Community Engagement Strategies: 15 Best Practices for Growth

What makes a thriving community? Is it the number of new members you onboard every week? Or the fancy perks you roll out every month?
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If you said yes to any of these, you're far from the truth!
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Engagement is the heartbeat of every thriving community. It's the trust built through honest conversations, the loyalty formed by shared experiences, and the connection that makes every member feel seen.
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Your genius growth strategy might open the door, but it won’t keep people in the room! When members feel valued, they won’t just participate; they’ll become champions of your mission.

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Redefining the Standard with Safety-Driven Community Engagement

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According to a recent study, 1 in 3 community members don’t renew their subscriptions due to a lack of engagement. On the flip side, organizations with a proper engagement plan reported a 25% increase in renewal rates and a 38% increase in event attendance compared to the previous year.

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In a different report, businesses that focused on community engagement reported a 56% increase in brand awareness. Clearly, if you build a strong connection with your online community, they won’t just stick around, they’ll become your biggest advocates.

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That said, the approach to building that strong connection has drastically changed in the last few years, thanks (in part) to the growing concerns around online safety.

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With the steady rise in phishing scams, identity theft, and cyberbullying, organizations have been forced to rethink their approach to community engagement.

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Now, a well-rounded community engagement strategy is no longer just about pushing for interactions but also about creating a safe space where members can feel protected and valued.

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15 Best Practices for Effective Community Engagement

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A thriving community is an ecosystem of enthusiastic, supportive members who are always happy to share ideas, provide genuine feedback, and help others navigate challenges.

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Everyone dreams of building their communities to this level, but it isn’t as easy as it sounds. You need a robust engagement approach that doesn’t just focus on activities but also fosters an air of trust where members feel safe enough to engage openly and confidently.

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So, the big question is: how do you go about this?

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1. Set Clear Community Guidelines

This is the first step towards creating a safe and vibrant community. Draft comprehensive community guidelines highlighting what members of the community can expect from your organization and what kind of activities are supported in the ecosystem.

Your community guidelines should cover the following areas:

1. Purpose of the community and what members can expect.
2. Code of conduct describing how members are allowed to behave towards one another.
3. Rules for content sharing, including a list of prohibited content and guidelines for sharing external links.
4. Privacy and data protection statement clarifying your organization uses and protects member data in compliance with relevant laws. 
5. Moderation policies explaining how moderation decisions are made and how members can report inappropriate behavior.

Ensure you structure this in a way that’s easy to read and avoid complicating the content with ambiguous language.

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2. Leverage Membership Platforms for Structure

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Imagine the hassle of managing member records in a spreadsheet, manually sending renewal reminders, or catching up with long email threads. This is a painfully disconnected approach to community management and can easily spiral out of control when you start scaling your numbers.

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Membership platforms, like Joinit, bring order to this chaos, offering a unified, automated, and scalable ecosystem where you can find everything you need to run a thriving community.

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With everything in one place, you’re no longer bogged down by repetitive admin tasks. Automation takes over the boring work, so you can spend more time nurturing relationships and ramping up engagement.

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3. Create a Welcoming Onboarding Experience

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The quality of your onboarding process can make or break your entire community engagement strategy. First impressions matter, and you need to make your new members feel at home right from the get-go.

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Your onboarding process is also where you set the stage for how your community operates, show new members how to find resources, and build the mood for future engagements.

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Keep the following in mind:

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1. Show your community’s value early. Let new members immediately see what’s in it for them.
2. Test different onboarding methods and combinations. According to Wyzowl, 69% of surveyed customers say organizations should use more videos for onboarding. Email is another popular method. I recommend integrating video recordings into your onboarding emails for better engagement.
3. Make sure that the onboarding process is suitable for people with low technical knowledge.
4. Regularly update your onboarding resources to reflect the current condition of your community.
5. Incorporate personalization strategies like segmenting members based on shared interests, location, or experience level.

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4. Use Polls and Surveys for Feedback

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One of the best ways to make community members feel valued is to actively seek their opinions. But this isn't only about them—feedback is also crucial for long-term growth. Not only does it boost engagement and improve customer experience, it also provides access to insights that can change the game for your organization.

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Using polls and surveys, you can ask for opinions on new features, a recently concluded event, trending topics, and individual experiences within the community.

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Polls are super easy to complete since they require just clicks. You simply create a question and provide options for community members to select. As members vote, the poll results update in real time, showing the number of votes for each option.

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Surveys are a little more interactive as they allow each member to share their unique POV. With online surveys, you can incorporate questions and multichoice answers or ask open-ended questions, allowing each person to provide a detailed response.

