The Definitive Guide to Moving an Online Community

Do you want to move your online community from one platform to another? Many small and big businesses today focus on creating a solid online community because of the benefits it offers. Online communities allow brands to engage with their customers directly, understand their needs better, and create stronger relationships.

Such communities have become a very effective form of marketing platform by allowing you to take your conversation beyond the immediate problem.

So you get to understand your audience better. You can then use this valuable feedback to improve your customer experience.

These users then become advocates of your brand and start spreading positive word-of-mouth. As a result, your brand name becomes stronger, more credible, and more trustworthy.

Besides, by maintaining an active online community, you can also turn it into a platform for generating user-generated content. You can encourage your users to get creative with your products and share their stories with others.

These communities allow you to reach out to users beyond your immediate customers. Expanding your reach helps increase brand awareness, attracts more leads, and increases your conversions.

Considering all these benefits, most businesses today have an online community. Some even turn their websites into social networking sites with the intent of building a community around their brand. However, many businesses don’t do their research when they start their communities. So, after a while, they might want to move them to another platform.

However, moving an online community from an existing platform to a new one can be a complex and challenging task. Doing this successfully needs proper planning and execution. If you’re someone trying to move your online community to another platform, this post is for you.

In this post, we’ll discuss how to successfully move your online community to another platform. So let’s get started.

How to Move Your Online Community

As mentioned above, moving your online community needs proper planning and a solid strategy. In this section, let’s look at how to get started to make this process a success.

1. Set Clear Objectives

The first important point to remember when moving an online community from one platform to another is to set clear objectives. Consider your decision and analyze it well to understand why you want to make this switch.

This will help you evaluate the new platform and identify whether it will help you achieve your goal. When you have considered switching the platform, you need to ensure that it helps you upgrade your community’s features and functionalities. However, this upgrade should align with your community objectives.

This will help ensure that the new platform has the capabilities to support your community's growth. It’ll also help you analyze how the switch will affect your community’s user experience and engagement. It is important to select a platform that will help you optimize the user experience.

But don’t restrict yourself to these analyses alone. Make sure that you also define your own success criteria for the process and set a timeline for it. This will help you make the process a more seamless one.

2. Communicate With Your Community Members

The next important step to remember when switching your online community’s platform is to communicate with your community members. Switching the platform without intimating your users might create various disruptions and confusion. If you don’t notify them about the process earlier, they might try to access the platform and fail to log in. Some might even look for information in the community and be disappointed with the process.

This can confuse them. By notifying them beforehand, you are actually preparing them for this switch.

In the notification, properly mention what they should expect from this switch. For example, let them know the exact timing at which you plan the switch. Ask them not to access the platform within that time. By setting expectations, you can reduce dissatisfaction and prepare them for a better experience.

Be open and transparent about the process. This will build trust and help you manage your online community better. You can also run a Q&A session to answer all their queries to clear their doubts. Again, don’t forget to talk about the timeline.

3. Select the Right Platform

The next and most important point to consider is selecting the right platform. This is crucial for the success and growth of your community. Evaluate the needs of your community and understand the features and functionalities you are looking for in your community.

Make sure that the features align with the specific needs of your community. It should help you engage your audience better, improve their experience on the platform, and, at the same time should, allow you solid management, customization, and moderation options.

Another key factor to remember is the new platform’s features, security, scalability, etc. Reach out to the support team of the new platform if needed and see if it offers free migration support.

It’s also important that you protect your community member’s data and ensure their privacy. So, before finalizing a platform, evaluate the security measures it offers.

4. Prepare for the Migration Process

Once you have finalized the platform, it’s time to start the migration process. To start with, you first need to map out a plan for the entire process. In the plan, you should include various important things like your milestones, a timeline of the process, key responsibilities, etc.

You should also consider technical needs, keep your existing data ready, and consider other essential components for the migration. Doing this will help you understand the process better and ensure a smooth transition. Once you have everything ready, it's time to map the data structure from the old to the new platform. Your migration process can be called a success only when you have properly imported and exported all your files.

