Top Tips for Building and Evolving a Thriving (Online) Community

Online communities have long been a great source of support, connection, camaraderie and insights for many sectors, especially during the latest global pandemic. 

In 2020, the Governance Lab interviewed leaders of 50 Facebook groups and 26 global academic and industry experts for this study of the governance and leadership of Facebook groups. A couple of points that jumped out from the report really resonated with us here at Vets Stay Go Diversify (VSGD).

• People can experience a strong sense of community from membership in such groups despite the lack of physical proximity.
• A growing number of people around the world are finding meaning and a sense of belonging in online groups. According to the YouGov survey, in 11 out of 15 countries studied, the largest proportion of respondents reported the most important group to which they belong is a primarily online one.

This made us reflect on our time building VSGD to 40,000 engaged global members and so as the founder, I thought I would share the top tips I have picked up over the 8 years as an “accidental leader” of a few thriving online Facebook communities.

Now is a perfect time to invest in and develop online spaces to support your members, partners and staff. 

Here are 12 top tips to consider from the prep and launch of a community through to insights and community management support. 

I hope they help you, Ebony x

Find the sweet spot to make members engage- is it pain or passion?

• To keep members joining, engaging and learning from one another it is key that you centre your community around a common pain or passion.

Ask yourself “what keeps you up at night?” If it keeps you up at night, you can guarantee there will be others out there that feel the same. This will help you find the niche purpose or golden thread for the group to be anchored on (see later re content).

• Know your aims and how these can be converted into key performance indicators too. It is so important to know what success looks like for your community. Remember, these may change as it evolves and as you build in user feedback and leadership within the group. Is it an increase in the use of services and support? Is it an increase in collaboration in your field? Is in an increase in peer-to-peer learning?
• If you are not sure about your aims then run some focus groups with your ideal member base and listen to their challenges and desires. Don’t be afraid to circle back to this yearly too.
• Key questions to ask 
  1. Why do you want to host this community?
  2. How will it support your members?
  3. How will it support your organisation?
  4. How could it support potential partners or sponsors?
  5. What do your members like?
  6. What do your members need?

Make sure to have clear rules of play and build a working group

• Building and nurturing a sustainable community takes a team so from the start think about the types of people that need to be involved. Examples include
  1. Community strategist and lead - create the plan and strategy for the community and use insights from community manager to pivot community as necessary
  2. Community managers - visible people that role model behaviour, reply to comments and questions, start discussions and pull insights to support the evolution of the community
  3. Content creators - create and curate engaging content for the community to feast on
  4. Community champions - community members who advocate on behalf of your cause.
• Escalation policy - as the group norms and storms and finds its feet you may come across a few posts or comments that break the rules or raise important questions for the administration team. Have an escalation policy in place. 
  1. What copy templates or documentation does the working group need that the team can refer to?
  2. Which administration team members are responsible for communicating to the membership and individuals affected?
• Rules of the group - it is so important to think about the rules of play for your community. This is important that it comes from the organization with feed-in from the community as you grow and develop. 
  • When is the administration contactable - what are their office hours and how can they be contacted?
  • What 5 expectations, dos, and don’ts will help your community thrive?
  • What specific behaviours can you ensure people demonstrate to make rules a reality? 

Be consistent with content and curation

• 4 content pillars - Now that you know what your aims are you can build your 4 content pillars to support them. These are the 4 themes/topics that you will build your content and conversations around. For instance, a) career transitions b) career clarity c) career concerns d) career options
• This helps you keep on track to support your aims and your membership. These pillars may also come from suggestions from your membership too and can be changed as the community evolves. This will help you keep the focus on discussion “noise”.
• Content plan - Take the stress out of decision-making for your community and have a monthly content plan where your team have visibility of what’s in store, a place to edit and rework copy and a place to file media and links that you may use.
• Schedule what you can with your content plan to allow most of your team’s time to be spent on role modeling behaviour and being social. This allows you to create healthy time boundaries within the community too.
• Repurpose  - we don’t always need to create. Always ask yourself what content can I repurpose or whose other content can I curate (and of course acknowledge)?
• Assets to be known for - It can be great to start with an anchor asset that people get to know and expect from you - such as monthly community Q and As. VSGD started with live career Q and As and VSGD Careers started with Interview the Boss.

Role model behaviour

People do not do what you say, they copy what you do. With this in mind, it is so important that your community team role model the behaviour that you want to see and foster in your community from the start. There will be “heavy lifting” at the beginning where the working group will need to be attentive and responsive to all posts and discussions. This will ease as your community take over naturally responding in the way you want

• Heavy lifting may look like remarking on and encouraging all posts from the community in the first month. Tagging members into threads that will have valuable insight to share
• Foster curiosity over judgment - online community algorithms, unfortunately, thrive on anger so think about responses you can role model surrounding curiosity
• Showcasing vulnerability, failure, learnings and authenticity - if you want others to do this, then the community working group will need to showcase this too.

