Driving engagement in newly created communities

Heya @julianbailey122 and @AnnaF_RW !

Sounds like this needs the Blastoise Touch as well. I’m not a community manager or moderator myself, but I am a very active user, so my own views can give you insights as to how your customers might see things. I can’t find your communities as you’ve both got them as Private right now it seems, but I can give advice anyway.

I also help out as a Super User volunteer on the OVO Forum which you can find in my profile. @timcavey and @JessPritch are definitely two people you’ll definitely get some great tips from when it comes to moderator and community manager views too. OVO and the inSpired Community are also some good examples of how running on a Hybrid model works. While the majority of the place is open to the public and anyone can explore, certain areas are locked away so that only certain members can see them. These can often be more sensitive areas (like the entire Moderation category on inSpired which is definitely never going to be public!!!) or used for semi-public discussions where you want to allow trusted members to access for specific purposes like the Super User Treehouse on OVO (which lets trusted volunteers chat with Tim and Jess about things that we don’t want everyone else to see).

You should be able to see the Moderation category and the Ideas section on inSpired within the next couple of days once the automation catches up. Once it does, you’ll see the link to Ideas appear on the Mega Menu at the top, like so.

One of my personal tips that can help keep users like myself engaged, is not only making sure I know the community exists, but also welcoming users in and encouraging just about anything that could be seen as useful in some way. Whether it be bug reports, feedback, questions, suggestions or just general discussions, anything that’s reasonable is a good sign. But if your customers don’t know the community exists or that they can’t get in easily, then it’s unlikely they’ll stick around for long. I know from experience that quite a lot of users might only stop by once, ask for help and then vanish forever. Make a good impression and they’re more likely to return! Just make sure not to sound too pushy or forceful, as that could drive people away rather than draw them in.

User Generated Content can be a real treasure trove once things get going. In actual fact, some of my own guides that I wrote on the OVO Forum have seriously taken off too. If you ever see a user who manages to create a thread that hits crazy high engagement in any way, be sure to recognise it! In the last month alone, two of my guides have been the most viewed topics over there and one of them regularly pulls in an average of 100+ hits a day. If you can find that magic, it will serve you well. :)

And don’t forget, the community shouldn’t just be about getting help! It’s perfectly OK to chill out in a lounge area, share some funny stories and allow it to be a relaxed space that’s not just an extension of the help centre or support team. If you ever do make your communities Public or Hybrid though, please feel free to let me know. I’ll try to take a look around if I can and I might be able to offer some additional thoughts.

Good luck with getting the party started too! I’m rooting for ya and you’re always welcome to stop by if you get stuck.