What is community engagement and how do you build it?

[@asapgareth]

Generally when I see clients / contacts with underwhelming engagement on an online or physical event it's almost always down to either 2 things: 1. Lack of quality content, nothing new etc 2. Badly communicated (branding, graphics, social content, buzz and build up, gorilla tactics) I may be biased as a design strategist, but it's a regular flaw. People need to 'want to belong', value and desirability is key.

[@Eemilitokabokaworkd]

So clear & simple key! Thanks for that

[@jonobacon]

Thanks so much!

[@sociallyconstructedonline]

Awesome video! I would definitely add though that one of the big issues about the engagement trap that a lot of people have is that they are deeming "engagement" with the lowest-quality scores. I highly recommend that in addition to the behaviours you are implementing "quality" metrics that allow you to determine whether their engaged activities are actually useful. :/

[@nitinvasanth]

Great video Jono ! Love your consistency. Some very key points discussed

[@jonobacon]

Thanks so much, Nitin!

[@clocktoweradvisors]

I appreciate your clear way of breaking down engagement metrics and growth mindset, Jono!

[@jonobacon]

Thanks so much!

[@JoostBoers-AutoWeek]

Thank you Jono! It's a rather logical way to work however this video gave some insights to build on. Good initiative to go into this subject.

[@jonobacon]

I'm glad you found the video helpful!

[@sandipdesai7052]

Jono, you are brilliant. Thanks

[@jonobacon]

Thanks so much! 🤘

[@GarrettMusic1]

Great lesson

[@jonobacon]

Thanks so much!

[@hermannlabou7461]

I really appreciate the video. Thank you, i will come back if i have a question.

[@jonobacon]

Wow...that was so so so kind of you to say! Thanks!

[@ashiqmagrey3989]

Thankyou sir.Very informative

[@jonobacon]

Thanks so much!

[@wandahamlett1843]

Awesome tips!!

[@jonobacon]

Thanks so much!

[@tracybannon921]

Very much appreciate the focus on low friction interaction events. Like any set of metrics, DAU/MAU seems a good starting place though will always be based on your unique context. Thanks Jono!!

[@jonobacon]

Thanks so much, Tracy! Yeah, I think communities are too hard for most people to join…we need to make them easier.

[@the_flyingsage]

Thanks for this Jono. Great video with a lot of value. A question that is coming up for me is to what extent should a community manager directly invite members to engage? Or in other words, to what extent should community managers reach out to solicit engagement?

[@jonobacon]

Always invite people to engage. It is critical in the early days of a community especially. :-)

[@kim_mcmahon]

Question - for active users, what is the thinking for measuring daily against monthly instead of (for example) monthly against total? For example in Slack, I know how many people have subscribed to our channel and the weekly active. Why not divide weekly active into my total to get the % active?

[@jonobacon]

Hey, Kim! The reason I like to focus on DAU/MAU is that (1) it is a broadly recognized figure in online products for overall user stickiness...so it is easier to communicate to other business leaders, and (2) it means we can see overall activity going up and down on a week to week basis. :-)

[@nealcaidin7551]

I had a similar question as Kim, but slightly different. It is hard for me to imagine engaging in a community every single day, or expecting someone else to engage daily. That seems like a high bar to hit. Just my initial reaction, not so much a question here yet.

[@tracybannon921]

@@nealcaidin7551 I feel that way as well. Daily is a pretty high bar.

[@EndUserSharePoint]

20% engagement rate is extremely aggressive when it comes to larger communities. I have found through anecdotal experience that even a relatively small community of 10,000 will have a difficult time getting 2000 people to engage on a regular basis. This insight is from building multiple, large scale communities over the past 20 years. I, too, saw the 20% number in the Spotify video talking about their guilds, but find it hard to reconcile with what I've seen.

[@jonobacon]

I don't think I agree, Mark. There is little doubt that as a community scales up, other challenges appear when it comes to building engagement, but typically larger communities also provide the ability to scale out operations and increase the potential impact the community can have. Essentially, with more people, there are more opportunities to build teams of collaboration. So, this is my take: I don't think 20% is "aggressive", but I think it requires a different set of skills...especially focused on building scalable workflows and processes.

[@sociallyconstructedonline]

Honestly I'm with Jono here. In my view, the larger the community, the greater your ability to build Momentum for any set Precedent. Critically however, precedent is harder to establish in larger communities. This is the reverse in smaller communities. You have to have a well established precedent before ever working on momentum. What that means for engagement in larger communities is that you have to spend more time asking them how they want to engage, before deciding how you'll have them do so. For a larger community setting precedent is harder than for a smaller one, and momentum follows. This is the reverse in small communities. I think that if you're having issues building engagement for the 20% in your large organization, It's worth asking if what you want the larger community to do, has been established well enough before you scale it. Did you get buy-in and have you done your research to determine whether that expected 20% actually wants to do that thing, the way you want them to.

[@tracybannon921]

Thanks for sharing these thoughts, Mark. You've built incredible global communities so hearing your views, especially around tech communities, is helpful. I've been wondering what reasonable targets may be.

[@tracybannon921]

@@sociallyconstructedonline - Interesting point on the difficulties of large organizations over smaller ones WRT precedence and momentum. Sounds like pulsing the community repeatedly and consistenly is a core principle.

[@ItsmeRushlyn]

Could you please tell what's local community engagement and international community engagement? Will wait for your answers. Thank you 😊

[@MichaelWilliams-lo3ix]

Awesome

[@jonobacon]

Thanks so much!

[@andrewpamhare1604]

Who is to be engaged, when and how

[@jonobacon]

Indeed!

[@farhaadAAli]

good handwriting

[@jonobacon]

Thanks!

[@OS-yg7cx]

Thanks

[@jonobacon]

Thanks so much! :-)