If you're a community manager or simply want to manage an online community successfully, in this blog post I'll share the most important things you need to know if you're just starting out or want to improve your online community management. We'll cover:
- What are online communities?
- Why do online communities fail?
- The most common mistakes in managing online communities.
- The key point in creating and managing an online community.
If you don't have time to read it now, don't miss my YouTube channel video — in it I share my experience and the 5 most common mistakes you can avoid when managing an online community.
What are online communities?
An online community allows brands or companies to go beyond mere customer service by creating loyal and lasting relationships. It's a great way for different people to come together and connect around shared interests. They give these people the time and space they need to participate in different conversations, brand engagement activities, and marketing efforts — all in one place.
With the right strategies and resources, a community can give brands the power to reach their customers at any time they need, engage with them on a more personal level, and market their products and services more effectively. Creating an online community is a way for companies to gather customer feedback that helps them improve the experience and build better marketing campaigns over time.
Why do online communities often fail?
Communities often fail because they lack the structure and support needed to maintain a sense of community. Without effective communication, members may not have the opportunity to engage in meaningful conversations or build relationships. Additionally, without moderation or enforcement of rules, disruptive behavior can occur that makes people feel unsafe or unwelcome. Furthermore, without clear participation guidelines, people may not know what is expected of them and will be less likely to join or continue participating. Finally, many communities tend to focus too much on short-term goals like accumulating likes and followers instead of fostering genuine connections with other members, which can make it difficult for an online community to survive long-term.
The most common mistakes in managing online communities
1. Having the community on a platform you don't control
The first mistake when running an online community is hosting that community on a platform where you don't own the contact data. 50,000 followers on Instagram means that Instagram owns those contacts, not you. If Instagram or YouTube closes your profile tomorrow, you'll have lost everything. Start doing these two things right now:
- Collect direct contacts (emails, Telegram, phone numbers) from these people and manage them with a CRM — if you don't know what a CRM is, there's a short video above explaining it.
- Move the community and discussions to a platform you control — such as a forum on your website or another platform like Telegram, Circle, or others that give you access to the contacts (there are many options online).
2. Not having a personalized welcome
Not having a personalized onboarding protocol for new people joining a community is the second most common mistake.
You need an internal protocol with all the actions to take when someone joins your community — above all, a personalized message and an introduction of the new person to the rest of the group. In the description of this content you'll find the link to our free Telegram group, where when someone joins we give them a personalized welcome, ask what they do, and invite them to introduce themselves, for example.
3. Not creating clear guidelines
Another mistake when managing an online community is not creating clear rules. Usually rules exist but in a very lengthy format — a wall of text that 99% of people will never read fully. I'm not saying it's wrong to have a long text explaining everything, as it's often a legal necessity, but the human brain rejects long texts and prefers visual elements like images or infographics.
So one action you can start right now that's very simple: take that rulebook and transform it into a visual format — an infographic, an image — something that's clear and above all that people will actually READ.
4. Not being consistent
Consistency — difficult but essential for growing and staying relevant. In 12 years of work I've seen it countless times: projects with a well-crafted editorial calendar that publish content regularly but end up without a consistent and organized production of activities for their community.
Make taking care of your existing members your primary focus. This means it's fine to think about attracting as many new people as possible to the community, but you must also nurture the people who have ALREADY joined — they're more loyal to your project and more ready to buy your products.
So also create a plan and calendar of activities with your community. With Passione Inter: every Monday evening we have a private call only for club members, and many more specific activities for people inside. Think of something similar for your community too.
5. Not removing members who behave badly
The biggest mistake in managing an online community — especially a paid one — is not removing members who behave badly.
I understand it's harder to remove someone who has paid to be in your community, because we're not just talking about a user but also about losing a client. But truly, in a community of 100 people, just one person is enough to ruin the good atmosphere. It's not about being judges and expelling people at the first mistake, but when a member "behaves badly" there are 2 essential steps:
- Have a private conversation with them.
- If there's no change in behavior, they need to leave.
Think about it: by not wanting to lose one client, you're diminishing your brand's perceived value in front of 99 people. What you lose by removing them will always be less than what you lose if that person stays in your community.
The key point in creating and managing online communities
The key point in creating and managing online communities is having a crystal-clear profile of the people you want in your community — in short, having a very clear buyer persona. This will help you define the profile of the person you want to be part of your community: their age, gender, interests, tastes — the clearer you are on this, the more defined your community will be.
If you want to define your buyer persona in this context — for an online community — don't hesitate to visit my blog post dedicated to the buyer persona.
