How to Build Momentum in Your Community – Part II

Cultivating a Sense of Community

“My online forum has really started to take on a life of its own. How do I encourage growth and participation while staying true to our mission?”

As we’ve seen in Part I of this series, it takes people and relationships to build an online community. Once you achieve critical mass – that point where the community is generating at least 50% of its growth and activity – it’s time to shift focus to reach multiple members rather than a single member at a time.

According to online community expert Richard Millington, the establishment phase is about building structures and switching to larger scale processes. This is the time to think big and delegate more and more tasks to your members. As your daily tasks shift from inviting new members and initiating conversations to writing content about your community and organizing events, you should think about building structures that can grow with your membership.

Below we’ve shared some best practices that help develop a sense of community once a membership has been established.

Share the workload. The point here is to scale your efforts toward reaching more individuals. Engage your members to take on tasks such as welcoming new members, engaging visitors and writing and publishing content. Consider hiring or appointing a community manager.

Empower your membership. Make opportunities for members to affect the whole group, even in small ways. Recognize and reward active members. Identify your key influencers and entrust them to evangelize your message.

Take it live. Host events to help members meet. This is not only a great way to make personal introductions. Live meetings and activities reinforce a sense of community and generate photos and stories that can be replayed in your online forums.

Create content. Experts agree that valuable content is one of the most powerful community building tools. Although expert articles and industry news can be helpful in small doses, the best content is written about the community, by and for your members. It tells the story of the community, introduces key players and gives members a reason to visit. Consistency is important, so use schedules and calendars.

Cast a wide net. In an established community, membership growth shifts from individual invitations to targeted outreach. Once you have identified your target demographics you can reach out strategically through advertising, social media, and email marketing. This is also a good time to incentivize members to recruit new blood.

Cultivate a culture. Like their geographic counterparts, established online communities need goals, projects, and rituals to create a cultural timeline. Start a fundraising campaign, or a publishing project. To develop a sense of history, enlist members to document community milestones, and make sure to recognize and institute traditions. Recognize individuals with awards, accolades and promotions.

Promote the community. Because of the accelerated self-growth in the establishment phase, the best way to promote the community is to promote activity within the community. An example of this would be starting a member invitation program with a limited number of community invitations. Creating a buzz among members gets people talking and stimulates outside interest in the community.

Make consistent improvements. Consistently responding to community problems develops a culture of safety and respect. Updating and improving the design and user experience keeps members engaged. When you identify issues and take action, you ensure a membership that takes pride in what it has built.

Granted, it takes more tools and more people to maintain an established online forum. But your virtual community need not become impersonal as it begins to grow. Involve your members to create your own unique culture and don’t forget to use analytics to continue to track your progress.