Most online communities fail. Gartner even puts the failure rate at 70 percent of online communities.
How is yours doing so far? Thriving? Or dragging? Likely to be another statistic?
Amid highly active participation in digital spaces, especially in the Philippines where the average time spent on social media was at nearly 5 hours a day in 2025, the second highest globally that year, it is easy to assume success when building an online community. That netizens would just flock to the community and the online tribe will grow by itself.
But that cannot be further from the truth. Despite online communities’ rising popularity these days, many fail, and for many reasons. Foremost of this is lack of strategy and consistency.
Another is thinking an online community or tribe is another social media platform. The sooner businesses and brands recognize this, the better for their online community.
Unlike with one’s Facebook or other social media pages then, an online community is not about a passive delivery of content from the brand side and passive consumption on the user end. It is no longer just about posting and generating reactions on these posts.
Fueling exchange
Deeper engagement is what an online community is about. To achieve this, you need to foster two-way — even multiple-way — communication and interaction.
For a new community, particularly one with just a few initial members, host-initiated discussions through posts are usually the way to go. Content that invites response such as polls and discussion prompts are examples. Especially in the initial phase of the community, interactive types of content help generate activity and engagement.
Here are other things to remember:
1. Engage directly with your community. Do not simply read member comments and discussions. Be part of the conversation. This communicates presence.
2. Use the community to directly send updates to members. This not only keeps them updated on everything but also encourages a response compared to simply broadcasting or posting on your socials.
3. Start conversations whenever possible. Seek feedback and show real interest in members’ stories or comments. These humanize the organization at the same time communicate a commitment to keeping the community active.
4. If your community allows for live sessions, join these. Even better, share personal stories during such sessions. Use these activities to get to know the members more, including their names especially if the community is still small.
5. Respond to members queries, and do so fast enough. The speed with which brands respond to users is among the top qualities that differentiate brands on social, according to the 2025 Sprout Social Index. The same study reveals that the majority of consumers expect a reply within 24 hours and that they turn to competing brands when they do not get a response.
6. Do not use AI to interact with members in your community. This counters the goal of building real connections. You can use AI to help generate content, not to join discussions.
7. If your online community is product-centric or a tech or customer support one, approach it as part of customer care and experience.
8. Encourage UGCs. Invite members to share not just photos but also stories.
It might help to build a small core group of active and engaged members (yes, even including you and some from your end) to ensure “activity,” especially in the first few months. Regular and continuous engagement from and among this core group will reflect the community is alive. It will also encourage participation from other members.
Be patient. Give the members time to know you and the other members and then to eventually open up more. Give the community time to develop its culture and pacing.
Sustaining engagement, building relationships
Beyond getting your community’s membership to continue growing, the challenge once the community is active is to sustain — if not further fuel — the momentum. Here is where a strategic content plan for the community will be crucial.
1. Share content regularly. This encourages members to keep checking in on the community, which hopefully can grow into a habit.
But not just any content. Tailor it to the needs, preferences and interests of the group. If the community is about arts and crafts, for example, creative ideas and hacks would be very useful to members.
2. Establish a motivation or reason for people to not only come back but engage and build relationships. Just like in offices that have regular townhall meetings, perhaps a monthly, fortnightly or even weekly assembly will spur regular community attendance and engagement. The regularity can create a routine or tradition eventually.
3. Provide an exclusive experience. Run exclusive campaigns and deals. Conduct workshops, collaborations or similar activities. These make members feel valued and the group exclusive. Many companies make advance product drops in their online communities for this purpose and to get early feedback.
Caveat on promos and freebies: Make sure these are appropriate and relevant to the community and members. Also, balance the promo stuff with valuable content and insights.
4. Encourage active participation by rewarding active members. This can be in the form of vouchers or discounts or an events pass.
5. Create an atmosphere that encourages members to build relationships with one another.
6. Assign a dedicated team and train them to manage the community such that engagement is real and active. In addition to moderating discussions, the team can receive and monitor feedback and comments as well as ensure community rules and culture are maintained.
7. Listen to members’ feedback on the community and even other members, and act on these. Combine these with your community analytics, using both to keep improving community engagement overall.
Besides keeping the conversations going, make sure to keep the online community a safe space for everyone. It should be where members feel they can share their stories, thoughts and opinions without judgment, bias, even data theft.
Pitfalls to sidestep
Lacking a sustainable plan for the online community is a major trap. Managing the community would require not only a content strategy but time, budget and technology as well. Daily engagement would mean a dedicated person or small team. Organizing online events for the community would necessitate additional resources and costs.
Many online communities fail because of unclear purpose. Some confuse the goal with a mere topic. What value can members expect to get from your community? This is different from the themes members talk about or the content being shared.
Another pitfall is treating the online community as a content dump. As said earlier, it is not another social media platform. So repurposing Facebook or Instagram material will not align with the community goal nor provide members with value.
Company- or brand-centric content. Sales pitches. Avoid these traps. Stay anchored on the community’s purpose, and keep the discussions centered on that. In the previous article on how to start building an online community, one tip was not to launch without any member or activity.
Do not though fall into the trap of creating fake accounts just to grow the membership. Not only would this create a heavy burden for the managing team over time but the duplicity would be revealed eventually. Members would know if they are talking to real people or not.
Further, relationship-building is about trust, and fake accounts do not contribute to this.
Sources
https://bettermode.com/blog/online-community-stats
https://www.esquiremag.ph/culture/tech/philippines-social-media-use-2025-a5260-20260129-dyn
https://sproutsocial.com/insights/index
