You’ve hopped on the Discord train and built a Discord server. Now it’s time to turn it into a thriving community. Like any great, healthy community, your Discord server isn’t going to run itself. It’s a real commitment and not a short-term investment. It will need nourishment and care. We’re here to help.

First, let’s make sure your community experience is defined for your audience. You want to build an experience around information, collaboration, and safety so they want to return. To do that you’ll need members to join, stick around, and become active, established members who contribute.

Consider investing in:

• Purpose: What topics, concepts, and experiences are driving the commonalities? Identify the purpose and embrace it.
• Encouragement: Create connections, interactions, and help link people together, either through activity or introductions.
• Celebrate: Feature great members and the power of the people. Showcase members and geo-diversity, and amplify the growth and reach of the people.
• Inspire depth: Build an experience that rises above the purpose by allowing off-topic connections. Inspire bonds that are formed through shared experiences and tenure.

After building and identifying your community experience, you’ll want to engage the community, identify growth opportunities, and manage the members and activity. Here’s how to go about it.

Engage 🤳

As people join your server, your goal is for them to engage with you and others in the community. They need to feel welcome, comfortable, and a part of the community from the moment they arrive. As you work to acclimate new members and make them feel part of the community, keep these tips in mind:

• Engage new members early. Have a training channel, host lessons for new members, and share information on new techniques that will help make their experience more fulfilling.
• Incorporate a bot to reward people for the engagement metrics you care about (like chatting, attending events, and being helpful to other users). Rewards might earn members more chances to win a giveaway, for example.
• Create rituals like a Monday game night. A fun ritual we’ve seen is “one word a day,” where members come together and learn a new word or sentence in other languages.
• Regular conversation starters are a great way to build community engagement. You might even ask them, “What made you join this Discord server, and what made you stay?” This prompt encourages people to talk about things they might not otherwise, and it offers insights into your members.

A good way to keep people enthused and interested is to incorporate a variety of channels into your server, like channels devoted to pets, humor, and daily greetings.

Grow 🌱

Remember, it all takes time. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Invest the hours and resources you need to properly and considerately build your community. For starters, make sure you’re doing the following:

• Have links readily available so people don’t have to dig.
• Keep up with regular housekeeping; for example, your invitation links may have expired.
• Follow the Discord Twitter; they’re very active and very funny.
• Sometimes, continuing a thread can help with engagement. If no one is responding, adding in an answer can help jump-start the conversation.

As new members join your Discord, you not only want them to feel welcome, but you want them to feel in place, and that they’ve found their new online home. Do that by introducing the culture of your community to new members, through introductions, questions and conversations, and interactions with moderators.

Manage 💪

Stay focused on quality: quality members, quality interactions, and quality content. Your community managers must stay present and active within your server to better serve your community. Some basic practices include:

• Always thinking ahead: Build and prepare for scalability. Things can happen overnight (like a game becoming super popular), and you need to be prepared if your community skyrockets from 3,000 members to 300,000.
• Making sure the Discord server is an experience: Theming is important and takes your server to the next level, even on elements like community guidelines. Think of your Discord server as the Walt Disney World of your brand. Make sure to consistently make it an enjoyable place to visit.

Ensure that your community is a positive one. It all starts with the moderators; they’re the lifeblood of the server. With proper moderation and community management, you can create a Discord community that’s welcoming, fun, enriching, and safe for all members. Keep your eye on the ball and you’ll be on your way toward building and maintaining a thriving community.

Want to know more about how ModSquad can help your Discord community grow and flourish? Give us a call.

This entry was posted in Social Media. Bookmark the permalink.