The onboarding procedure in your community is crucial to member engagement and retention. During onboarding, you have the chance to welcome and engage new members, motivate them to get involved in your community and establish a lasting rapport.
This crucial step is frequently omitted, though. This guide was created to help you give your community the greatest possible onboarding experience.
The Significance of Community Member Onboarding in an Online Community
You cannot abandon newcomers to your community on their own just because you welcomed them. You put a lot of effort into growing your community's membership. What happens, though, once they join your community? Are you simply going to let them figure out what they should be doing on their own?
However, if people don't participate in your community, it won't be able to fulfill its goals. The onboarding procedure is important because of this.
An efficient onboarding procedure can assist your new community members in the:
- Assists in establishing realistic expectations for both the community owner and the prospective member.
- Reminds the member of the rules and customs of the community.
- Gives new members the resources and knowledge they need to get the most out of the group.
- Enables the community management to make the new members understand the value of the community, so they come back to the community. 5. Enables the members to find peers with a shared passion so they may establish networks and provide value to one another.
The following traits will characterize the ideal onboarding procedure:
- It must have a mechanism to encourage member interaction.
- It must introduce the community and content norms as well as the culture.
- It must offer standardized and customized onboarding instructions.
How to create an amazing community onboarding experience?
New member is extremely attentive to your message when they sign up (and even pay) to join your group. Use this to your advantage and give new hires the greatest onboarding experience you can!
1.Make signing up easy
This is quite obvious, but yet significant. People may regret their decision to join your group before they've even begun if the sign-up procedure is difficult or unclear because it will set the tone for the entire experience.
Make the process of joining your community straightforward and obvious. Make it obvious to folks what they must do in order to join. Members are immediately welcomed into the community on a "welcome" or "new member" page or space after joining up. People who sign up will get another email with detailed instructions on whatever they need to do next.
This is how NbliK greets new members and displays sign-up information:
2. Verify when your members follow your instructions
You should be explicit about your registration process as well as whether new members have followed your intended instructions. For instance, you might think about sending them emails at the following stages;
- When a new member completes their registration.
- When they make their first community contribution, identify themselves to the group, or join their first channel or space.
- Taking affirmative action will not only reassure your members that they are on the right track, but it will also engage their reward mechanisms and give them a sense of importance in your organization and the community.
3. Make them feel welcome by responding personally
Make an extra effort to personally respond to new members who identify themselves to your community or post a subject for the first time. You may respond to their post, just "like" it, or go all out and introduce yourself to the entire community in a personalized message. Do what seems right since you will know best what matches your community and brand.
4. Reward members and make the experience more fun
By changing things up and adding some variety, you can make the onboarding process more engaging. Gamification is prevalent, and sometimes it is so undetectable that we aren't even aware that we are "playing." However, if there is a component of competition or working toward a goal in exchange for a reward, then the experience is gamified.
5. Assemble more resources
You may always provide extra tools to help new members get the most out of their onboarding experience if your community or company concept is a little sophisticated.
Additional resources could be supplemental paperwork, after-hours meetings, web links, a directory of the most helpful or active locals, or anything else you believe would help newcomers to your community have a well-rounded experience.
Conclusion
Naturally, just because the onboarding procedure is over doesn't mean you should stop interacting with your members. Continue the momentum and think of new, creative methods to keep them interested in your community. Read our most recent article on boosting community engagement for additional best practices on this.
Want to Boost Community Engagement with Effective Community Management Techniques? Talk to Us @NbliK Community!