Day 2 of 30-Day Community Problems: Ensuring Return Visits and Tackling One-Time Logins
One of the most complicated challenges that new community builders have is getting members to come back.
There's no single change you can make that will work unless you have the four key components in place.
Level One: Your community has to be focused on 1️⃣ a current problem that people 2️⃣ are really interested in solving.
If your community is build on a future problem we will have, or a small challenge we all face, there's less urgency.
The ideal intersection for engagement success lies at the crossroads of pain and urgency. On the flip side this can also be about excitement and opportunity (It doesn't always have to be negative). The timing is critical.
Level Two: Your community needs a resource that people will explore.
If your value proposition for new members is simply transactional -- sign up and get this PDF document -- I do not need to come back.
Having something that is embedded in the community that people will be using over time will bring them back. By default if you have a course inside your community, people will be coming back to your community space for the course.
So the community is a side product to the course experience. They can see it as they're inside the course, they can choose whether or not they want to interact while they're there inside the course.
Level Three: Building a community with requirements or opportunities for interaction.
What do users need to do in order to unlock more value? What do thye have the opportunity to do that could create more value?
Will I build connections with others? Will I learn more or more quickly?
Engagement can be a forcing function or a growth pathway depending on how you position it.
Level Four: Make engagement a really low lift.
For example, you're connected to your neighbors. You recognize them when you see them. You're keeping that relationship alive, but you don't need to go talk to them for five minutes every single day.
Striking that balance inside your community allows members to keep the connection so when they do need to or want to reach out or do more, the experience is one with minimal friction.
This post was part of my 30-day community series I ran on Twitter/X. Follow me for instant updates. Explore this site to learn more about community. You can work with me to accelerate your community growth.