Engagement level is an important criterion to define how successful your community is. Here are some tips to start your community and most importantly, continue running it.
Create a welcoming platform
If you want your members to engage more in your platform, judge less. It is not a fault to judge people. A positive comment and amendment will bring you improvement. However, unreasonable judgement will bring not only negative results, but also bad feelings towards the members. If they are not comfortable with the community, they wouldn’t want to stay long. Only a place which provides diversity, mutual respect and equity each member’s views can provoke more engagements and happiness. Therefore, cultivating a respectful, inclusive and loving environment can bring a sense of comfy for members to stay here and be themselves.
Branding
Consumers have a variety of choices on the internet. They can join as many communities as they want and choose the most suitable one. In order to attract and retain your customers, your community has to position yourself wisely.
There are few questions you have to think about:
- What are the outstanding points of your community?
- What impressions do your community want to give your members/consumers?
- How would you describe your community by using three words?
With a clear positioning and standardization, you may find your targeted members or consumers easily to sustain your member base.
Be responsive and interactive
Turns your virtual community into a real community. It is all about interaction. Interact with your members, or else it is just an informative group for photo posting. Try to respond to your members’ posts, respond to their comments and try to understand what they want and like. They will be more engaged due to personalized communication. When more interactions will be held, you not only can understand their preferences to adjust your strategy, you can also let them feel engaged with your core members. It will be a big move for your community.
Segment your engagement strategy
There is never a one-size-fit-all strategy to all community and members. You should first categorize your customer and think of multiple strategies to tackle their needs.
You can identify them as most engaged members, least engaged members and average engaged members. For example, provide a reward programme for only engaged members and provide new ideas and activities for only attracting deactivated members. By doing so, you can target your members with specific strategies and special access to engage. With a more targeted approach, you can surely increase your success rate.
Ownership of a community
When is the first time you feel that you own a place? It is the time when you involve the most in it. You want to engage your members, but how? Ask your member to invest time and effort in your platform. Some people may think it is not suitable to ask your members to put time and effort in their platform. However, the reality is members would not leave because of it, they also will be more willing to come back again.
Here is an example, you can ask your members to manage your Facebook page together. From that, you can bring your community closer and bring a sense of ownership to your community. More and More responsible and passionate members will stay and come back.
Reference :
- Spinks, D. (2016, January 7). 8 Reasons Why You’re Seeing Low Engagement in your Community. Retrieved from https://medium.com/building-community/8-reasons-why-you-re-seeing-low-engagement-in-your-community-49ce9df2f0d5
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