How to Build an Online Community in 2024 (Pointers, Dos, and Don’ts)
Communities are powerful, and the internet has facilitated ease in community creation more than any other technology. No longer do we have to be in the same neighborhood as someone to connect; we can be all over the world, in different time zones, and still unite. You just have to know how to build an online community.
No matter your interest, you can find online communities out there dedicated to it, from obscure television shows to old technology and other niche interests.
Have you ever stopped to wonder where these online communities come from? More so, how can you engage in online community building?
That’s what we’ll explore today, so buckle in and get ready to learn the fundamentals of creating your online community.
How to Build an Online Community in 6 Steps
Are you ready to connect with like-minded folks and engage in online community building? Believe it or not, taking such a monumental first step as this only requires six steps.
Yes, you read that right. Six steps. That means it's easy for anyone wondering how to build an online community.
Jumping right into the basics here’s how you can start yours.
Step 1 – Determine Purpose and Identity
What do you hope to gain by building an online community? Is it more recognition and clout? If that’s all there is to it, you have many ways to get that, such as through social media marketing or advertising.
The answer should be something like unifying people over a common interest. Perhaps you want your online community to provide information and resources, such as for people looking for a job or those new to a career who want to grow.
Your online community will have a limited reach without thoroughly understanding its identity and purpose.
Take some time to research what kinds of communities are already out there. For example, if you're a lover of a specific dog breed but there are already dozens of communities dedicated to that dog, why would you start another one?
It might just be a drop in an ocean of noise unless you have a special spin or angle ready to present.
You need a unique purpose so people feel inclined to try your community over those that already exist.
Step 2 – Choose Your Platform
Online community building requires the right platform. Just as you scoured high and low for the best platform to sell your online courses, you should dedicate as much time to finding a platform for your community.
While you can always rely on preexisting online community platforms like Facebook Groups or LinkedIn Groups, you can also create your own forum on any online hosting service if you're wondering how to build an online community on a smaller and more personal scale.
Platforms like Discourse, Circle, Disciple, Discord, Mighty Networks, Hivebrite, and Thinkific have also proven themselves as viable options for building online communities. .
There are a few pointers to keep in mind when selecting a community platform.
For starters, does it fit into your budget? Some platforms, like Facebook Groups, are available for free, but you can only communicate with those who have Facebook profiles. That can be rather limiting in some community contexts.
Other services, like Discord, don’t charge to use most features (there are optional paid upgrades) although community members must still have an account to join and participate.
The next consideration when building an online community is accessibility. You can more easily sway members to join a well-known platform than a small one they’re unfamiliar with. Of course, this should go without saying, but it should be free for members to join.
The registration process of your community should be straightforward and easy so more people willingly sign up. If they can sign in through their Facebook or Google accounts, that's even more advantageous.
The final consideration as you build an online community is the most important, and that’s scalability.
Your online community is small now, but it won’t be forever. What happens when you have 500 members? 1,000? 5,000? Can your platform support that many members, or would you be forced to switch?
If you have to change platforms as your community grows, you risk losing some members forever as the community fractures during the migration.
Step 3 – Grow Members
There’s a framework known as the Social Identity Cycle that suggests the only way for a community to succeed is by community and member values aligning, members having many ways to participate (and the encouragement to do so), and some form of reward for engaging.
That doesn’t have to be a cash reward. Participating can be the reward in and of itself, and building community ties is also its own form of reward.
Bearing all that in mind, the next step in how to build an online community is to find members.
The members you select should align connect with your community in some way. For example, if you start a community board for job seekers, you might have several job experts involved who can facilitate positive change for members. .
If you run an online community for pet lovers, you might invite expert-level breeders and veterinarians to your group.
Once you’ve identified a handful of members, invite them to your new community. Don’t provide empty promises when trying to obtain members; only offer them what you know you can realistically do. Hopefully, they agree to participate.
You might not get lots of members to join you for the first go-around, so have some backup names, and then more backup names after that.
There's no specific number of group members you need when building an online community. That said, a few dozen to start is good. This should be enough people to facilitate meaningful, enjoyable communication.
Step 4 – Gain Trust
As you get a core group of members, you next have to build and maintain their trust.
This isn’t an overnight process, so be patient.
Think of matters from the perspective of your initial community members. They’re probably not investing anything more than their time, but time is precious. It’s money.
Wasted time hurts because you can’t get it back, so they want to be sure they’re hitching their wagon to a star that has a chance of success.
