Creating a Thriving Online Community: Tips and Strategies for Success
Most of us are members of some type of branded online community. And there's a good reason for this: they are powerful social hubs that benefit us immensely. We join a community to learn, network and connect with people who share our values.
The benefits of most branded online communities don't just stretch to members. The people and brands behind these online spaces use them to raise awareness and build followers.
This article explores what great online communities are and how they work. If you're thinking about starting one and becoming a community manager but aren’t sure where to begin, this community management guide is here to help.
What is an online community?
An internet community is a group of people interacting online around a common interest, challenge, or goal.
People with a shared sense of belonging use these online communities to share knowledge, learn, build networks, or simply discuss their interests without meeting face-to-face.
These communities have their own rules and norms that vary depending on their use. They can form organically, but they are often started by individuals or brands who want to encourage virtual interaction around a particular topic and want to dive deep into community management.
A branded online community can be a powerful way to increase product awareness, create deeper, meaningful relationships with customers, and build authority in an industry.
Different types of online communities
At Bettermode, we help individuals and brands create successful online communities. Here are the four kinds we see most often.
Communities of practice
A Community of Practice (CoP) is a space for people with a shared interest—usually a profession—to gather.
These online communities are excellent spaces to learn and share knowledge and best practices about a particular industry. Each community is also a great way to build networks.
The MO Pros community for marketing operations professionals is a great example of this type of community. It is an exclusive community that encourages discussion boards, Q&As, and collaboration around marketing operations-related challenges.
Here are some benefits for members of communities of practice:
- Giving new members access to shared knowledge within the community
- Members can expand their professional network
Brands also benefit from creating communities of practice:
- They can build brand awareness among people in their community and industry
- They can establish their authority in the industries they operate
Support communities
Support communities (or customer communities, even B2B communities) are built around particular products or software. Within these communities, users share tips and tactics about how to get the most from these products.
In many cases, the brand behind the company will do community management and also support community users.
There are several benefits to running a support online community that gathers your target audience over other forms of customer support:
- You create a library of support tickets that people can use as a self-service reference to overcome challenges. One answer in a community can help multiple customers.
- Other users may answer questions. The community takes the strain away from your support agents; you can serve more customers without increasing the size of your team.
- Your business can collect feedback and suggestions from customers directly from the community. The online community can become a channel (besides social media platforms) for sharing progress and updates.
- Google (and other search engines) will index your community posts, increasing its visibility. People searching for relevant queries may see the community and join.
Condo Control has a great online community and awesome community management. It aims to help customers and users get the most out of the software. The learning community encourages this by sharing resources and providing support to new members, thus improving the customer experience.
Benefits of support communities for new members:
- Instant user access to a community library of support content
- Help from other users and the brand's support team
Benefits of support online communities for brands:
- Customer support teams have fewer tickets to deal with
- Deeper connections with customers, which ultimately increases retention
- Creating an online community as a powerful self-service resource
Internal communities
Internal communities are used inside organizations to help people connect and work together.
These branded online communities are the simplest in terms of community management. They are quick to grow and run since there's no need to find a membership base.
The key to ensuring people use it is identifying organizational challenges and building the entire community around these challenges and goals. IBM did this through its CSR Influencers Network—a group of IBM employees committed to making a social impact. Before introducing an internal community, IBM already had social impact initiatives, but there was a need for space that would allow people, so called "influencers" to organize and discuss their activities. It looks similar to social media platforms.
The active online community now does a great job of encouraging and motivating participation in these programs.
Benefits of internal communities for new members:
- Networking with people in the organization
- More efficient communication that helps get work done
Benefits of internal online communities for brands:
- Encourages collaboration and communication outside the community
- Increases access to company knowledge
Social communities
Not all virtual communities form around professional needs. Many are built around shared interests, hobbies, or social groups.
Members of the social online communities benefit by being able to connect with people with similar interests, while brands gain significant awareness among a passionate online community and, through proper community management, create loyal brand advocates.
The Herbal Entrepreneur space is a great example. It's an online knowledge-sharing social community for herbalists looking to start or grow their herbal business. The social community, similar to a social media platform and social online spaces, enables users to learn from other community members, share their stories, and get expert advice around different topics (similar to user behavior on a social network).
Benefits of social online communities for members:
- Connecting with people who have a similar passion
- Learning from more experienced members
Benefits of social communities for brands:
- Raising brand awareness
- Forming a deeper connection with community members, thus increasing brand loyalty
Benefits of an online community
An online community provides numerous benefits for the individual or organization hosting it and for the members. Here are some of the most common benefits of a great online community and proper community management.
Improved member engagement and loyalty
Branded online communities are designed to keep members engaged by giving them options to interact online as frequently as they like, view exclusive content, and have meaningful conversations. Such interaction builds customer loyalty where online community members feel connected and invested.
A sense of emotional connection
At their core, most online communities are spaces where members feel they belong to a group of people with similar interests or goals. Such a sense of belonging, developed thanks to your proper community management, creates an emotional connection that keeps members returning.
Knowledge sharing and accessibility
Similar to Facebook groups, great online communities serve as knowledge bases that members can access, ask questions and exchange expertise. One of the best things about online communities is that members can find answers quickly from other members or specialists, creating an online community with a collective learning culture.
Community-driven content creation
Engaged members are pure content creation bliss. They can generate content for your organization, including testimonials, case studies, and tutorials, adding value to the community. This user-generated content (UGC) provides new perspectives and can reduce your content creation workload and community management tasks.
Community insights and analytics
You can use your internet community to identify users' needs and measure their satisfaction so you can improve and tweak your marketing and community management efforts. Tracking online community engagement, common user issues, and popular content within the online communities provides more than enough information to work with.
