I manage an online community. Here’s how I measure engagement

TL;DR

After a couple of years as a community manager for Mobilise UK, I’m sharing my top 3 lessons about community engagement.

• Engagement is a signal, not the goal. In my online community for carers, I look at whether members feel better, not just at logins, posts and comments.

• Build content around what your members value, not what you think they value.

• Keep AI on the backend and interactions with members human (and personal).

• If you're building an online community from scratch, join other communities first and learn by watching. 

• You know your community best.

Watch the whole conversation between me and Sofia from Swarm below:

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A little bit about me

I'm Nicola, and I manage the Mobilise Hub, a peer support community for people in the UK who look after a loved one. I’ve been managing this community for two years so I’ve gotten to really know the members on a personal level.

Our members are carers. Perhaps they're looking after a parent who has become elderly, a partner who's become unwell, or a child who was born with a condition. The situations are different, but the journey of caring is quite similar. Lots of our members feel isolated, and the feedback we get most often is that they're so pleased to know they're not alone. It’s a space where they can feel connected to others in the same situation as them and feel comfortable to be vulnerable. The community is free for any unpaid carer in the UK.

Managing a community is a rollercoaster of a journey, with plenty of ups, downs and moments of doubts. But truly, is there a more rewarding job? Knowing that others feel supported and cared for through our community and that it’s actually having a positive impact in their lives, is more rewarding than I can put into words.

A couple of weeks ago I joined the team at Swarm for a live session where we dug into my experience as a community manager, and I want to share with you the three main insights from that session. Feel free to head to the recording if you prefer to listen to the conversation.

Lesson 1: I measure community impact before engagement

It feels like our focus on engagement metrics has drifted from what community is really about.

The classic online community engagement metrics are logins, number of posts, number of comments and like. And yes, those are important (to an extent) and I look at all of them.

But more important than any of those metrics is the impact your community has, and I’m a firm believer that engagement is a consequence of impact. In fact, I will go as far as to say that engagement is a reflection of the impact of your community. 

You could create loads of engagement (otherwise known as “activity” - likes and comments) and still not be having a good impact on your members.

Take our community, for example. Lots of members tell me that they arrive feeling overwhelmed. Based on that, my goal is simple: a few weeks later, I want them to say: “Okay, great, I’m feeling less overwhelmed now”. Shoving loads of content at them to push “engagement” wouldn’t help that at all, and it certainly wouldn’t be what makes them want to stay in the community long-term. However, feeling like the community has helped them manage better? That it’s had a positive impact on their life? That’s worth sticking around for.

So what are the practical tactics of how I measure the impact of my online community? I use three things.

1. A short survey at the start and later on. It asks how they're doing further down the line, so I can see whether someone is doing better than when they joined. I know nobody wants too many surveys and response rates are hard, so I keep it short.

2. Case studies. I'm always pulling them out of the community and writing them up the same way: the member's situation, what's happened since they joined, and the impact. There's usually a lovely nugget in something they've said.

3. Analysing interactions. I look at how many members took an action as a result of being in the community. A carer asks a practical question, another carer gives a great answer for a problem at home, and then they come back and say, "Thank you, I tried that."

Measuring impact can be tricky, and it's something I'm still working on. I'll also say that I know a community is healthy when members generate value themselves and it isn't dependent on me anymore. Recently a member made a post about how important it is to have a space just for carers to vent, and asked what it meant to everyone else. That's exactly the post I had been trying to draw out as a community manager, and they just did it.

Lesson 2: I increase engagement by using my members' own words

When people ask how to increase engagement in an online community, I tell them to notice what members come for and lean into it. At Mobilise we’ve had success creating what I call our peer support loop. I look at the words our members use most frequently to describe how they feel and build our content around that.

For example, I noticed lots of members using the word “overwhelm” (you can tell overwhelm is a theme in our community), so I made a short video, featuring our co-founder, to say it’s normal and that it’s okay to feel overwhelmed, with a few easy exercises to help them. Then I added a very simple activity: add three words to the post to share how you're feeling today.

It's a low barrier to entry. Anyone can do it without thinking too much. People add their three words, and members who commented a couple of months ago get a notification, come back, and treat others with the same kindness they received. We've set it up as an automation in our welcome email and welcome DMs, because we know it resonates. It just keeps working away in the background.

It's tempting to rewrite things the way we would like to present them. But if it's a word my members use, I stick with it. 

Build a community around what your members value, not what you think they value.

Creating a safe space in an online community starts with language, so I'm precise and intentional about the words in our onboarding and sign-up. Then it's role modelling. Other members of the team and I are frequently present, showing the kindness and empathy we want to see. Guidelines matter too, though I don't always know how many people read them. And I have champions, members I spot who are already welcoming people and offering nice advice. I keep thanking them and bringing them in, and that ripples out into a more supportive space.

When something's working, I double down on it. New things are fun, but we always get good results from doubling down on what's already working.

Lesson 3: I keep it human, with AI on the back end 

There's a lot of talk about using AI in online communities. My current feeling is to keep AI on the back end (the behind-the-scenes) and away from the front end (interactions with members). We tried switching on a few AI features, like post summaries, and members didn't like them straight away. They wanted to read every single comment. They wanted real human responses and thoughts. I'm glad they felt they could tell us.

I'm a member of other communities myself, and I love going in and just reading real human posts. There's not too much gloss, the way there is on social media. It feels like a sacred space away from it. So for now, I'm sticking with AI on the back end.

Member retention works the same way. I have retention messages that check in when someone goes quiet, and an email that says we spotted you didn't come back, why was that? I've tweaked them a fair bit over two years. We get a high volume of people joining because we're free, so now each one reads as a quick one-liner from me, rather than something corporate or automated. Members reply, "I'm really glad you noticed." I always feel a little guilty, because I can't write 30 check-in messages a week. But I do mean it.

As for members who join but never really connect, I don't worry about them too much. If they keep coming back, they must be getting some value.

Final advice: if you're building an online community from scratch

Start as a member. Join other communities, on different platforms and about totally different things. When you notice one you like and click with, stick around and get involved, because you learn so much from watching others.

There's no plug and play. What works for one community won't work for another, and that's okay. You figure it out by watching, trying and listening, and by not giving up, even when it's tough. And keep doing your own thing and testing things your own way, because you know your community best.

Hope this helps you on your online community journey. And remember, you’re not alone - keep going at it, even when it feels difficult.

Try Swarm for free

Thousands of experts and coaches are already building their communities on Swarm. Try out Swarm free for 14 days. No credit card required.