to foster interactions between their followers because these platforms weren’t made for that.

If you’re a creator who is trying to build and grow your community, then the most important step you can take is creating an actual community space for your followers. This actually moves them from being followers to being members of a community. (You can find out what the difference is in this post)

If you’ve got a dedicated community space where members can feel safe enough to be vulnerable, share ideas, and learn from each other, you’ve taken a vital step towards better community engagement.

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2. Have clear ground rules

So how do you get that place where people feel safe enough to be vulnerable, to ask questions, and to engage?

You definitely need some ground rules. After you’ve created a community space for your members, the next community engagement tip is to build out guidelines and moderation practices.

It’s no secret that when you’re dealing with online communities, everyone has different expectations for what are acceptable ways of interacting and what aren’t. Creating a set of rules and guidelines for your members for how they are expected to interact and what is allowed/not allowed is important.

If you’re worried that limiting people will actually stop community engagement, don’t. While it might be a counterintuitive community engagement strategy, when every member is on the same page about what’s expected of them, they will actually feel more comfortable posting and interacting with others.

One final thing about moderation. While you may have to moderate at the beginning, choosing loyal members in your community to be moderators down the line is a great way to reward those who have stuck around and kept the group energized. If you have clear ground rules, they'll be able to do this work well.

3. Create a strong ‘new member’ welcome experience

Who doesn’t LOVE to feel welcomed when they join a group? We all do! And that’s why making sure that your members feel noticed and valued right from the start is an incredibly effective community engagement tactic.

Creating a welcome experience for your members can be as simple as setting up an automated message that addresses them by name, directs them to the community guidelines, and maybe even invites them to post a short bio in their member profile or on a discussion board.

We’re big fans of having an “Introduce Yourself” post in your community space where all of your members can respond to the same set of questions and then comment on each other’s posts.

Not only is this a great way to facilitate interactions between your members, but it’s a simple way to quickly get to know them without asking them questions individually.

4. Get clear on your ideal member

If you’ve got a community full of people who are in totally different places and there for totally different reasons, you’re going to struggle. No magical community engagement strategy can fix this.

That’s why you should get clear on who your ideal member is from the start. We suggest interviewing a handful of people to find out a transformation they’re trying to go through on their own. Look for similar threads between your potential members, and get clear on their pain points and how you might help.

Getting this clear ideal member and understanding the journey you’ll take together is a vital step in community engagement that will pay off later!

5. Create a Community Design™ plan

“What should I do in the community this week? I guess I’ll do a poll and maybe post about what I had for breakfast.”

It’s clear that a lot of people who start communities don’t always think through what the design of their community should actually look like. As a result, they often end up throwing things against the wall to see what sticks or treating their community like any other social media platform.

But did you know that a great Community Design™ plan will save you work? You’ll end up needing to create less content and you’ll be more successful because of it.

Why?

Because great community design gets really clear on the journey your members will take.

• Where will they be in a year? (We call this “A Year in the Life.”)


• What monthly themes will support this journey?


• What weekly conversations are required to help your members move the needle in their life?

We like to use a Big Purpose statement like this:

Learn more about Community Design™

6. Be a responsive leader

Building an online community is different from building a following online.

When you’re gaining followers, you’re usually trying to get people to interact with your posts—the focus is on you.

In community, by contrast, your goal isn’t to have all the answers or be the center of the conversation. Your goal is to get the conversation started, to facilitate, and to encourage others to take part!

It’s a great community engagement strategy to show that you’re invested in what your members are doing. That can mean spending time each day commenting on member posts with feedback, a simple ‘good job,’ or something else.

But there’s another reason to be a responsive leader and it goes to one of our other community engagement tips. When members see how you, the leader of the community interacts with others, they can follow your example.

In practice, your actions should be an embodiment of the community guidelines you created.

7. Charge for membership

It might seem counterintuitive, but we’ve done the research.

Online communities that charge have the highest engagement—across the board. In fact, out of over 11,000 Mighty Networks, the ones that charge have an 11-37% higher engagement rate.

If you’re hesitant about charging something for your community, let these numbers convince you.

Why does it work like this?

Well, it’s simple really. People value what they pay for.

