many of these are “zombie communities”: Slack or Discord groups with hundreds or thousands of people and no meaningful engagement.

Building a community is incredibly hard! You can’t just drop your audience into a digital space and expect a healthy community to form — it will quickly spiral out of control if you don’t actively manage it. And finding ways to spark meaningful discussions and connections is challenging.

1. Start with “why.”

there’s a “Dunbar’s number” for communities, and it’s probably 2 or 3. We don’t have the time or cognitive load to meaningfully engage with more than a couple of communities on an ongoing basis. And with thousands of online communities, you need a strong value prop to break through the noise!

How do you know if your audience needs a community? The best signal is when they start hacking it together without you.

2. Focus on quality, not quantity.

the most valuable communities are often curated groups of people who are active and engaged. A huge community with no activity (or worse, tons of spam) isn’t fun for anyone, and will lead to high churn.

remember that more people = more noise. Find a way to suss out who will be a positive contributor to the community — and who just wants to promote their content or tap into your audience for their own gain.

3. Invest in onboarding.

Joining a community can be overwhelming, particularly if it’s not clear how to introduce yourself and get involved. Every community leader I’ve talked to agrees that designing a thoughtful onboarding process is one of the most important things you do.

4. Get your members to buy in.

Psychology tells us that if you can get someone to buy into something, they’re much more likely to stick with it. It’s all about avoiding cognitive dissonance!

5. Find new ways to add value.

To engage and retain members, you need to both (1) add value on a daily basis, and (2) create “magical” moments that illustrate the value of the community and create an emotional connection

Start by figuring out why people are coming to your community, and then find the best channel(s) to deliver this value.