Be Social! (it’s called social media for a reason:)

Think about how you can create opportunities for all to share their experiences and insights and for you to respond and encourage.

• Welcome note - weekly welcome note to encourage new members to introduce themselves 
• Roll Calls - such as share your top tips if you are involved in [education, research, welfare]. This connects community members around a theme and helps them to learn more about what their fellow members do
• Question of the week +/- anonymous posting. If you are seeing common issues arise, take the lead in bringing these issues together for a question of the week. You can also offer an anonymous posting service too
• Polls -  If your community platform has this feature then it is a great way to find consensus or help you plan your content calendar too
• Fill in the sentence - A way to find out how people feel about a certain topic
• Comment of the week - Pull out a comment from the community - this helps community feel recognised and helps to inspire other community members
• Win of the week - It can be easy to focus on the negatives but having a weekly thread where people can share their win of the weeks will help keep people buoyant.
• Option of the month - encourage the community to share their experience around a certain option

Encourage engagement & let the community create

Depending on your community platform it is important to enable features that encourage engagement and community-generated content. Remember, facts tell and stories sell. Think of ways you can encourage story telling in your community.

• Member/project profiles - create an online survey template that members can fill in and you can then convert into content for the group and your website 
• Blogs and vlogs - ask members to contribute blogs or vlogs that compliment your 4 content community pillars
• Takeovers - if you have other social media or digital platforms can you ask selected members to do a takeover for the day - such as on Instragram stories - a day in the life .

Onboarding new community members 

Regularly update your sign-up process for new members. If you keep having issues in your community how can you ameliorate them in the sign-up process to help set expectations?

• Welcome email - automate a welcome email that helps them make the most of the community 
  1. Short video on the orientation of how to navigate the community or a site map 
  2. Showcase where they can find resources or provide them with quick links
  3. Share the culture you are trying to adopt 
  4. How and where they can introduce themselves 
• Pinned post
  1. If you are using a forum-based community then having a pinned post with a summary of how to make the most of the community can be helpful as if people are lost it is easy to find
• Welcome post to introduce new members - if your community has this function it can be nice to do every week

Have a laugh

Many online communities have serious and emotive reasons for existing but humans also crave some humour and it can be a great way to build rapport with your members. Think about ways you can encourage people to relax and have a laugh. Here are just a small handful of ways you can do this

• Comedy threads -  such as “Your name for the weekend will be the word you are feeling plus the last thing you ate”
• Appropriate memes 
• News or personal stories

Use your insights

• Back end analytics from the community platform - such as 
  • When are people most active in the community? This will help you time the release of your content
  • What posts or topics have the most engagement? This can help you frame your pillars
  • Who is most active in your community? This will help you find community champions 
• Listen to the conversations in your community. Take a moment daily to review what is being talked about and how it is being talked about.  
  • What is landing?
  • Who are your champions?
  • Where are there potential risks or challenges?
  • Where are there opportunities?
• Don’t feel you ever have to work on assumptions. Ask your community what they think if you feel stuck!

Think beyond the community space 

Everyone resonates with different experiences when it comes to a community. Some members will thrive and feel comfortable in an online setting, others will do so in real life (IRL) settings. Here are ways you can build a sense of community in a multitude of ways

• Email & Newsletters - email marketing is still the strongest way to get your messages out
• Website - How can you support your community to visit and use all of your digital estate? This may also include things like podcasts if you have them
• IRL opportunities + Offline events - we crave real connection. In person events also help to build brand loyalty, as well as depth and breadth to your community
• Mentorship opportunities  - this is a great asset to build into your online community. However, it takes thought and consideration. The Academy of Medical Sciences offers incredibly useful resources on this as well as training. 

Looking after your working group

This can not be underestimated. If you look after your working group they will look after your community. When we care about a topic or community group it can be hard to “observe and not absorb”. 

• Onboarding and guides/templates and FAQs - a resource space that allows working group members to be informed and troubleshoot to minimise overwhelm
• Private space to talk - so that admins can discuss together anything that might be concerning them about the community or a member. We use whatsapp
• Divide and conquer - clear roles and responsibilities. Rotas - to ensure people can switch off
• Meetings and check-ins - frequently to thank one another and get creative about ways to make the community stronger and more inclusive

12. Promotion of your community

If community growth is one of your success markers then think about the various ways you can encourage the right type of members to join 

• Invite your contacts to join and share what you are doing so they can spread the word for you
• How can your current partners help you cultivate membership?
• How can your current members be incentivised to invite like minded people to join?

So I hope these tips are useful, I would love to hear yours too!

Ebony x

Drop us a line at hello@vsgd.co or share a comment! Ebony is available as a Community Consultant to help you breathe new ideas into your communities, or help you start one!