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5. Make Sure Everyone Clearly Understands the Benefits of Membership

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“What’s in it for me?”

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That’s the defining question every prospect asks before becoming a part of anything. Maybe you’ve managed to get them through the door, but do they really see the benefits of being a part of your mission?

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It doesn’t matter if they’re in it for networking opportunities or exclusive access to valuable resources, if they don’t fully understand how the community can benefit them in areas relevant to their needs, they’ll be unlikely to stay engaged, let alone renew when the time comes.

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So, your ability to communicate the perks of being a part of your community determines whether you’ll be celebrating a full house or dealing with churn.

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Find creative ways to communicate the benefits. It can be through video testimonials from some of your most inspiring members, exclusive live Q&A sessions, or occasional behind-the-scenes sneak peeks.

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6. Use Personalized Email Campaigns

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Email has sealed its spot as one of the top marketing strategies of our generation, outperforming others by a long shot. According to Litmus, every 1 dollar spent on email marketing yields an average of $36 in return.

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Thriving communities take full advantage of personalized emails for engaging members, driving renewals, and sharing updates.

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Here are creative ways you can utilize personalized email campaigns to drive engagement and promote a sense of belonging among community members:

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1. Celebrate them on their birthdays and offer a small gift (often a discount or exclusive offer).
2. Congratulate them on special milestones like their one-year membership anniversary.
3. Occasionally send customized recommendations based on their activity in the community. This can be resources, events, or content relevant to their interests.
4. Send re-engagement emails to members who have been inactive for some time, showing them interesting highlights of what they’ve missed alongside upcoming events, features, or promos relevant to them.

Additionally, make sure your email signature is professional and reflects your community's branding. Including your name, title, and community logo in the signature helps build trust and makes your communication feel more personal and official. 

Knowing how to create an email signature that aligns with your community's identity can also make a big difference. You might consider adding links to your community’s social media pages or upcoming events to encourage further engagement.

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7. Host Regular Events

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Events and webinars give life to communities. They provide opportunities to connect directly with your members, discuss interesting topics, and provide answers to their burning questions.

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Create a schedule for events, and keep your members in the loop about the dates.

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You can host live Q&A sessions themed around specific topics. Members can ask questions related to the issue of the day while you (alone or in collaboration with experts) share detailed answers, helping them develop strong perspectives on specific subjects. If you want to create truly memorable experiences, consider hosting offline events in unique venues, which offer exceptional settings for community engagement.

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Webinars are another powerful way to engage your community members. Unlike Q&A sessions, webinars require more preparation. However, they are great for deep dives, allowing you to discuss topics in a lot more detail.

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You can use webinars to talk about pressing issues, new features, best practices, and actionable strategies to help members hit their goals.

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Other events you can host include networking meetups, workshops, competitions, fireside chats, panel discussions, and community hangouts.

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8. Recognize and Reward Member Contributions

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The 90-9-1 rule states that 90% of community members are "lurkers," 9% are occasional contributors, and 1% are active participants. Recent studies have shown increased engagement across the board, especially in smaller communities.

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However, there’s no denying that the majority of community members are often passive in their engagement, with a relatively smaller percentage actively contributing to the community’s momentum.

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Recognizing and rewarding contributions will not only make active members feel appreciated but also encourage passive members to get more involved.

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You can do this by awarding badges, doing shout-outs, offering access to exclusive content, gifting tickets to special events, etc.

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Additionally, encouraging community members to invite others might increase participation. Referral tracking and prizes are made easier with tools like ReferralCandy, which makes it simple to expand your membership and build stronger relationships.

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9. Create a Content Calendar for Consistent Updates

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Consistently posting helpful content allows you to build a reliable presence your community members look forward to. 

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However, due to your busy schedule you may be tempted to wing this process, generating content ideas on the fly. This isn’t only incredibly difficult but counterproductive in the long run. 

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You have to plan your content upfront, taking the time to analyze what’s best for your community.

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A content calendar is your go-to resource for this, as it’ll help you establish a consistent schedule for posting content that drives true impact.

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So, how do you create one for your community? The three steps below sum up the basics:

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1. Make multiple content categories, including educational posts, polls and discussions, community highlights, Q&As, etc. Use a spreadsheet tool or a specialized content calendar app like Sendible Coschedule or ContentCal (now Adobe Express) to structure your ideas.
2. Outline as many topics as you can and fit them into each of these categories. Focus on topics that are relevant to your community. You can check past conversations within the community to find ideas about what the people might be interested in.
3. Choose your content posting frequency and match each posting day with a content category. For instance, if you want to post every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday, you can post educational content on Mondays, community highlights on Thursdays, and Q&As on Saturdays.

