✨ What are the early signs of a disengaged community?

Welcome back my friends to edition #5 of Pazazz, the monthly newsletter to help you build mind blowing communities.

If you’re new here, hey! You’re a legend for joining us. You can catch the most recent editions of this newsletter here:

1. How can your community run without you?

2. How can you attract new people to join your program?

3. How can community builders leverage ChatGPT to become more efficient?

So what’s the focus today?

For this edition, we’ll be unpacking the question: What are the early signs of a disengaged community?

We’ll also unpack: What are the common reasons for member inactivity? And so much more. Now grab a chai latte, play this music and let’s dive in.

How can this help you build a mind blowing community?

Building a mind blowing community involves actually having members show up, be engaged and gain value from being there. If no one is joining or engaging with your community - what’s the point of even having it?

It’s kinda like showing up to a dinner party and no one is even there lol 😅. It wouldn’t be a very lively place to be around and you’d wish you stayed at home.

Plus awareness is the first step to prevention. Hear me out. If you actually know which key signs to look out for even before your community even becomes disengaged, then you’re ahead of the game. You’ll be able to take steps before it’s too late.

Not to mention, knowing the key reasons as to why members would start to become inactive is powerful knowledge to have because you can ensure you don’t start to head down that path too.

So, let’s give you the spicy secrets you’ve been waiting to hear. You coming with me on this? Fresh. Let’s do it.

What are the early signs of a disengaged community?

This might sound glaringly obvious right? To some extent it is. But let’s ensure we’re on the same page and are across the 8 exact signs to look out for.

#1 Low Engagement

Obviously if members are not showing up in the community and interacting with the offerings, it’s a sign of inactivity.

The thing to remember here is that not 100% of your members are going to be interacting 100% of the time, and nor should they be! That’s unrealistic.

A great framework to share here is a rule of community engagement that has been around for awhile. I heard about this rule from Jenny Weigle @ Jenny.Community and have read more about it from a great article from Higher Logic. Basically it demonstrates that within your community:

• 90% of members mainly consume the majority of what’s happening in the community & don’t interact with the offerings or other members (these folks are commonly known as the lurkers, but I like to call them learners).

• 9% of members contribute to existing to the spaces within communities whether that’s attending events or replying to posts, but they don’t really create their own

• 1% of members actively create the majority of the activity in the community e.g. they are the ones posting great resources, organising local meetups or putting their hands up to help (these folks are usually the ones to become the leaders of your communities such as Ambassadors)

Here’s a graphic to highlight what this looks like:

The sign to look out for here is if 100% of your members are not engaging in your community and they all identify as consumers, or ghosts (basically they don’t show up at all meep!!) … that’s the red flag we don’t want to see.

#2 Minimal Attendance

Remember that dinner party we spoke about with no one showing up? Ugh. The worst! I’m sure we’ve all either feared this happening or it’s happened to us. Even Pablo Escobar would hate to be alone at his own birthday party…

Well if you’re hosting events in your community and no one is showing up on a consistent basis, something is not right. There is clearly a misalignment with what the event is offering and what the members need. This is a very key tell sign that members are disengaging with your community.

#3 Constructive Feedback

Look out for frequent comments from members about not finding value in the community. This is a massive sign for communities becoming inactive as members are speaking out about what could be done better or how they aren’t feeling seen.

What does this look like? Perhaps someone has sent you a message about a poor experience they’ve had in the community. Or maybe you ran your annual community pulse-check survey and the anonymous comments had plenty to say about what wasn’t working.

Because remember, feedback is a gift. Especially if it’s delivered in a kind and constructive way. Then this is something that we can actually work with people! I’d recommend to keep note of the themes you’re seeing in the feedback as one of the key signs to look out for.

#4 Members Leaving

Oh no! Are members graduating from your community left right and centre?! Graduating is basically a really nice way of saying that members might just be running for the hills and leaving your community. They’re basically breaking up with you. Bummer.

Of course not all members are going to stay in our communities forever (probs just the same as you probably won’t be managing the same 1 community forever), but keep an eye out if members are leaving more often than new members joining. This is a HUGE sign of communities becoming disengaged because the numbers start to dwindle.

#5 Lack of Retention

You might have members showing up to your events, programs and meetups - but are they coming back? This is key to be aware of because if you find that no one is returning for a 2nd, 3rd or more times, this is a sign that they’re not finding enough value to prioritise showing up, again.

#6 Lack of Referrals

How are members finding out about your community? Are current members recommending other people to join?

Whilst not all members are going to be joining through referrals (every community builders dream!), it’s key to notice how they’re finding out about your community, because a lack of referrals from current members or people outside of the community can be a sign that they don’t have trust in it delivering a good experience. I mean no one would want their name tied to recommending a bad offering right? So make sure you’re aware of this sign.

#7 Slow Growth

If members are finding out about the community, how often are they joining? Of course some months are going to be slower than others (over the main holiday periods - for sure)! But if you notice a consistent decline in member growth, this is a key sign to look out for.

