Community Engagement Techniques

Would you like your online community to become a space where new members are happy to join and keep coming back? We’re sharing 3 Community Engagement Techniques to help you make your community the most exciting place in the world.

Follow our list below to learn how to apply these methods to grow your audience and retain your existing members.

Top 3 Community Engagement Techniques For Your Business

The most effective engagement techniques are:

1. Meaningful conversations
2. Fun activities & games
3. Surveys and feedback

#1: Make it meaningful for your audience to be part of your community

Think like your audience: How many times have you signed up to be part of an amazing community that’s advertised as “the most fun place in the world” - but all you get is … 💸 promos, 💸 promos, and more 💸 promos.

That’s why the most important thing when building a community is to find a balance between promotional content and content your audience craves and enjoys!

Let me introduce you to the golden rule of content marketing, also known as the “80/20”. According to this rule, not more than 20% of your content should be promos. Instead focus the majority of your posts (80%) on engaging, educational and entertaining topics and conversations.

✔️ Community hack: Get your community members involved in creating and sharing content! This will boost their confidence and you’ll know for sure the content shared is relevant to them.

Example: Canva’s community manager is always helpful when engaging with their community on Instagram.

#2: Include fun activities to get your members engaged

🎉 Enter: GAMIFICATION. This is the process of making an activity more playful, interactive and engaging to your community. The result? Your community gets a boost in motivation, and competitive spirit, and manages to stay hooked!

✔️ FACT: Did you know that 80% of people are able to learn more effectively through gamification?

Examples of gamification activities:

1. Storytelling
2. Competitions
3. Challenges

Here’s how to get your community engaged in gamification:

• Create weekly, daily or monthly challenges for members to take part
• Offer rewards for top performing members
• Encourage members to share posts in your community or take a course
• Award badges (or prizes) for completing a task (e.g. completing a course)

Example: Dunkin shares fun games, quizzes and puzzles on their Instagram stories to get their community involved.

#3: Encourage members to express themselves freely

Isn’t it great to see a community grow and members become active promoters and recommend new members? But with more people and more voices - your voice will start to fade away.

Don’t forget to show up and communicate with your community often, and transparently. They need to know you’re the leader and you set the tone and the rest will follow.

Create a monthly content calendar 📆 and allocate weekly time slots for chatting with your community. Just make sure you encourage two-way communication, and make everyone feel they’re SEEN:

• Listen to feedback
• Encourage questions
• Ask for suggestions
• Do community surveys

Example: The Instagram head, @mosseri has a weekly #AskMeAnything live Q&A session where he answers questions from users.

Conclusion:

Most people crave a community space that is fun and exciting. They also want a community where they feel valued and listened to. Use these tips and community engagement techniques to grow your community and retain more members!

Looking for a community platform?

Give Kodalia a try!