Questions to ask if engagement is down

Engagement is fluid and even in a highly active, effective online community, it fluctuates over time. But if you’re seeing a trend downward in engagement that’s unusually fast, or doesn’t let up, it bears closer examination.

There are many things that can cause engagement to drop, and some will be unique to your community.

These high-level, strategic questions can help guide your investigation into what’s going on and assist you in developing constructive interventions to get things back on track.

Can people access the community?

It seems obvious, but you’d be amazed how often this point is overlooked when deducing why engagement numbers have taken a turn. Is there a technical issue? A broken link on your website or elsewhere, that members typically enter from?

Access isn’t just technical – it’s also about discoverability.

Is the community sufficiently sign-posted on your website (not hidden behind a menu or buried in a footer)? Do you promote it regularly on collateral, via emails, on social media, and other marketing channels?

Is your community content and layout optimised for search engines? Do you need to merge threads or tweak topic titles? Dig into the technical and promotional aspects of how your community is found and accessed, and look for things that can be improved.

Are needs being met?

A successful community means the needs of members are met. What members need evolves, so you need to keep your finger on this pulse to stay relevant and continue generating shared value. Your community may be growing beyond its founding members and main user segments, so you’ll need to figure out what newcomers need and how to deliver it - in line with your core purpose.

Survey members about how the community is serving their needs. Has it changed? How so? What do they need now that you’re not providing? These health checks should ideally happen regularly over the life of a community so you can benchmark these insights. A dip in engagement is a perfect time to start.

Is your community well-organised?

Community management is, in many ways, knowledge management. Regardless of what your community is about, you need to organise content, discussions, resources, events and anything else it contains in a way that makes the most sense for member needs and journeys.

Is there a clear place for newcomers? Are guidelines or mandatory content immediately obvious as part of the on-boarding process? Are the most relevant discussions and resources central? Are they organised logically? Are there clear areas for different types of members or needs?

If your platform doesn’t let you make changes you need, it might be time to migrate elsewhere. If you’re on social media, you might want to move to a dedicated platform where you can control and configure more of the experience around business and member needs. If you already have an owned platform, talk to your vendor about your organisational goals or needs, and see what features may be available to help.

Do people feel ok?

Behavioural incidents in the community (like a bad blow-up, or a nasty encounter with trolls or harassers) create emotional and cultural fallout that might not be immediately visible. Members may feel more trepidation contributing, or might avoid topics that would ordinarily create strong engagement. Have any of these happened recently? Or more often than the past?

Consistent moderation helps mitigate these incidents and shows members that they can contribute safely. Do you have moderation protocols and processes in place? Are there consequences for inappropriate or harmful behaviour? Can members self-moderate and report issues?

As the community grows, moderation systems need revisiting and revitalising to ensure they’re still effective. And if they’re not in place at all, they’ll stymie engagement potential.

What’s changed amongst members?

As you build your community over time, members will naturally take on more community management tasks and help you scale the heavy lifting. This is a good thing, but you’ll need to guard against dependencies. If a member leaves the community and they were responsible for driving more engagement than you realised, you’ll need a back-up plan to fill that gap.

Map community personalities and connections – who are the major influencers; who curates information for others; who on-boards newcomers; who are the resident experts; what are the sub-groups of interest or activity?

It’s useful to cultivate these key social roles amongst members (and the sense of ownership that goes with it), and distribute the load to avoid single points of failure.

Is a drop in engagement a bad thing?

Arguably the most important question to ask if engagement is down is… does it matter?

In some community types – e.g. customer service, learning, therapeutic – a fall in engagement may mean you’ve succeeded in meeting key community objectives. Questions have been answered. Behaviours have been changed. Healing has occurred.

Remember that volume doesn’t equal quality or success – this is not advertising. Chasing engagement for engagement sake is a quick route to unsuccessful communities and community manager burn-out. If engagement is part of the true value of your community and it’s diminishing, you have a problem. If the value the community generates – for members and your organisation – is intact or growing, regardless of post and interaction volume, then it’s a different story.

Remember, engagement problems are strategic problems. Step back and examine your community holistically to get to the bottom of issues, and don’t risk leaving it too late.