This includes post discussions, user profiles, all your content, etc. So make sure that all your data is imported accurately. The entire process might sound challenging, but working on it and getting the process completed properly is super important.

5. Test and Validate

Simply conducting the migration process isn’t enough. You also need to ensure that things have been done properly. And the only way to do that is to test and validate the process.

Before making your community live for your users, make sure to conduct extensive research. This will help you identify and address any technical issues, bugs, or usability concerns.

Understanding these problems earlier helps you fix them without letting your users face them. You can also run a parallel testing phase where you can collect feedback from your users. This will help you understand any error or glitch in your platform, and you can fix them to ensure a better user experience.

Don’t hesitate to continuously iterate and enhance the community experience based on user input and changing needs. Once your testing process is complete, go ahead and validate your user accounts and other important activities in the community.

6. Treat the Migration as Your New Launch

The final step is to treat the emigration process as a new launch. Your users need to know that your community is live again. So let them know about it in a grand way. Use different channels to promote your launch.

You can do it on Facebook, Instagram, or any other social media channels that you think can help you reach out to your target audience. Another way of promoting your launch is through blog posts. Publish some nice content talking about why you opted for the switch and how it can help your users.

It can also be a good decision to send out newsletters talking about it. This can help you engage with your users directly and communicate your message more effectively.

How to Make Your Online Community More Popular

Now that you know how to plan and prepare for moving your online community to a new platform, let’s check out how to make your community more popular.

1. Create Valuable Content

One of the most important ways to run an active community is to create value for your users. Your audience wouldn’t want to be part of your community if they don't find it useful.

This makes it important for you to consistently create valuable content for your users. Just do some research to understand what is trending in your industry. You can then create some great content around that topic. You should also encourage your users to participate in the discussion. This will help you engage your audience in a meaningful way.

2. Maximize User-Generated Content

The next effective way to make your community more popular is to maximize user-generated content (UGC). Such content helps you create valuable resources for the entire community. Besides, when users post such content, they feel a sense of ownership around that content. This will encourage them to engage better with users who participate in discussions about it. It’s a good way to keep the community active.

You just need to clearly set your expectations about the type of content you’ll accept. So, add a section that includes guidelines on topics, formats, and quality standards. You can also add it in the FAQ section or pin a post that guides users in creating relevant content in the community.

To encourage more people to share their content, you can also offer incentives or highlight the best UGC in your community. It helps motivate your users to share more of such content.

3. Cross-Promote Your Content

When you post something in your community, it's mostly your users who notice your content. So you should always consider cross-promoting your content for more reach, better engagement, and attracting more new users.

A very good way to do that is to collaborate with influencers from your industry. Reach out to a popular influencer and co-create content with them. Talk about the value your community can offer.

Another popular way of cross-promoting your content is to guest blog in popular publications. You can use these opportunities to showcase your expertise and then highlight the benefits of joining your community.

4. Interact with Members

To be able to attract more users to your community, you have to maintain a certain standard. For example, your audience wouldn’t want to be part of it if you don’t interact with them.

So always be responsive to your users. Be prompt in responding to their comments, questions, or feedback. You should also ask open-ended questions to encourage people to participate. Just make sure to respond to them when they send their answers.

It is also important that you show your appreciation for their feedback, suggestions, and ideas. This will make them feel more valuable, and they will be encouraged to interact with you more often.

5. Embed Your Community on Your Website

No matter how popular your community becomes, it’s always important that you keep attracting more users to it. One way of doing it is to embed your community on your website.

When you do that, every time a user visits your website, they will notice your community, too. This will encourage them to join the community and reap its benefits. Embedding your community on your website is a good way of creating awareness about it and popularizing it amongst your visitors.

Conclusion

Building a strong online community needs time, effort, and, more importantly, consistency. These communities can be a wonderful platform for nurturing relationships, engaging in meaningful conversations, and offering value to your users.