3 Ways to Run and Sustain an Online Course Community

Did you know that 76.6% of people want their favorite brands to have a community? More and more people are stepping away from social media and turning to brand-owned spaces where they can connect and engage on a deeper level.

But building and managing an online course community is a job on its own. It is not just about posting content on a schedule. The real challenge is creating a space where students actively participate, share their ideas, and engage with each other.

In this guide, you will find nine practical strategies to grow and revive your course community, making it a place where members want to be.

Why build an online learning community in courses 

If you want students to stay, engage, and actually complete your course, the community is what you need. The times when you could surprise someone with an insightful piece of information and content are behind. 

Now, the most challenging part of selling online courses is creating a learning space where the students belong. Even big brands make huge efforts to build communities around them and foster that sense of belonging. 

Nike, for example, created the Run Club, which made beginner runners feel supported and connect with Nike as a brand. The club members share their challenges, stories, and achievements and work towards common milestones. The app got many runners hooked, and guess where they buy gear? 

The same is true for your course business. When you create an environment where they feel connected, they are less likely to drop out and more likely to reach the finish line. So, their whole experience is not limited to just getting enrolled in one of your programs. Instead, you let your course community do the marketing for you and have the same students come back for more courses and resources. 

A community also makes learning more effective because learning is social. According to Lev Vygotsky’s theory of Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), people learn best when they have others to challenge and support them. And communities are excellent spaces to provide that experience and help learners achieve wins faster. Plus, according to research by Warwick University and many others, learning communities are what motivates the students to perform better. 

The question is, how can you actually create that environment as the course creator so that your students feel encouraged, supported, and seen? 

How to revive and get the most out of your course community 

To achieve that, let’s first take a look at why people join communities in the first place. We join mostly because we want to learn something, we want to be with people who we share the same interests with, we want to exchange experiences or need feedback. 

So, if you can support these goals with your community, you are on the right path. The most challenging aspect is getting students to actually participate. 

Here are ten ways you can build and revive an active student community. 

Create a welcoming environment 

Instead of expecting your students to be active, you want to facilitate the process. So, once you onboard students in your community, make sure you can create the right first impression. 

• Send personalized welcome messages 

You can set the tone by sending personalized messages that you can automate. Your first message will help them adapt to the environment, build expectations, and understand the opportunities for growth. 

Share what you recommend for them to get started or any resources or community guidelines they can check out. You can give a brief description of what the community is all about and what they can learn. But also, ask what they expect from your community too, so that you can point them in the right direction. 

You can even communicate how everything works in your community via video. This is what Jan Keck, a creator and virtual facilitator, does for his training. In an interview with me, he shared how he hosts everything in his community before the main sessions start. 

“There is a community where everything is hosted. They get access to the community, where I invite them to create their profile picture. They write a little bio and introduce themselves so they can connect with each other before we have the first live session. I'm trying to build some things that help them get to know the community platform”. 

 

Jan Keck

Virtual Facilitator, Learning Experience Designer

What helps Jan set the tone is that he also creates bonus video content for those who sign up. This way, his participants discuss and get to know each other even before the training sessions start. 

But whatever format you choose, make sure you guide new participants in a specific direction in your welcome message. Or, as Jan put it, “create different elements where they take action” right from the beginning. 

• Encourage shoutouts and appreciation posts 

Jan Keck also believes the main purpose of the community is to help people connect with each other and start to build a sense of community and a sense of belonging. 

And to create that, you want to have a culture in your community where supporting each other is the main value. This is what Andrew Hubbard calls the win culture. 

“You need to make it easy for them to provide feedback, testimonials, and case studies.” 

 

Andrew Hubbard

Course Creator, Digital Marketer 

What Andrew does is ask participants to drop their biggest win of the week in the thread. You can also:

• Tag any of the students you learned insight from, and ask them to share what they learned from their community peers that helped them address the common goal you have
• Feature a student who recently had success in a mini-interview and share it
• Give shoutouts during your live sessions or your emails
• Feature top contributors in a “Community Spotlight.” 

If you want the students to feel welcome, you want to communicate the idea that the community is the best place they can share, clarify their doubts, and ask their peers for help. 

“I want them to feel that it's a safe space where they can ask questions and, like, experiment and get to know each other”. 

 

Jan Keck

Virtual Facilitator, Learning Experience Designer

But to make this happen consistently, you need a reward system that recognizes valuable contributions. For example, platforms like Circle, Facebook, and Instagram have this badge system that you receive when you hit a specific milestone, like posting 7 days in a row etc. 