Successful event promotion
Great online communities are spaces for promoting events such as webinars, workshops, and conferences. Community members are more likely to participate in these events, increasing their success.
Customer support and self-service
Online communities are all about community member support, where members can help each other solve problems. With an online community, you’ll save on support costs for formal customer service and community management, as other users will be able to find solutions independently.
What makes a successful online community?
Community building is all about creating an online community space that meets members' goals. Successful online communities tend to have several characteristics in common.
A powerful sign up incentive
All the best communities provide potential members with a powerful reason to sign up. Without this, it's far harder to grow an online community. Here are some examples of incentives:
- Access to a network. If your community is already established, the network may be enough incentive to encourage sign ups. This is especially likely to be the case in professions where connections can be crucial to career growth, for each community member.
- Access to support. Access to support is a powerful sign up incentive. If people know they can receive the help they need in your community, they are more likely to join.
- Access to exclusive community content. Offering exclusive content like webinars, video hosting, or blog posts to each community member can incentivize sign ups.
Ways to encourage engagement and community members
In an ideal world, online community engagement happens naturally, but this isn't always the case.
The 2024 CMX Community Industry Trends Report (and here's previous year's report) found that online communities are having more success with consistently engaging members.
Here are some proven techniques those community managers surely use to boost engagement on their community portals:
- Create separate spaces for different topics. A community manager should organize discussions and shows where people can find the specific types of content they are interested in.
- Create conversation starters. Online community managers need to be the ones to start conversations, just like they would on social media. This could be anything from asking your online communities questions to running events and AMAs that get people talking and send private messages.
- Offer rewards and points: Rewards and points won't encourage conversation on their own. But applying gamification in your community as a community manager, you can provide enough motivation to keep people coming back.
An active moderation team
A lack of community management can be a huge community killer. Without it, your discussions are at risk of going off track, which can be off-putting for members.
Documenting community rules and highlighting them is an effective way for you, the community manager, to introduce expectations. You could also vet new members to ensure their intentions align with your community's values before letting them in.
A shared goal
Ultimately, the people in your online community should all be there to achieve a shared purpose or goal. It doesn't mean they can't have differing opinions or viewpoints; each community member should want the same outcomes from their community participation.
How Bettermode can help you build an online community
Bettermode is a community engagement platform designed to help companies and individuals build, manage, and grow online communities.
Here are some ways Bettermode, one of the most robust online community platforms, can assist you in building an online community.
- Bettermode allows you to design a community that aligns with your brand’s look, feel, and voice. With our fully customizable website templates and layout controls, you can create a unique online community that reflects your identity.
- Being an online community platform we offer responsive template designs (that work well on mobile devices like mobile apps), your members can engage on the go. You can use our Saasplex to build a customer service management platform, Reddify to build a Reddit alternative or Event Quest to build an event community. BetterHub is perfect for developing online discussion forums and a developer portal.
- Our no-code tool uses a modular system that lets you choose and arrange features (e.g., discussion forums, Q&A sections, events) to match your community's specific needs. You can create a community focused on support, learning, networking, or engagement.
- With Bettermode, you can moderate your online community to keep it safe and engaging. You can do so by approving posts, flagging inappropriate content, setting guidelines and imposing other community management tactics.
- With our community platform, you can create sub-communities (user groups) within your main one so you can cater to different user interests. These communities help members find relevant discussions and resources based on their shared interests within online communities.
- Better mode has gamification community features, such as badges, reputation points, and leaderboards, to motivate every community member to participate actively and reward them for their contributions. These tools add fun and recognition, simultaneously increasing engagement in online communities.
- Bettermode’s analytics board provides insights into user activity, active participation, popular content, and engagement trends within online communities. You can measure your community’s health and make informed decisions to improve user experience, create an engagement plan and generate revenue.
- Bettermode integrates seamlessly with tools like Google Analytics and Hotjar, allowing you to connect your communities data with other systems. Such integrations help automate workflows and track CRM data within online communities.
- With Bettermode, online communities can double as a knowledge hub, where members access guides, FAQs, and documentation. Your members will be able to find all the necessary information quickly.
- With our community platform, you can promote and manage events directly within the community, including webinars and live chats. Bettermode also allows you to invite members to participate, helping increase event engagement.
- Bettermode offers real-time communication options (private messaging) and other community features, like live chats or forums. All that to make your communities more dynamic and up-to-date and ensure customer success.
- Our platform is designed to grow with your user base. As your communities expand, the platform can adapt to your needs, ensuring your virtual community doesn't lose on performance.
Conclusion
Online communities are incredible opportunities for connection, knowledge-sharing, brand engagement and customer success.
If you are looking to build a virtual community and build a great community's reputation, Bettermode provides a strong online community platform that allows you to create engaging and customizable spaces aligned with your and your customers' or users' goals.
It’s ideal for building communities focused on learning, support, or networking. With Bettermode, one of the best online community platforms, you can create a space where members can develop meaningful connections, discussion forums and brands build loyalty and visibility.
Get started with Bettermode today; it’s free!
By giving members and your target audience a dedicated space, communities, to connect, collaborate, and share ideas, transcending physical boundaries, you empower them to engage more deeply with your community.
This article was originally published on June 25th, 2021, and was updated on November 10th, 2024.
FAQs
What is the most popular online community?
Reddit is often cited as one of the most popular online communities, with millions of users.
Which is called the online community?
An online community is a digital space where people interact, share, and collaborate around shared interests or goals.
What are the types of online communities?
Common types of online communities include communities of practice, support communities, social communities (similar to social media), and internal (organizational) communities.
What is an online social media community?
An online social media community is a group, similar to a social network, where members connect and engage around common interests or topics.