For example, we launched a free meetup community for The Community Collective in June 2021. We consistently had 30-40 new members joining per month for the first 1.5 years. It was wild! Then as we launched a new paid offering, our Community Cohort, in August 2022, we started to notice a slight decline in new members joining our free meetup community.

At first it wasn’t too drastic. Perhaps 20-25 new members per month. But as we entered June 2023 (2 years since inception), there was a constant slow growth. Some months we only had 2 new members join. This made us curious about why this was happening. Was it because the offering was no longer valuable? Were people joining our 8-week program instead? We noted down these key signs and decided to conduct a community audit in response. I’ll share more about this entire process in our next edition 😎

#8 Crickets

Ahhhhhhh crickets. Don’t worry. This isn’t talking about a plague of insects infiltrating your community… although that would be highly concerning if that happened 😅 

This is an analogy for hearing that deadly silence of crickets when you’re inside your community sharing new content, offerings and products for members and no one is interacting. Plus there can also be crickets outside your community in the world when you’re recruiting new members to join your community and no one responds…

Just as the sound of crickets represents no one laughing at a comedians joke, this sound represents no one responding to posts about joining the community in marketing endeavours as well as no members responding to posts inside the community about getting involved in various initiatives.

Makes sense? It basically means that no matter where you talk about the community, no one is engaging with the content. Ugh. An exhausting nightmare.

Alrighty let’s recap the 8 key signs with a fun visual I made for you:

The key thing to remember here is that it’s okay (and normal) to notice a couple of these signs at various moments in your community.

It’s the dangerous combination of all 8 of these signs existing at once in your community. Kinda like a deadly cocktail that includes 4-5 hard liquors in one. Having 1 shot of one of them would totally be fine, but all 8 in one… sounds like a headache that I’d rather avoid.

Basically what I’m trying to say here is that a few signs is okay. Heaps of them is not. That’s what you should be looking out for to ensure your community doesn’t become completely inactive and a waste of time.

What are the common reasons for member inactivity?

Ok. So let’s dig deeper. We may now have the key signs to be aware of (yay learning!) but it’s crucial to now understand WHY these signs would happen in the first place. What’s the root cause of it?

After all, knowledge is power. So let’s dive into 8 potential reasons.

Please note that this isn’t an exhaustive list and I’m sure a valued genius like yourself could also think of multiple reasons too. So let’s work on this one together 🙂 

#1 Team

I’ve definitely observed members leaving communities as a result of the following scenarios:

1. The business has hired a new Community Manager but for whatever reason, it hasn’t been the right fit. The new team member doesn’t understand the value of the community and is unsure how to even support, manage or sustain it. The members feel like they don’t have the adequate support either.

2. A great Community Manager has recently left and members felt very tied to their presence and approach to the community and as a result, have left to fill that void elsewhere.

3. The business has not adequately resourced the community and there’s actually no one managing this community at all (omg lol who thought that was a good idea?!!!). Members don’t know who to turn to and experience long wait times before there are any responses.

I hope this highlights the importance of getting the right people involved in managing your community! If you need help hiring or finding the right role, we can help you here.

#2 Offerings

Are the benefits and initiatives in your community adequately solving member problems and meeting their needs?

For example, if the community only offers an online forum for members to connect, but members actually prefer meeting in person to talk about their challenges and get advice from people, this offering is NOT meeting the needs of members. Therefore they are more likely to run for the hills or not show up to that dinner party (nor Pablo’s bday party - poor Pablo).

This demonstrates that the actual existence of the community promises value to the members, it’s just not delivering that value in a way that aligns with member preferences.

#3 Community Vision

Perhaps there’s been a recent change in the direction as to where the business would like to take the community which doesn’t align with the members. Has a new CEO joined and they now want to make the community a centre for ads and sponsorship to drive more revenue? This might not sit well with members as they no longer resonate with the overall vision and purpose of the space.

#4 Member Fit

This one is all about asking yourself, have you got the right people joining your community? A massive red flag is if your community is for ‘everyone’. Oh no. This is too broad! Of course we want our communities to be inclusive, but accepting everyone and anyone to your community means that you’re really serving no one deeply.

This is a great time to review the criteria for who joins your community, how they join and who it’s for. The more specific you are, the better.

For example, when we first launched our free meetup community, we wrote down the criteria for joining.

1. You are actively managing a community

2. You operate within the startup space (e.g. at an accelerator, VC)

3. You are based in Australia

In the long-term we knew that we wanted to support ANY community builder in ANY industry in ANY part of the world, but we also knew that we had to start niche to BLOW THE MINDS of the first members in order to attract the ones after that (and all through referrals woohoo!). It meant that the first 50 members that joined were like “Holy moly I have found my people.” because they joined a room of people who built communities in the same industry and country as them.

I’ll let that one sink in for awhile.

#5 Tech Tools

Are you using technology that your members enjoy using and can access? Perhaps your community lives on Facebook but members don’t feel comfortable logging in with their personal profile. Perhaps you use WhatsApp but members can’t stand having constant access on their phones. Perhaps you use an online conference tool that isn’t mobile friendly to join for people who don’t have access to laptops.

