Nurturing Your Online Community for Real Engagement
Managing a Facebook Group can sometimes feel a lot like being president of a school club — you know people are there because they want to be, but sometimes it is difficult to keep everyone on the same page, or paying attention to important conversations that are being had.
In a quest to learn more about what kind of content and dynamic drive Facebook Groups engagement and what a healthy online community looks like, I took a closer look at some groups that were in my own lines of interest.
I settled on a group called Polyglots (The Community) — pretty straightforward in its name — it’s a community of polyglots, individuals who know and are able to speak multiple languages. With 46K members from around the world, users advise each other on language retention strategies, explain peculiar characteristics of syntax and linguistics, as well as share insight to our own culture and language.
It’s no surprise that one good way to keep Facebook Groups active is to nurture an exclusive feeling — asking members for their opinions or engaging on a personal level increases the connection strength among members and mediators. What Polyglots does well is it generates content and conversation by creating an open-ended space for members to feed their curiosity, especially with a topic that is always evolving. The group mediator exists alongside the member, actively participating in discussions and initiating conversations of their own.
A recent post details that the group is attempting ways to connect offline by opening up a space for individuals to host each other in their respective countries for folks who are looking to travel or relocate in their attempts to improve their language skills. The group also connects in a different online setting, using language-learning apps like Duolingo to teach and learn alongside each other. This is particularly remarkable given the importance of being more accessible in real life in a way that promotes sustainability of your online community.
Even with a lax group administrator who encourages group moderation, the group’s dynamic is wholesome and focused; this could be attributed to the strict admission guidelines set up on the front end — questions that require true knowledge of the topic and proof that you have preemptively read the group rules help to ensure we are all in this together.
With a group as large and diverse as Polyglots, their success in engagement can be attributed to their motivation to each other to reach their goals, efforts to connect off of social media, and collaboration to maintain a safe and enjoyable digital space.
Online engagement can sound technical, but it is always about the relationships we are building with one another. Jorge Caraballos of Radio Ambulante explains that the north star of an online community is taking care of relationships and creating a real network, not just a communication channel. The Polyglots community takes care of their relationship with each other as a network, and that is what makes all the difference.
