If you are seeking community building answers today is your day! I joined a Q&A with the Swarm Hive Community. Here are a few questions that have already been asked, along with my answers. I hope that this helps you as you consider building, launching, and growing an online community. 🙂
“What are the most common pitfalls you see when communities are launching or re-launching? How do you help clients avoid them?”
The most common things I see that clients do that slow or halt a launch or relaunch:
I see community builders trying to launch several initiatives at the same time. If you are launching a course, stick with that for now. Then decide after the course ends if you want to do a membership.
I recommend clients put their ideas for community into phases, so that we can tackle one at a time. For example, focus on beginners. They are new to what your topic is. Decide on the journey they will have in your course, program, or membership.
Start with a 30-day challenge, a 90-day cohort, or a 6-month coaching program. Start and end dates help your members and you know when it will no longer be happening. They can make plans on their calendar for events. They can decide if they want to invest, and if they are ready to start this new adventure. You will get “YES” much faster when having a specific program.
You will want to consider something smaller. This can help you align your ideal member with your community concept.
I help clients with this by guiding them to decide which one of their ideas to focus on first. As they grow, I watch what naturally arises from members in the community.
The important thing is that they focus on alignment of business goals with community member interest and participation.
“There’s often a gap between content creation and actual member engagement. What strategies have you found most effective in bridging this disconnect?”
Content creation is something that you create with your community members. I believe this: Create only the content that members want. Members will then be more engaged in the process. Creating content with them also enhances their engagement.
Many of my clients think that they need a lot of content to start a course, program, or membership. The truth is that you need to spend more time dialing in your community concept. You need to get validation from potential ideal members. Work with a founding member cohort to decide on the content.
A course, for example, can have an outline with recommended resources (books, podcasts). You don’t need to record a video. You can simply have a discussion about the topic and/or the resources shared in the course.
Content isn’t what is most interesting to members. Connection is what keeps members engaged. Find ways to connect your members and have them share their thoughts, ideas, and content.
The way to bridge this disconnect is by knowing who is in the room. Ask them to introduce themselves and explain why they have joined this community. Start a conversation during a “Welcome Party.” If you can use Zoom, you can set up breakout rooms. Doing this creates a sense of intimacy. This is required for people to connect and bond with each other.
“Could you walk us through your process for helping clients find their ideal community members? What aspects do people often overlook?”
Yes, I have found that doing ideal member interviews or chats with potential members is helpful. These conversations help to see if you are connected to their problem. They also reveal how the community is a possible solution or refuge for them in a challenging situation.
I have written this out in my book, Creator to Community Builder. I call it the IDEA framework, which stands for Identify, Discover, Evaluate, and Assemble. The most common part of community building that most people overlook is discovery — it makes all the difference. Approaching a launch with validated concepts is way easier to sell than a strategy that includes no feedback.
Identify:
The first step in building an online community is to know who you are bringing together. This can be the most challenging part because your community concept serves different people. The key to creating a sense of belonging in an online community is to clearly define who it’s for. You must also clearly define who it isn’t for. When others hear about your community, they should know easily if they belong. Community is about exclusion, which can be counter intuitive, since you will define who, essentially, “doesn’t belong.”
Discover:
When working with clients, I am often asked about what “discovery” means when it comes to launching an online community. It is a process in which you become curious about who will make up your online community. It means getting to know actual humans. This requires a few skills. All of these skills can be learned, developed, or resourced.
Discovery interviews can help you answer your questions before you launch a community. I recommend speaking on a phone call or a Zoom call with at least ten ideal members. These are people who have expressed interest by answering your social media posts. They may also have responded to an advertisement or filled out an application to be part of your upcoming program.
Evaluate:
The responses you collected in the discovery process will give you essential insights. These insights will help decide on the next step in your community-building process. Because community building takes work and time, reviewing your results carefully will prevent wasted resources.
When speaking with your ideal members, you’ll learn if they have experienced online communities. If they have, you will find out how they are now participating. This will help you define the best way to give your members a unique and memorable experience.
You can ask them who they leaned on most during those times. Discover if a community could help them resolve a problem they have right now. When reviewing the notes from your conversations with ideal members, think about their journeys. Look for evidence that they want to solve the problem your community addresses.
Assemble:
Planning when, how, and where to launch an online community usually takes about three to six months. I recommend spending one month on each of the first three phases. Spend more than one to three months assembling your community design and launch plan. This will include preparing for pre-launch, launch, and post-launch, with time built in for you to beta test the platform. If you don’t have a team or organization, start small with a beta group to test your idea. Five to ten people is enough.
“How do you define a successful member experience, and what are some key elements that contribute to it?”
Success is something that is defied by an individual and can’t be broadly applied to all online communities or experiences. However some key elements of success include a solid community concept which has been validated and feedback from participating members.
A community can be many people or just a few. When a community gets big, it’s hard to make it feel personal for each member. I encourage you to find ways to create small groups. Get to know them and give them time to get to know each other.
For example, if your community is focused on business networking, share what your members do for fun. It would be nice to know their interests outside of business. They would appreciate this when they aren’t trying to gain customers or clients. Search for fun experiences you can bring to the community like game nights, watch parties, and scavenger hunts. I’ve been part of an online community that conducted a murder mystery night! At the end of the day, your members want to have fun, and so do you!
“Can you share an example of how you’ve helped a client transform their community engagement strategy? What were the key changes that made the difference?”
After conducting ideal member interviews for a client, I learned that the members wanted more opportunities. They wished to share their knowledge with other members. We developed member-led sessions. These sessions included a form for members to fill out. This form was for those who wanted to share what they know or have learned.
We collected some submissions. Then, we contacted each member. We talked about the format, style, and content for the member-led session. This benefits the host because they aren’t obligated to show up, or join in the discussion. I find member-led events to be the best way to improve engagement in an online community.
When it comes to content creation, how do you help clients? How do you help them shift from focusing on quantity to creating content that truly resonates with their members?
I love graphics, videos, and photos like everyone else. But, I believe that members will resonate with content that connects to them and their challenges. They will also connect with their successes. Not everyone will check in every day. You are more to see an average of 3–5 days that members will visit a community.
If it’s a course or structured program, that is different. But, I typically guide clients through this change by thinking about the concept of “less is more”.
If they were posting every day, start with scaling down to 3 days a week. Ask members what would be helpful and decide what kind of content you enjoy sharing or creating. It doesn’t always have to be something you create, share the work of others, and give them credit. (Don’t recreate the wheel)
“What is the best way to get visibility for the community? Then, what is the most effective way to invite people to become members of the community?”
Community building takes time and effort. The average community might see active engagement a year to three years from when it launches. Knowing that gives the ability to cultivate relationships over time and see where this group wants to go.
I encourage you to have an email list. Start to collect email addresses. Then start sending emails and communicating with them before the launch.
The pre-launch phase is when you plan your events. You prepare promotional materials and schedule tasks. It involves creating content and cultivating partnerships. During this phase, you build relationships and write content for emails. Engaging on social media is crucial. You also secure conversations on podcasts, radio, television, and news outlets.
This is the most important phase in your launch. It’s the phase on which you want to spend the most time. This will streamline the rest of your launch. Set yourself up for success by creating a launch plan that fits your needs. Let go of the expectation for everything to be perfect.
There are several ways to build relationships with potential members. Attend networking events. Communicate updates with your email subscribers. Share your community-building journey with your followers.
I’d love to hear your comments or questions here!