The misalignment in the tech stack you have for the community could be a massive reason or barrier as to why members aren’t engaging.

#6 Scheduling

Again, is your community meeting your members where they’re at? Ensuring that your offerings and initiatives are scheduled at adequate times for members to join is key for accessibility.

Perhaps you only run events in one time-zone which makes it difficult for a large percentage of the community to join? Perhaps you only host in person meetups at night but parents struggle to join if they are needed elsewhere? This can be a common reason as to why low attendance & inactivity is occurring.

#7 Always On

If you’re in the business of community, you’re in the business of dealing with humans. And humans need accountability to make the most of opportunities. I’ve observed that ‘always on’ communities may experience slower growth and lower engagement more than communities that are time-bound and scarce in their offerings.

For example, offering a monthly membership where members can join at any point and interact with offerings during every week of the year, may lead to them not actually making use of the benefits beacuse there is no deadline.

Ever had that feeling where you left something to the last minute but actually needed the deadline to get the thing done? It’s a similar mindset in communities.

Humans benefit from deadlines, accountability and support (well most do!). When there are no deadlines and endless supply of offerings, members may take the offering for granted and never really engage because they know it will just always be there. Annoying right?

But let’s flip the switch. If you only had access to these 3 events in 1 week with 50 other people - you may just prioritise attending one of them as they will never be happening again. This time-bound experience gives members the structure needed to make the most of the offering.

This can be a key reason as to why members are disengaged or not joining at all.

#8 Bad Eggs

Ok. We’re not talking about smelly eggs going off in your fridge (but that could be a reason why people are leaving your dinner party in the real world lol).

"Bad Eggs" refer to the danger of having a select few members in your community who do not align with the values, thus potentially derailing the experience for everyone else.

Their behaviour, such as dominating conversations or making others feel uncomfortable, can drive away otherwise engaged members, leading to a decline in overall community satisfaction and participation.

It's crucial for community managers to address such instances promptly to maintain a positive and inclusive environment for all members. Or better yet, do the right due diligence upfront to ensure only those who are aligned with the community & member criterion are able to join.

Here’s a recap of the 8 key reasons:

So what the hell do we do about all this?

Alrighty. This is a great question my friend. We’ve certainly realised that it’s important to understand the key signs and reasons as to why communities become disengaged. But now it’s even more important to understand WHAT to do about it.

I want to make sure that you have no bad eggs, or never hear crickets in your communities, or host a dinner party where no one shows up. So I’m going to write the key steps to take in response to noticing these signs and the key community building tactics you can employ to ensure you’re building an ENGAGED and IMPACTFUL community.

I plan to write these for you in the next 2 weeks, so you can expect them in your inbox for the next edition of this newsletter as I want to give it the light it deserves because it’s a very meaty strategy! Plus my laptop is about to die and I’m about to drive down the coast to camp at Wye River so I really need to wrap this edition up here 😅 Thanks for understanding that I’m also human.

But first, how can you apply this to your own role?

Let’s make this one practical. Grab a good old piece of paper and a pen. Play this music and write down your answers to the following questions:

1. Have you started to notice any signs of disengagement in your community?

2. Why do you think that might be?

3. What percentage of your community has become inactive?

4. Who are the most engaged members and why?

5. Who are the most disengaged members and why?

Bonus points if you bring your team into the conversation and ask them as well. Sit tight for what to do next if you’ve noticed major disengagement.

You made it

Alrighty my friend, you made it to the end. I’ll be back in your inbox on 17th of next month to answer your most pressing questions.

Which reminds me, have a question you’d like to ask? Hit reply. I’d love to help you.

Until then,

Paz Pisarski
Co-Founder of The Community Collective

You can expect this newsletter on the 17th of every month.
Enjoyed this edition? Forward it to a friend and make both of us smile.

Bonus Section

Still reading huh? Well you made it to the bonus section where I share an insight into my life.

Proud moment: Our Community Cohort #4 applications have been open and we needed at least 25 applications to run the program. We just hit 61 new applications and 25 alumni renewals 🤯🥹🥲 so 86 total, I’m SO happy with how our team has gone on this goal. Really high quality people too. I’m actually just blown away by how consistently this program & community is growing.

Challenging moment: We meet every single person who applies for our Community Cohort to ensure they are the right fit for the program. This has been a great tactic in the past, but as the numbers increase it becomes super challenging to continue to do this! I’ve had about 32 calls to date. Whilst it’s an important process, it leaves little time to actually get work done lol. Good thing we’ve just hired a new Cohort Lead to support us with this process going forward!

Personal moment: Had the best time at _SOUTHSTART in Adelaide last week. Was a huge win to speak on a panel about quantifying the impact of community builders in the Australian startup space & economy overall. A great signal around the industry placing more importance on our roles (woohoo!). Plus catching up with our team Sanchi & Liz in person was such a treat. Not to mention my boyfriend flying over to spend the weekend exploring the coast & this divine lunch spot Star of Greece.

See you next time.