Community Members: Engage, Empower, and Grow Your Community

Running an online community can feel like you're in the Wild West, with chaos often feeling like a natural state. Without clear expectations, community members can struggle to find their place, contribute effectively, or collaborate with others. This lack of structure can impact the space's growth, members engaged and potential members, community participation and overall success.

Enter the power of role definition. Community managers and leaders like yourself can transform a disorganized space into a healthy community by clearly outlining community members' responsibilities, privileges and expectations.

This article dives into why defining roles is critical for creating harmony and productivity, how it enhances the overall community experience and practical steps to assign and implement members' roles.

Whether you're a community manager or moderator, understanding the importance of defining clear guidelines and roles is the first step toward building a more unified and collaborative online community.

Without further ado, let's get started.

Who are community members?

Whether you're running an online forum, a social media space, or a local club, community members are the heart of your online space and play a key role. They are like neighbors, each bringing their unique skills and energy to the community.

Simply put, they are the people who come together around shared interests, goals, or purpose. Each member brings unique experiences, efforts, unique perspectives and contributions (new content and other resources), making the community dynamic.

Everyone plays a role—whether it's starting conversations, lending support, sharing expertise, or just showing up and being part of the group. Some may take on leadership roles, while others prefer to engage quietly, but every member matters; their commitment is invaluable.

No matter how diverse their contributions are, active members share one thing in common: they make the space what it is. Without them, there's no community—just an empty space. Being a member means being part of something bigger and that's something you, as a community manager or moderator, should respect.

By valuing your community members, you’re not just building a group but developing a shared sense of belonging and purpose (like in local communities) that keeps the space running.

📖 Do you know the difference between an audience and a community? If you don't check this article out.

Why does your community center need member roles?

Community members' roles are essential for creating structure and ensuring your online spaces operate smoothly and efficiently. Determining specific responsibilities and roles encourages individuals to contribute meaningfully and develops collaboration.

Structural needs

Community members' roles are necessary because they keep your community well-organized and help it run more efficiently. In addition, member roles contribute to member engagement and ensuring your community's goals are met.

Leadership

A community requires more than one community builder; it takes a village. Several roles or leadership positions must be filled for a community to run successfully. According to Australian Community Managers, leadership is so essential that 58% of survey participants agree that one of the top qualities that makes a community successful is having effective leaders.

Creating member roles allows your community members to take on leadership and mentorship roles.

Creates a greater buy-in

Community members' roles allow people the opportunity to be part of the community management process. It creates a greater buy-in for your members (even new members) since everyone wants to be part of the process.

📖 Want to build a customer community? Check out our guide to develop a vibrant customer community!

Examples of community members' roles

The community members' roles are essential for maintaining the organization and ensure that everyone understands their responsibilities. They keep the community level high.

Depending on the community's size and purpose, you may need just a handful of roles or a more detailed structure involving many positions.

Check out typical community roles and their variations.

Admins

Admins are the backbone of a community, an integral part with a sense of responsibility.

They are responsible for its overall structure and operations. Admin's duties include:

• Setting up and maintaining the community platform or space where the community exists
• Defining community guidelines and policies
• Overseeing all other roles to ensure alignment with the community's mission
• Handling conflicts that moderators cannot resolve
• Handling technical issues

💡The study Administrator-users Contribute More to Online Communities explores the dynamics of admin involvement in online platforms. It finds that administrators significantly influence community activity levels through their participation in discussions, content moderation and problem resolution.

Moderators

Moderators act as the community's guardians. They are there to ensure that interactions between community members remain respectful and aligned with guidelines.