Put differently, if they don’t pay something, they’re less likely to value it.

That’s why, one of the simplest and best community engagement strategies is to charge something.

8. Experiment with content

If you build your community space on an online community platform then you will have the ability to create a wide variety of content. Experimenting with what works and what doesn’t is a vital community engagement strategy, because you can find out what goes and what… well… flops.

What might that look like in practice?

Try stuff! How about polls that require little input but—as our research shows—most people engage with? Why not try a feature member day, where you celebrate one member’s story? How about Motivation Monday, where you get community members to share what motivates them?

And don’t get stuck only posting text-based content. Consider utilizing features such as live and pre-recorded video, pictures and graphics, and audio posts. Some people might not have the time to interact with a long article, but they could have a few minutes to interact with one of these other options.

Ultimately, don’t be afraid to experiment with what’s going to work for your community!

Creating a diverse repertoire of content is an incredibly effective way to increase community engagement.

9. Encourage members to tell their stories

If you want an online community filled with members that interact, you’ll need to encourage them to share their stories. After all, we all have stories to tell about our wins and losses. They don’t take much preparation to share, and they’re true to us.

That’s why storytelling is at the heart of any great community engagement strategy.

You can kick off by having members share their stories when you welcome new members to the community. Encourage members to fill out their profiles. This will make it much easier for people to tell the group what they are all about, where they are from, and maybe even some fun facts.

As the host, you can use your members’ stories as content! Spotlight people in your community when they do something exceptional. Acknowledge and feature great comments and celebrate your members’ vulnerability. Thank them for trusting you with their stories.

It’s these stories that will forge strong bonds between your members and that’s why celebrating storytelling is a vital community engagement strategy.

10. Plan live events

Community engagement isn't just built in the comments! One of the best places to foster engagement is in your community events.

It can be easy to fall into the trap of simply posting content, commenting on members’ posts, and bouncing.

But if you can offer your members things to look forward to in the future, you will increase the energy and excitement of your community.

Even in an online community, there are plenty of tools at your disposal. Consider having a Zoom meeting or happy hour where members can get together for a casual hangout (Mighty Networks makes this super easy to schedule). OR, you can go live! (Watch Tom Buck talk about how he's using the Go Live feature in his Mighty Network)

And of course, you can try hosting a virtual event with some guest speakers, presentations, or talks that your members can come to and interact with.

Your events can and should include opportunities for teaching and learning. But before you exhaust yourself trying to create three webinars a month to teach a skill, remember that some of the greatest community engagement moments will come from the unscripted events: the hangouts, Q&As, happy hours, etc.

Don’t get caught in the trap of thinking that every community event needs to be a dump of information! Focus on connection instead.

11. Create subgroups

Within any great community are people with a common goal, but different needs and experiences. That’s why creating subgroups can be a great community engagement strategy!

For example, if you run a community for visual artists, are there different art mediums that might be subtopics (i.e. watercolor, oil, collage)? Are there people with different life experiences or identities (i.e. stay-at-home dads, working millenials, first-time grandmas)?

Sometimes creating a subgroup that can narrow in on specific interests or needs of your community members can be a great way to boost engagement.

But be careful. Creating too many subgroups, spreading your membership too thin, could split focus too much and make the subgroups likely to fail. Plus, you still want your members to put engagement effort into the main community, and not spend all their focus in a subgroup.

So, subgroups are a great idea! But should be done intentionally.

It's best to experiment by starting with a small number of subgroups and expand if they’re needed!

Conclusion

These 11 community engagement strategies are guaranteed to take your online community to the next level of connection! Have you tried them?

We’ve covered a lot of different ways for creators like you to plan effective community engagement strategies, but none of these matter if you don’t choose a great online community platform.

The best online community platforms will give you powerful, flexible, and easy-to-use tools to continue growing your community and providing your members with unique experiences they can’t get anywhere else.

And that’s what we’ve created at Mighty Networks, a great space that’s all yours to create online courses, offer memberships, host virtual events, and go live! All this across web, iOS, and Android.

So, if you're looking for a home for your new or existing online community, come try it out for free today!

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Now Read: 11 Types of Online Communities That Thrive