If this is your first time creating online communities, it’s harder to earn that trust because you don’t have a track record. That’s why tapping into a community of people you already know and perhaps have worked with is best.
For example, you can reach out to your most loyal customers and suggest they join your community.
If you’ve engaged in online community building before, it’s easier to build trust, as you can showcase your record of success and use it to onboard new members.
However, if you're starting from scratch, a few positive testimonials from those in your closest circle can help, as can associations with other trusted experts. This proves your community is full of experts who are willing to share advice and help.
Even once you gain a member’s trust, that doesn’t automatically translate to them posting more. It can be tough to get the ball rolling on a new online community. People aren’t sure what to talk about, or they might feel shy about starting the first thread or post ever.
As the one building a community online, you might open some threads and respond or create some topics to get people talking. Alternatively, you can privately communicate with some of your members to ask them to start or respond to a post. It's not the most glamorous method, but it works.
It might feel a bit like pulling teeth at first, but the early days of a community typically play out just like this. Don't feel bad. Once more people begin joining and you gain your footing, the communication will happen without your direct involvement.
Step 5 – Introduce Rewards
You promised a rewards system when you invited members to your community; now it’s time to deliver. This is why you should always make your promises realistic and attainable. Otherwise, you will alienate your community, destroy what trust they had, and fracture the group.
Keep the rewards simple, such as gaining more knowledge or building connections. You could even create a virtual badge system. As your online community members begin posting and interacting more, they will realize those benefits, just as you promised.
That will incentivize them to stick around and invite other relevant members to join.
Step 6 – Continue Building
How to build an online community? Well, it never exactly stops, does it? Even when you have a good member base, you should continue aspiring to onboard new members.
So, how do you increase your numbers? Here are some strategies to utilize:
- Use free and paid marketing measures to spread awareness of your online community.
- Post on social media, drawing attention to your new community.
- Share insights on Quora and LinkedIn to draw attention to the community website.
- Start a referral system, where long-time members recommend others they believe would be a good fit for the membership. They should receive a special reward for helping, such as a freebie or discount code.
- Write a blog post about your new community and cross-post it across social media and email.
Why Is Online Community Building Important?
You know how to build an online community, but why do it? It takes great time and expense, sure, but if you put into it, you will get lots back. Just take a look!
1. Increases Trust
Those early days when you’re developing trust with your first members notwithstanding, creating an online community is an excellent way to foster more trust in your brand or business. Leads will see a bustling community full of unique, varied voices sharing their thoughts and opinions...
Members wouldn’t be able to talk freely if your products were of poor quality, so the community is a testament to your products.
Your leads will realize they have less to lose by joining your community and trying your online courses and other products, increasing conversions. After a while, you won't have to ask how to build an online community, as the members will come directly to you.
2. Boosts Your Brand
What’s the next frontier for your brand? Online communities, of course!
Creating online communities is a way to strengthen your brand and build recognition, especially if you interact with other members from time to time. Your competitors will kick themselves for not thinking of it first.
3. Improves Member Retention
Customer engagement is a great way to earn more repeat business, but you don’t only have to rely on email to do it. An online community is a constant source of engagement. Your customers will realize the value of participating in the community in that they get to talk to you and knowledgeable others.
They’ll want to stick around because of your high-quality content and the professional connections and friendships they’ve made through the community.
4. Helps Your Customers/Audience Feel Heard
Everyone wants to feel like they have a voice that people listen to. Put your money where your mouth is and learn how to build an online community. When customers and members share their thoughts and opinions, ensure they don’t fall on deaf ears.
If possible, implement changes based on the invaluable feedback you receive. At the very least, let your audience know you hear what they’re saying and will take it into account.
Being heard and appreciated is a great way to boost loyalty and retention.
5. Increases Product Sales
With almost 100 percent of customers reading reviews before making a purchasing decision, what others say about you matters. A review or testimonial isn’t the same as an online community, but it’s close.
Why would people continually engage, and positively at that, if the community was in a bad atmosphere? The high levels of trust others in the community have for you and your products will inspire more sales of your online course or other goods.
6. Acts as Customer Support
Although not the primary benefit of online communities, they can sometimes be a stand-in for your customer support team. Customers will undoubtedly have questions about how to use or do this and that, and more experienced members can answer.
This saves your customer service team from having to dedicate their time to answering menial questions so they can, handle more complex requests.
7. Can Help Spread Word-of-Mouth Marketing
Word-of-mouth marketing is influential because it’s all customer-based. Rather than directly selling to an audience, your customer says all the nice things for you. Their words resonate more because they’re not trying to sell online courses like you are.