Their tasks often include:

• Monitor conversations and content to prevent harmful behavior, interaction or spam within the community
• Enforce rules by issuing warnings, mute disrespectful members, or ban repeat offenders that consume content
• Welcome and respond to new members and encourage positive engagement and acceptance
• Act as a bridge between admins and active members, reporting issues or suggestions

Average community members

The average member participates in discussions, contributes ideas, create content and new ideas and is simply present. These members:

• Access and engage with others by asking questions, sharing experiences, or providing feedback within the community
• Represent the diversity of the community, offering unique perspectives to other members that enrich discussions
• Help sustain the community through their activity and interactions

Some niche communities may have specialized roles, such as:

• Content creators: Individuals responsible for creating marketing material, such as articles, videos, or events, that keep the community active and engaging and participation high.
• Event organizers: Members who plan and coordinate community events, like meetups, webinars, or challenges.
• Mentors: Experienced community members who guide new members, answer questions, share knowledge and provide expertise in specific areas.
• Technical support: Individuals who troubleshoot platform issues and help members with technical difficulties to improve community participation.

📖 Do you know the difference between internal, private, public and hybrid communities? If you don't, just click on each word to access articles on different types of communities.

How do you assign a role to a community member?

Assigning roles to community members is a strategic move that can set the tone for your community and ensure smooth operation.

Community engagement platforms like Bettermode make this process intuitive by offering role management tools, allowing you to seamlessly assign, adjust and monitor member roles.

Here's how roles can be effectively assigned using Bettermode.

Identify engaged members

Your most enthusiastic super-users are natural candidates for roles like moderators or mentors.

Once you analyze engagement metrics provided in Bettermode, a community website builder, such as activity logs, post frequency and interaction quality, you can quickly identify members demonstrating leadership potential and a commitment to the community's values.

💡Bettermode's App Store exists to extend the platform's capabilities by allowing you to integrate third-party applications and build custom apps to improve engagement and functionality. Some popular integrations are with MailChimp, Salesforce and Amplitude.

Application and onboarding

Consider implementing an application process where community members can express interest in specific roles.

With Bettermode, you can create dedicated spaces or forms for applications and collect member feedback. Use this as an opportunity to onboard role candidates with clear expectations, guidelines, training materials, or mentoring sessions.

Offer incentives

Offer perks such as exclusive access to content, badges, or other rewards to recognize the time and effort required for member roles.

Bettermode supports custom gamification features, such as awarding points, leaderboards, badges, or special privileges for role-based contributions, which can boost motivation and loyalty.

Participation based on members' wishes

Allow members to opt into roles voluntarily, ensuring they feel motivated to contribute.

Bettermode's user-friendly design and numerous website templates (including Saasplex, Bytelink, WorkEase and Cloud Project) lets you communicate open roles and their responsibilities transparently, making it easy for members to step forward and get involved.

Flexibility in taking roles

One community member should be able to take on multiple roles if they have the qualifications and availability.

Using Bettermode's role management system, you can assign overlapping permissions to a single user without technical complexity, such as combining "moderator" and "content creator" responsibilities.

Role adjustments

As your community evolves, so do its needs.

Bettermode enables real-time role updates, making it simple to reassign roles, promote active members, or adjust permissions based on member performance.

Track and evaluate performance

Monitoring the impact of assigned roles is crucial for long-term success.

Bettermode's analytics tools allow you to track how specific members contribute to discussions, handle moderation tasks, or engage with others, providing insights for further role optimization.

Conclusion

Defining clear member roles in your community is more than just a strategy; it's a transformative approach to building collaboration, trust and efficiency.

By assigning roles aligning with individual strengths—admins overseeing operations, moderators building harmony, or average members contributing energy and ideas—you create a structured yet flexible space where everyone can thrive.

Platforms like Bettermode streamline the role assignment process, allowing you to identify onboard leaders and reward active participants using multiple tools.

Whether you manage a small or a gigantic online hub, role definition builds ownership, leadership and meaningful participation. Your community can grow, adapt and keep every member engaged and valued with the right structure.

Get started with Bettermode today; it's free!

FAQ

Who are the members of a community?

‍Community members are individuals who actively or passively participate in a group united by shared interests, purpose, or goals.

Who are considered community members?

‍Community members are anyone who identifies with, contributes to, or benefits from being part of a community.

What do you call members of a community?

‍Members of a community are commonly called participants, contributors, or simply community members.

What is the role of a community member?

‍The role of a member is to engage, contribute and support the community's shared purpose or goals while building connections with others.