Engagement. This is one of the most used words in the community building industry. Every community manager strives to foster as engaged a community as possible. The more meaningfully engaged a community is, the more value it brings to its members and to the company.
The most challenging thing is coming up with new meaningful activities and ideas to engage. Your community is constantly evolving, and every new member brings something new to the community, so with every single new person, the community evolves. That’s why it’s so important to have tools and methods for how to get to know your community members. What are the current needs of the community? How do you fulfill these needs? These are questions that every community manager should ask themselves daily.
Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to community engagement. So, experiment constantly! You will see that regardless of what specific strategy works for your community members, it’s all about learning by doing. Some things will fail and some tactics will succeed. It is essential to make your members feel special and that being a part of the community is a must.
What is the main activity?
The first step when you try to increase community engagement is thinking about the purpose of community and activities which lead to fulfilling the community’s purpose. What do you consider a core member activity, and what do you want your members to wind up doing? For instance, in an in-person community the types of activities might be the following:
- Participation at a community event
- Newsletter open rate
- Hosting an event for the community
- Providing feedback on your services
- You name it…
After identifying what activity means to you, you can start thinking about intensity. How often do you want your members to attend an event in a year? How often do you want them to provide you feedback? This exercise will help you to segment your community members in terms of engagement. You can divide your community between active, neutral and passive members. Next, it’s time for the most interesting part of the process – which strategy are you going to choose? Perhaps focusing on how to make “neutral members” more active? Or how to move “passive members” to “neutral members,” or how to motivate active members to stay active? There are lots of options.
Some tips for community engagement:
- Host events and talk to people at these events.
- Empower your members to organize events for your community.
- Create community rituals.
- Welcome new members
- Empower introductions among community members.
- Ask for feedback on how to make the community better.
- Involve your members in designing the way you offer services.
Did you know that Spaceflow helps with community engagement in spaces? In the Spaceflow app you can organize events, run contests, ask users their opinions in polls, bring regular yoga or pilates classes into your space, promote discounts and perks, and much more! Do you want to learn more about Spaceflow? Find out more here.
