Module 2: How to Keep Your Community Thriving

By Brenda C.

Hey there, community builders! We know keeping a community excited and involved can be challenging, but don't worry, we've got you covered! Our below guide is packed with tips and tricks to make sure your members stick around and have a great time.

What you’ll learn: By the end of this module, you'll be a community engagement pro! Here you’ll find strategies and tools that you can use to engage your community and the best practices for creating an impact on your engagement efforts.

Engagement helps you build trust. When members contribute, they build relationships with each other and with the community as a whole.

There is no point in just attracting new members - if you have a leaky bucket and your current members feel bored and taken for granted, then they’ll leave and your community numbers will level off and reach a plateau.

When members feel connected to a community, they're more likely to stick around and stay involved, and that can mean more participation, better collaboration, and a community that's really thriving. Retention is also important because it helps a community build its reputation. When members are active for longer, they're more likely to share their positive experiences with others.

Creating Engagement Opportunities without Over-Notifying

Sending relevant messages is key! No one likes receiving too many notifications 🤯 Keep in mind you want to offer various ways to engage members that suit everyone, but not spam them. Finding the right balance is the secret sauce to keeping your community excited to participate.

Here are some tactics to add to your daily strategy:

1. Gamifying engagement is super effective, so by creating Quests or challenges with rewards on Zealy, you can increase participation.

1. Conduct regular user surveys or polls to gauge preferences and feedback.
2. Use data analysis to understand which engagement opportunities are most popular and effective, and focus on those.
3. Host events that cater to different interests or skill levels within the community.
4. Create sub-groups or channels within the community that are suitable to specific interests or goals (like gaming, NFTs, trading or any topic your community likes).
5. Collaborate with other communities or projects to offer cross-promotion and collaboration opportunities.
6. Offer exclusive content or swag to members who are particularly engaged or active in the community.

Finding the Right Content Format

The options are endless! Here are some possible formats you can use to boost your strategy -and some great hacks to explore with your Zealy Questboard:

Tutorials and How-To Guides

Get creative! use tutorials, guides and webinars to educate, guide and elevate your community knowledge.  

Games and Quizzes

Direct your audience into a fun learning curve and make it challenging and rewarding.

Blogs and articles

The best content is the one that provides added value to your readers. Articles are great to expand on topics that need a deep look and to ensure the audience has the best information possible.

We encourage you to go ahead and experiment! Have fun and see what works best for you and your community!

Effective Communication

Yep! Effective communication is key to keeping your community engaged. When members don't get clear and concise info, it can lead to confusion, frustration, and disengagement. This can be a big bummer for everyone involved! Plus, unclear communication can cause misunderstandings and hurt the community's reputation.

Here are some tips to help you make sure your message comes across loud and clear:

• Keep your messages short and to the point. People are more likely to read and engage with messages that are concise and easy to understand.

• Avoid too much technical stuff! This will help ensure that your message is easily understood by everyone in your community, regardless of their level of technical knowledge.
• Encourage two-way communication. Make sure to open communication channels to your community so they can ask questions, share feedback, and engage in discussions.

Ensuring Easy User Navigation

This is one of the top problems when retaining your contributors. If members cannot easily navigate the platform or find what they're looking for, they may feel discouraged and less likely to participate in the community.

Review your platforms (Zealy, Twitter, Discord, Webpage, etc), and remember you have different types of users with different knowledge levels. Make sure everything is user-friendly and intuitive to use and provide resources and support to help members navigate it effectively.

We also recommend:

• Create Quests that members can complete easily.
• Use a clean and organized Zealy board
• Use an organized and simple Discord layout for support, news and events.
• Use familiar design patterns and user interface elements in all your platforms.
• Regularly update your platforms to ensure that they remain up-to-date and relevant.
• Use clear and concise language.
• Provide easy-to-follow instructions in your Quests.

Incentives

For some members, receiving rewards may be the primary reason they are involved in the community. And yes 😪 that’s a pain for all of us! We want people who are genuinely interested in the project.

It's important to note that incentives alone may not be enough to keep people engaged in the long term. For many community members, a sense of connection and belonging is just as important as tangible rewards.

Here are some examples of what you can offer when someone completes tasks or makes a valuable contribution to your space:

• XP, Tokens, NFTs.
• Participation in token governance or decision-making processes (depending on your project type)
• Access to exclusive content or events
• Discord Roles
• Early access to new features
• Free merch

Projects in Long-Term Development

Retaining the community over time is one of the ultimate goals for Community Managers and if members do not see progress or feel like the project is stagnating, they may lose interest and eventually go.

It's important to keep the community involved and informed about the ongoing development of the project to maintain their interest and keep them invested.

If your project is taking more time than estimated, check these options to add fun to the party while the project is cooking:

• Offer retroactive rewards for members involved in the project for some time.
• Increase participation through games or Quests and try to tie them to the ongoing development of the project.
• Provide regular updates and a roadmap to keep members informed about the direction of the project.
• Keep communication clear and transparent to build trust and maintain interest.
• Host events that showcase the progress and development of the project.
• Offer early access or exclusive content to members who are particularly invested in the project.

Remember to keep your community engaged and informed throughout the entire development process to build trust, maintain interest, and create a sense of belonging.

Silent Quality Users (is it a real problem?)

While they may be quality members interested in the project or product, their silence can make their needs and interests unclear. Also, if your community is small or just starting, other members may feel that the community is not active or valuable.

The good news is that they might be just fine using your product, so don’t worry! Here's our advice to cover this area:

• Try reaching out to silent users directly, and ask for feedback, invite them to online events, and offer incentives for participation.
• Don’t let your audience feel the inactivity. Motivate the conversation in your channels with your team (ambassadors, moderators, other project friends, etc.)
• Foster a sense of community ownership by involving members in decision-making processes and allowing them to contribute to the direction of the community. This can help create a sense of investment in the community's success and keep members engaged and motivated.

Every member of the community is valuable, even if they are not vocal, their needs and interests should be considered in community-building efforts.

Too Many Bots and Hunters

Try to avoid wasting time with hunters or bots! There are plenty of other opportunities to reach the right profile for your community.

Here are some tips to keep your community efforts safe and sound from low-quality users:

• Use KYC (Know Your Customer) verification to ensure that community members are real individuals and not bots (discord).
• Set up a reward Quest for members who contribute positively to the community.
• Communicate your community values and rules, and enforce them consistently.
• Once again, gamification is key to incentivizing positive behaviour!
• Use moderation tools to quickly identify and remove bots and hunters from your community.

Summary

Congratulations! You now finished Module 2. Let’s review what you learned today:

• Learned why engagement and retention are important
• Discovered how to solve the biggest challenges when engaging and retaining your community.
• Tips to create a variety of engagement opportunities that suit different types of users without over-notifying.
• Learned how to find the right content format, communicate clearly and provide incentives.
• How to retain the community over time and engage silent quality users.

So, do you want to keep learning? Look at the full course here and join the conversation on Discord to start building your network in the Web3 space today!‌