Community growth

Table of contents

  1. The growth of communities is cyclical and is based on dividing a community into several sub-communities
  2. Three critical growth points: incoming traffic, new users, and engagement
  3. A community is able to grow only if all activities on the platform are carried out by the users

The growth of communities is cyclical and is based on dividing a community into several sub-communities

Any community grows by making users stay on the platform, i.e. converting visitors into casual users and then casual users into regular users. To make users stay in a community, a community manager needs to run initiatives to create connections between users, develop users’ sense of belonging to the group and engage active users in indirect ways to contribute to the community.

As you work on growing the community, at some point it will reach a plateau of the number of active users and the value they create on the platform. No matter how many new people you add to the community, some other folks will naturally leave the group. This plateau is an indicator that the community became “too big”.

The reason for this is that it is difficult for a person to maintain close connections with a large group of people. Large communities negatively impact users’ sense of belonging. In order for a community to continue to grow after it has reached a plateau, the community manager needs to split it into several smaller more specialized sub-communities. After this all sub-communities can continue growing until each of them reach their own plateaus. The cycle of splitting should be repeated again and again with each sub-community that has reached its critical size.

A sub-community is a group of users who interact in an environment isolated from the larger community where specialized rules are in effect. The rules themselves are determined by the sub-community users as well as the environment the users interact in. For a sub-community to function properly, it should have its own place for meta-discussions and the ability to implement the needed changes.

Three critical growth points: incoming traffic, new users, and engagement

The primary growth indicator for an online community is the increasing number of active users on the platform. There are three critical variables in that equation:

  1. The number of new users who register in the community each day.
  2. The number of users who take some actions after they have created an account.
  3. The number of actions done by regular users.

These are the three key stages of the engagement funnel. Each of these elements involves different activities and can be optimized independently of the others. Optimizing incoming traffic is a business task. Making new users act for the first time largely comes down to optimizing the platform. To keep and engage regular users, we need to run community building activities.

A community is able to grow only if all activities on the platform are carried out by the users

Community manager is an enabler, their primary task is to help users find interesting activities on the platform and do everything possible to ensure that the users have everything needed to complete the activities successfully.

When you are launching an initiative, you may need to do some activities yourself at the beginning, if you cannot find volunteers beforehand. At the same time, you will be able to launch another initiative only if all current ones are carried out completely by volunteers, that is, without your participation.

The more active users who help keep the community alive and growing there are in the community, the more advanced the community will be.