Nurture Your Community to See it Grow

If you’re not improving, you’re failing. That’s how I was taught to think through years of competitive fast-pitch softball. The same is true with your community. There is always room for improvement and growth – especially in the world of online communities. There is always a new platform that your members will be excited to try. How do you keep them coming back to your community and grow your membership? I inherited a community that was a year old in 2018. The previous community manager had launched the platform the year before and moved to a new company five months later. I’ve been told it takes six to nine months of an active community manager to establish a healthy community. Needless to say, I inherited a community that was declining. We “relaunched” the community nine months after I started. How do you grow a community? Launching or relaunching a community seems easy at first. You will see rapid growth (dependent on a decent marketing strategy). You will see excited champions ready to post new questions and plenty of traffic from Google Analytics. But once the hype is over what is the activity in your community? The steady day in and day out growth is the hard work. Community managers are often tempted to rely on automation rules to keep the community going. I strongly advise against solely on this strategy. Personal connection is key. Community growth is association growth. You should see your online community as one of the onboarding vehicles to your association. Your community introduction should welcome members while connecting them with other members. Contacts are why members stick around. But you must have engaged members who are willing to engage new and inexperienced members. Unless you have that winning formula, you will not see community growth. Make Sure Questions are Answered Satisfactorily: If a member posts and does not receive a great answer they will not post again. Period. They will not come back to post or search threads. Go the extra mile to make sure members don’t receive a reply in a thread, but valuable information. How do you do that? Be persistent. Walk into staff members offices when they ignore your emails asking for a member contact. Use your contacts. If you don’t have any… Start making them. Send Personal Emails: I constantly view the list of most engaged members for the week. I send a personal email saying I noticed their involvement (list specific things they have done). Personally, introduce yourself and office your support with any of the issues they may have in the future. I get a response half the time. But, generally contact with these members will surface again weeks later when they need support. As you assist members, they are more likely to assist you. I boosted a post from a member on 3D printing. When we explored launching a mentoring program, I found out he had been involved in numerous mentoring programs in the past. He was willing to host a free webinar to launch the program. He is one of our paid instructors where he usually receives royalties. He remembered me trying to help his cause and went above and beyond to grow the community. Set Up Weekly Phone Calls with your Active Members: I have weekly phone calls with our topic moderators. It is very informal and a few of the members have turned into my personal mentors. This is a great time for me to ask questions about the technical topics in the forums that I know nothing about (besides a few google searches). I’ve had topic moderators recommend their contacts who have been instrumental to adding to certain discussions after they have introduced me. You need to make connections so your members can make connections. It takes personal contact to do that, not automation. Arrange “Trainings” with Chapters and Technical Divisions: We use our Higher Logic managed platform for communities as a committee management tool with 600 plus committees. They find the Higher Logic library “clunky.” There are a few things the average user doesn’t know that makes it less tedious. A majority of our staff don’t want to take the time to walk them through the process. I’ve been asked to do online webinars for multiple institutes and society committees.  Putting together a PowerPoint, scheduling the meeting, and running it may seem tedious. But it is this process that helps members feel more comfortable with the platform. I’ve noticed members who use the platform for committee management are more likely reply to discussion threads. Those personal connections are invaluable and also give you insight on what could be improved in the platform. Make Business Cards Rain: I got an email from our Executive Director over the weekend asking about his comment on our WordPress site (which is our public facing newsletter) that hadn’t been approved. I have never had anything to do with the publication. But I was who he thought of to contact with his question. We had a member present on social media at a conference. I was asked why I didn’t lead the session by a different executive. We have a separate staff person to handle social media. I solely handle our online community in our communications department. But I was the first person these execs thought of and contacted when they had a question about our online communications. You are your own champion. Put yourself out there and make yourself available. I make it abundantly clear with our staff and members that I am always available for any and all questions they may have. I respond as quickly as possible. The easier you make it for them to use the platform, the more likely they will come back.Tirza Austin is one of Community by Association’s new contributors and is the Senior Coordinator of Online Communities at the American Society of Civil Engineers. She earned her degree in English Language and Literature from the University of Maryland College Park and her all time favorite book is Little Women.