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10. Revamp the Community’s Safety Infrastructure

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2024 saw some of the biggest incidents in the world of cybersecurity. Organizations experienced an average of 1,636 cyberattacks per week, and in the third quarter of 2024, over 422 million records were exposed due to data breaches.

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AT&T was, perhaps, the biggest victim of the year, with sensitive data from 73 million customers surfacing on the dark web.

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The recent surge in data breaches is a serious wakeup call for online community managers, and here’s why:

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When building your community, you process a lot of data, some of which are critical. This includes Personally Identifiable Information (PII), credit card information, health information, and more, depending on the nature of the community you’re managing. This makes your online community a goldmine for cybercriminals.

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Your members trust you with the safety of their data and expect you to protect it against unauthorized access. To do this, you must: 

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1. Host your online community on a secure platform.
2. Use Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) to restrict access to sensitive information.
3. Ensure contact center compliance with regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, or PCI DSS.
4. Use encryption to secure stored and transmitted data.
5. Conduct regular security audits.

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11. Encourage Members to Share Their Stories

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Personal stories create powerful connections and make your community feel like a true support network. When members share stories of their success, challenges, and lessons, others are encouraged to pitch in, offering support and ultimately creating a deeper sense of belonging.

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Always reassure your community members that their stories are valuable and will be respected. Ensure you have a solid process for moderating sensitive content.

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You can also spotlight member stories in your various channels to give them extra visibility.

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Another great strategy is to use prompts to spark conversations. For instance, you can ask: "What’s the most unexpected or unconventional decision you’ve made for your online business that turned out to be a game-changer?"

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Doing this will not only make your community buzz with excitement but also help members build a deeper connection with each other.

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12. Support Member-Led Initiatives

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If a member of your community volunteers to lead a project, genuinely listen to their ideas. If it aligns with the overarching goals of the community, help them bring the project to life.

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Offer resources and guidance, publicly acknowledge their efforts, and encourage other community members to support the initiative.

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This creates a win-win situation for everyone—the member gains leadership experience and a valuable sense of ownership while the community benefits from fresh ideas and increased engagement.

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13. Build Micro-Communities Based on Interests

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Within every community, you can always find smaller groups of members with similar interests, experiences, and perspectives.

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You can take advantage of these overlaps by turning them into micro-communities.

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Look for patterns in discussions and narrow down themes that resonate with specific members of your community.

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Create sub-groups centered around these themes and ask everyone to join the ones that match their interests. Make sure each sub-group has a clearly defined purpose and give them the freedom to participate in ways that will benefit their individual sub-group.

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When you create micro-communities, you’re giving your members a space where they can connect over niche interests. Such groups often have high engagement because members feel like they're part of a small circle, surrounded by people who “get” them.

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14. Monitor for Safety and Privacy Concerns

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It is important to keep your eyes peeled for security issues when managing an online community.

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With phishing attacks and data breaches on the rise, failing to take proactive security measures means exposing your community to avoidable risks.

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Ensure you run a regular security audit on your platforms and quickly fix any vulnerabilities.

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Regularly remind your community members to be cautious of unsolicited messages, suspicious links, or offers that sound too good to be true. Encourage them to report such occurrences and support them with a guide on what to do if they ever get hacked.

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Always review user content, especially those from new accounts or posts with outbound links. Set up automated systems or appoint moderators to flag suspicious activity, like spammy posts or links leading to phishing sites.

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15. Analyze Engagement Metrics and Adapt

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Peter Drucker once said, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.”

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Analyzing engagement metrics allows you to identify what’s working and what’s not. That way, you’ll lean into what’s working and make the most of it.

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Your engagement analysis should focus on measuring how members interacted with different posts (likes, comments, and shares), how they participated in past events, the percentage of active contributors, and sub-communities with the highest activity, among others.

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Incorporating a multi-channel approach into your analysis can help you better understand how various platforms contribute to engagement. By examining interactions across email, social media, and in-app notifications, you can identify which channels resonate most with your audience and refine your strategy accordingly.

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Use the insights from this analysis to refine your strategy, focusing your resources on areas that bring the best results.

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Building a Community of Bold Advocates

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A thriving community isn't built on numbers alone. It’s rooted in thought-provoking conversations, shared values, and trust.

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Success for every community manager is about creating a space where members don’t just lurk in the shadows but are always eager to dive in, share their truths, and challenge one another to grow.

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But to achieve this, you must redefine your approach to community engagement, following the best practices we have covered.

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And when all’s said and done, you’ll build a community that thrives on passion, where every member is more than just a face in the crowd but a driving force that pushes the collective to greater heights.

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