Something that I learnt the hard way while building communities:

It took me a long time to understand what community building means.

Like most, I started out with posting a lot, asking questions, and trying to initiate conversations.

I thought that’s it, that should ensure an active community.

But of course, things don’t work that way 🙂

I tried to reflect on what might be going wrong and realised that I had an incomplete idea of what a community builder does.

I had to be the most active content creator for the community, sure.

But I also need to be a context-setter for the community.

I should be the one setting context to allow interactions amongst members themselves. Atleast at the start.

This context can be conducting a webinar, a chill remote working session, anything.

It is less about me and more about them.

Although the direction of the community largely depends on the community builder, it is my responsibility to find out what the current members or the ideal members will find valuable.

And this will allow me to set proper context.

The way I have started to see it is environment design.

I create the right environment and then just focus on that. Things will evolve naturally.

What’s your experience been with communities?

Image creds: Sahil Bloom