Building active communities: A guide to member engagement
After two decades of helping membership organisations improve and streamline their digital offering, one thing that stands out is that there's no one-size-fits-all solution to member engagement. All our membership or society clients are unique. There may be common functionalities and similar user journeys, but no membership organisation is the same.
Despite this, I've noticed that many membership organisations face remarkably similar challenges, with member engagement and demonstrating value to members being at the top of the list.
Below I outline some proven strategies that can help boost member engagement, while acknowledging that every organisation needs to adapt these approaches to their unique context and offering.
Start with what you have
One of the most common misconceptions I encounter is that increasing engagement requires a complete digital overhaul or a new and expensive platform. In reality, some of the most effective engagement strategies involve the better use of existing resources.
Many of the member organisations we work with have resource areas or knowledge hubs and are in the business of disseminating research, reports, or other long form content.
The Health Data Collaborative, a World Health Organization initiative we work with, had a wealth of content produced by various working groups but this was hidden away in private Google Drive folders. The publicly accessible information they did have was poorly presented and lacked in metadata that would have made this content more discoverable.
By simply restructuring how this content was presented, renaming files to have more human- readable and descriptive titles, taking the time to add the appropriate metadata and categorising their content with a taxonomy that reflected the mental model their audience has around their content, they saw a significant increase in member interactions and more visibility in Google search results.
Alongside implementing an improved taxonomy that can be used to group, categorise and filter content, categories can be used to create rich landing pages for topics that help visitors orient themselves and help illustrate the breadth of content available around certain themes. These rich landing pages can do much to help visitors navigate around a website, and help promote and distribute content effectively, and also increase visibility on search engines.
Make it personal
Personalisation doesn't have to mean complex algorithms or expensive software. Sometimes it's as straightforward as segmenting your email lists based on member interests or offering content filtered by experience level or specialty.
For our work for the World Health Organisation initiative The Alliance for Transformative Action on Climate Change and Health, and the Adaptation Research Alliance, we have implemented features that allow members to self select themes or topics they are interested in, opening up opportunities to serve tailored content and messaging.
Members feel like they get a personalised experience, can connect with others who share the same values or interests, and get more value out of available resources.
Create opportunities for member-to-member connection
One of the biggest attractions for any potential member is the membership network itself and the opportunities to connect with others within the membership.
For the Adaptation Research Alliance we implemented a member directory in their member login area. The membership of the Adaptation Research Alliance is made up of organisations and these are featured on the public facing website. Within the private members area, individuals attached to organisations can also opt in to be included in a directory where their skills and areas of interest are featured, giving opportunities for collaboration between members. We also have implemented something similar for the Alliance for Transformative Action on Climate and Health but in their case, members can also suggest sector experts who are outside of the membership to be featured in a directory available to all members. Our work for The European Federation of Periodontology also includes private directories of Alumni members, allowing them to connect and collaborate.
Other initiatives I have seen work successfully are peer learning through member-led webinars or discussion groups, mentoring programs connecting experienced members with newcomers and special interest groups around specific topics or challenges. As long as the resources are available to make sure initiatives like these are sustainable, they are all worth considering with the aim to increase member engagement.
The human touch still matters
In our rush to digitise and automate everything it's easy to forget that membership organisations are fundamentally about human connections. Technology should enable these connections, not replace them. Some of the most successful engagement strategies we've implemented have combined digital tools with human interaction, especially around the onboarding of members, and application processes in general. These processes are easy to automate but can feel cold without some human interaction.
Having content curated by humans can also give a more personal touch, such as running member spotlight programs that celebrate individual contributions, and informal virtual meetups encouraging collaboration. Although reliant on your team's time, look to inject a human touch into how your members interact with your organisation.
Getting Started
If you're feeling overwhelmed, start small. Pick one area where you can make an immediate impact. Maybe it's cleaning up your email lists for better targeting, starting a monthly virtual meetup for members, or suggesting ‘match-ups’ or collaborations between members based on their interests or skills. Test, learn, and adjust based on what works for your specific community.
Remember, increasing member engagement isn't about having the latest technology or the most extensive program offerings. It's about creating value and fostering connections in ways that matter to your specific member community.
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Owen Priestley
Strategy Director