You can create a similar strategy and

• Award badges to participants who post frequently, share helpful resources, or help others in the threads
• Create milestones for every participant and implement a system to celebrate them. For example, when someone publishes their first post in your community, they get an animated celebration as an achievement. 
• Have a monthly shoutout wall where you mention them and recognize their efforts 

It also serves as a sign for passive members that you encourage participation. 

Encourage members to post 

Speaking of passive participants. Research shows that 90% of people just read the content, while only 9% participate in the communities. This is known as participation inequality. 

Even on TikTok, which is currently one of the most popular platforms to build communities, only 40% of the users share posts, and the rest are just lurkers. 

That is why you always want to give those little nudges to your community participants and encourage them to share their input. For that, you can use the following strategies. 

• Ask members to share their own tips 

What is your first reaction when someone asks you to share your experience around a particular topic you have experience in? The funny thing is, we tend to willingly share what worked for us when asked. Research on opinion formation on the internet shows that humans like to share information publicly when they want to contribute to an ideology. 

This means you can use that factor to encourage your community members to show any engagement and contribution. For example, you can 

• Post a prompt asking students to share their best tips related to a common challenge you address in your courses.
• Turn this into a challenge where the best contributions get featured in your newsletter or resource library.

The sole fact that you are the course instructor or the subject matter expert does not mean you are the smartest person in the room.

• Use notifications and reminders 

We love the notifications, but only when they are not spammy. So, you can set automated notifications that trigger when a specific action happens. 

For example, when you post an important announcement or there is a new response in the discussion thread. 

“Use notifications and gamification to help your students progress and get to the finish line”.   

 

Eli Natoli

Course Creator, Coach, and Marketing Strategist

One of the best ways to make notifications useful is to create FOMO in them. But instead of irritating them, you want the notifications to appear as an invitation to contribute. You can use concepts like:

• Name, join the discussion! We are sharing behind-the-scenes insights on course creation today.
• A hot debate is happening right now about [topic]. What’s your take?

• Create small group challenges

Another thing that gives your community members a reason to participate and makes learning more fun is running challenges, monthly or weekly. 

The members can participate individually or in accountability groups. Select the pain points your courses solve for the students and set the milestones your students want to achieve generally.  And the goal of the challenge is that everyone works towards that goal at the same time. 

Especially if you always create self-paced courses, the challenge is an excellent way to unite your community members. To make it even more impactful, you can celebrate everyone’s achievements and host an offline event to summarize the results. 

• Encourage them to post questions 

Whenever you touch on a particular topic in your course, you can initiate a discussion about it. So, you can create a post and let your students leave their questions in the comments. This way, they could also learn from each other as they can engage in discussions on threads. 

Yet, most of the time, learners will refrain from posting, especially when they are new joiners and still don’t know what you generally discuss in the community. So, it is always better to have a set of rules in the community that you can share when giving a welcome experience for each participant. 

Make your members feel special 

As consumers, we naturally want to belong to brands we buy from. In fact, 88% of people buy from brands that make them feel like they are part of the team. In this regard, your community is a great tool to communicate the idea that your students are part of your course brand and that you want to listen to their needs. 

When they feel like they are part of something big and their opinions matter to you, they are more likely to contribute. Here are more strategies you can try. 

• Ask for their input on course updates

For example, you can

• Run a quick poll in your community asking what topics they want more of.
• Let them vote on upcoming bonus lessons or guest speakers.
• Ask them to share their biggest challenges so you can update the course content. 

• Share “Members Only” content 

Sharing content that you create only for your community members is one of the key reasons that incentivizes people to join your community. 

• Post bonus videos, worksheets, or templates inside the community.
• Host private live Q&A sessions just for members.
• Share early access to new course content or updates.

Besides just online meet-ups, you can even host private events that is accessible for only your community members. 

• Share student success stories

When students see others succeeding, they get inspired to participate. It creates a culture where progress is celebrated, and engagement becomes contagious.

• Post weekly student spotlight content
• Share testimonials and success stories inside your community.
• Encourage students to post their own wins and tag others for support.

Start on a strong platform with community support 

Building a strong community around your online course is not just about having a space for discussions. It is about creating an environment where students feel valued, supported, and excited to participate. 

If you are looking for a place to host your community, you can start on Uteach. Because why send your students to third-party platforms when you can build and manage your own community space right inside your course platform? 

With Uteach, you can create a dedicated community where your students can connect, engage, and grow without distractions.

• Offer online courses, coaching, live sessions, and digital products, and have it all in one place.
• Build and manage your student community right on your course platform. 
• Set community rules and decide who can post, comment, and start discussions.
• Monetize your community as you charge a fee for access. 

Learn more about how you can build and manage your own community on Uteach, and start your free trial today.