If a customer has a good experience on your forum, they’ll talk about it elsewhere online, such as on social media. Likewise, if customers within the community share high-value answers, those answers could get quoted and spread across the internet. This could even help your SEO. I mean, look at how Reddit and Quora threads perform these days.
Tips for Keeping Your Online Community Thriving
Once you’ve built your community, you can’t take a hands-off approach to its future. You should be as involved as anyone, perhaps even more so, overseeing and participating when you can. That’s how you build an online community with staying power.
These pointers will help you in your efforts of online community building and maintenance.
1. Create a Code of Conduct
A community is a fun side hobby, so no one wants there to be too many rules. That can hinder participation if it seems like too much of a job. At the same time, the community can’t be devoid of rules, as that’s how chaos reigns. You need to find a good middle ground.
Introduce a brief code of conduct or community guidelines, and then sticky the post at the top of the forum so everyone can see it. Redirect new members to the rules and mention them to long-time members when necessary.
Be ready to enforce the rules, as that's what they're there for. It's never easy to call out members for bad behavior, but it's for the good of the community. If someone is running amok and isn't penalized for it, anyone else can do the same and the community will break down.
You might consider a three-strike system before kicking someone out of the group according to the rules of your community guidelines, or you could create your own violation system. Whatever your choice, remember that you can’t let someone run roughshod over the community you built.
Removing a negative presence from the community will do more for it in the long run, even if it's a tough call.
2. Implement Feedback
As mentioned, the best online communities allow their audiences to share their thoughts and opinions, with responses from the community leader(s). That means you should readily ask for feedback from your biggest participants.
Incorporating it into your community will bolster member trust and provide a better environment for all.
3. Establish Moderators
Disagreements will happen, and they may devolve beyond a mere difference of opinion. If two or more members are being nasty toward one another or otherwise causing discordance across the community, this is where a moderator should step in.
A moderator or mod’s job is to patrol the online community, look for rule violations, and keep the peace. It’s an important job, but one someone does out of the goodness of their heart, as mod positions are unpaid.
You should dole out modding responsibilities to a team of trusted members, at least two or three to start. Although the mods might not have much to do when the community first gets off the ground, as it gains traction, that will change.
In fact, depending on the size of your community at that time, you might decide to add more mods!
4. Maintain Value
The value of partaking in your community should commensurately increase as your numbers grow. The more people participating, the more insights and resources that become available for all the members.
That said, periodically review the level of value you’re offering your community members and decide what, if anything, you could do to make the experience even more value-inclusive.
5. Provide Varied Content
Online communities can’t stay stagnant; evolution is needed to engage longer-term community members and intrigue newer ones. Expand the type of content you post, from videos to surveys, whitepapers, blogs, eBooks, and contests.
This will not only increase the aforementioned value of your online community but will surely inspire more signups to join.
Examples of Online Communities to Inspire You
As you build your online community, it helps to review others across the web to see what their blueprint looks like and how they achieve and maintain success. Here are three examples to inspire you.
The online community of all online communities, social media giant Facebook cracked 3 billion users in 2024. Facebook is more than a platform for connecting with old high school classmates. The social media giant offers Facebook Groups, where people can talk about professional and personal topics, sharing their thoughts and insights freely.
Unlike most communities, where members create usernames and can shroud themselves in anonymity, Facebook requires your name and photo to be attached to whatever you post. However, that's not the case for this next one...
Created in 2005 (making it nearly as old as Facebook), Reddit is a social network for connecting with others. Reddit divides its platform into Subreddits, which are dedicated to specific topics.
For example, each sports team in the NFL has its own Subreddit, and many popular and obscure television shows have Subreddits as well. It's not the teams or actors starting the Subreddits, but dedicated fans, who can post images and videos.
Reddit is a completely anonymous platform where your name and photo don't have to be attached to your profile. Some people even create throwaway accounts untied to their main accounts if posting about sensitive topics.
Visa Developer Community
How about an online community example on a much smaller scale? The Visa Developer Community connected the Visa Developer Team with external developers to share and grow ideas based on collaborative brainstorming. The presence of the community drove more brand loyalty and got Visa several nods and awards.
Wrapping Up
If you’re wondering how to build an online community, it all starts with a purpose and a few members who share your vision.
The early days of the community are tough. You have to convince new members to trust you, and you might have to ask them to post and reply to others more than once.
After you get over that initial hump, continuing to build and maintain a successful online community becomes easier and more rewarding.
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