The Business of Belonging

Chapter 7Activating Community Engagement

We've now gone through all three levels of your community strategy, and you have everything you need to develop a paint comprehensive plan!

But of course, a good plan will only take you so far. Even with the most perfect of plans, once you see it play out in reality, you might find that people are still reluctant to show up and participate. Motivating participation in your community is very much an art that takes iteration and tact.

So as we wrap up with this final chapter I'd like to share some of the key lessons I've learned in the community-building field about how to activate your community and move people to meaningfully engage in the spaces that you design and host.

I'll share the inside tips and tricks that have worked for me and the many community builders I've learned from.

Let's bring it home!

Engagement Is a Constant Experiment

My first big lesson is that engagement is all about trial and error. You need to try different things, and likely fail, to get to the approach that works for you and your community. All the success I've had in building community has come from constant experimentation.

You just don't know what people will organically want to engage with until you try it. You might have a great idea for a discussion prompt, but when you post, no one responds. Maybe the prompt wasn't worded perfectly, maybe it was a weird time of day where people weren't paying attention … who knows. And then sometimes you'll throw something ...