Start your community with a soft launch!
When you are ready to invite users to your community, start with a soft launch. This means that you should not invite users to an empty platform. Ideally, you can invite a small group of selected users to pre-populate the platform to create content and groups and try out functionalities. This way you already have content and a veteran user base that can introduce and help activate new users.
Don't launch empty!
If you are able to invite a small group of users or not, you need to make sure the site is not empty when users start entering the community. The site looks more engaging and the purpose becomes more clear if there's already content to read.
The most important content
- A 'get started' section for onboarding new users. In this section, you can introduce new users by explaining the goals of the platform, how they can contribute, how it is structured, how to get support etc. Tip: See our example and use it as a template for your own site!
- Create a few groups that help users understand the structure of the site. But the most important benefit of groups is that your users can start joining groups and interact with each other from the minute they sign-up.
- Place interesting articles in the groups. This not only helps to give a bit more body to the platform, it can also encourage/inspire users to create articles themselves or comment on the articles.
- Introduce yourself (the community managers), make sure the users know who you are and why you are here.
Style your content!
When creating content pages, you can use the editor which has a few styling options like making text bold, creating a list, etc. The options are endless on Open Social.
If you are a more experienced user who has basic HTML skills, you can go a little crazier and beautify your content page! Read more here.