Top 5 Features to Build an Engaged Online Learning Community
Brooke Elder
Charting the course for ops professionals to navigate from support roles to strategists. I help VAs, OBMs, and Project Managers unlock their full potential & become strategic partners.
An online learning community is a place where your customers can engage with you, your team, and each other to share information, ask questions, and discuss assorted topics.
The benefits of having an engaged community are clear: your clients are more likely to complete their program and be more satisfied with their learning experience. It also increases accountability as your clients support each other in achieving their goals.
However, it can be difficult to keep your community active and engaged, especially if you’re trying to build it on a social media platform like Facebook.
More and more coaches are building communities off of social media, on platforms where there are no ads, distractions are minimized, and there are fewer concerns regarding users being locked out of accounts.
If this sounds like something you’re want to add in your business, what should you look for?
Top 5 Features
While building and managing an online learning community on a private platform for my students I’ve learned a lot. Here are the top features that I look for to keep my groups active and engaged.
Zoom Integrations
The ability to integrate Zoom into my community has been a game-changer. When I schedule live events for specific groups in the community, the date, time, and link is posted on the sidebar of the community. My event attendance has increased dramatically because of the regular reminder as well as easy access to the link.
Also, I can turn past events into a resource library quickly and easily. With the Zoom integration, my event recordings post automatically into the appropriate community for clients who were not able to attend.
Social Groups
Creating specific groups for each course I offer, and each level, lets me and my team interact at a more personal level and provide direct support. My clients feel supported by not just my team but also each other.
Customers are also more engaged in large part because there are fewer distractions. They are online in the community for one reason – to engage. There are no ads or unrelated posts. Just great content from a cohort of learners with similar needs and goals.
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Forum discussions
Having a bulletin board-style forum within my online learning community allows group members to discuss topics in an easy-to-follow thread. Clients who might otherwise feel overwhelmed have a space to ask questions and discuss topics. And newer group members can easily review topics to see prior discussions.
Private Messaging
When group members can send private messages to each other, they’re able to build strong relationships and support each other in more personal ways. As a result, they engage more in my online learning community.
Another way I make my clients feel special is by sending them private messages at specific milestones like completing a course module, or at the halfway point of the course. This helps keep them motivated to stay on track with the course material.
Activity Feed
An activity feed helps clients feel more comfortable in the online learning community. It makes my community feel a lot like a social media platform, letting clients comment on or like posts. When the learning curve to engage in the community is low, activity goes up.
Using @mention to tag group members in posts also has a familiar feel to it while increasing engagement. I love to tag my clients in general announcements and welcome posts as well as posts to congratulate them on reaching course milestones.
Bonus Feature
Building my community on the same platform where my course resides has been a key factor in keeping customers engaged in both the community and the course.
When clients login to the platform to continue their course, the community is menu option – just a click away. This creates an ideal user experience, allowing them to easily navigate from progressing through the course material to asking questions or giving feedback in the community.
Keeping your online learning community active and engaged is easy with the right platform. The features that you need are simple:
If you’d like to find out more about how Systems with Strategies can help you build an online learning community where your clients engage actively with you, your team, and each other, we’d love to talk with you! Book a call with one of our Account Managers and learn more about our all-in-one platform.