Here are our recommended steps for setting up, customising and building an engaged community.
STEP 1: Set up your community
Create your community and invite team members to join as admins.
- Create and customise your organisation’s community page.
- Invite team members to sign up to WorldLabs and create their individual profiles.
- Appoint those team members as community admins (to do this, first invite the relevant individuals to join your community; once they have accepted your invitation, you can appoint them as admins via the buttons in the ‘Permission’ column of the Members tab).
STEP 2: Add your content and initiatives
Populate your community with engaging content and initiatives that will encourage prospective members to join.
For example, you could do one or more of the below:
- Create opportunities (e.g. competitions, challenges, programs etc.) and events to encourage members to join your community.
Engaging members from the get go
Members are far more likely to join your community if they are required to do so in order to apply for an opportunity/event.
- Publish a few posts in the community’s feed so that the community looks active when prospective members first visit.
Posting content on your community’s feed
You can post images and videos, links to websites, links to third-party videos (these will automatically embed within the post), links to podcasts (members will be able to listen to a linked podcast from within the relevant post), and more. In addition, when you create opportunities and events, corresponding posts will automatically generate on your feed.
- Create interest groups for members to join.
- Upload resources for members to engage with (via your community’s Resources tab).
- Post in the forum to spark conversations.
- Post photos and videos in the community media gallery.
Inviting partner organisations to join and engage
You can post images and videos, links to websites, links to third-party videos (these will automatically embed within the post), links to podcasts (members will be able to listen to a linked podcast from within the relevant post), and more. In addition, when you create opportunities and events, corresponding posts will automatically generate on your feed.
If you have external partners and other stakeholders who might want to share opportunities, events and other initiatives with your community members, consider inviting them to join your community before individual users.
You can then encourage them to create and share their opportunities, events and other initiatives before you commence your outreach to other prospective members (these would then appear in your community’s Events and Opportunities tabs).
STEP 3: Invite members to join and engage
Invite users to join as community members, and start to encourage them to engage with the community’s content and initiatives.
Once you invite users to join your community, you could then do one or more of the below:
- Post on the community’s feed to encourage members to participate in the forum, enter the marketplace, join groups, apply for opportunities and apply to attend events.
- Encourage members to showcase their projects and initiatives within your community.
- Start seeking out other organisations on the platform to partner with on opportunities, events and other initiatives.
For an overview of what we mean by opportunities, events, marketplaces, groups, projects and forums, see this article.
Collecting data and insights
Once you have built a foundational member base, you can start to collect information about each member’s skills, experience and specialisms, which will help other members to seek out potential partners and collaborators.
You will also be able to access insights into the initial engagement across your community, and continue to build your database of content, resources and initiatives.