In higher education, your relationship with learners shouldn’t end when their program does. If fostered correctly, they’re applying the knowledge they gained, sharing their experiences with their personal and professional networks, and staying engaged with your institution.
Strengthening your relationships post-program will not only enhance the learning experience and create a sense of belonging, but inspire lifelong learning and repeat engagement, build awareness in a competitive education landscape, and transform your learners into your brand’s biggest advocates.
Building a vibrant community is vital for maintaining these post-program relationships. In a survey by the community marketing platform TINT, 73 percent of consumers reported having a positive opinion of brand communities, while 84 percent said the community surrounding a brand impacts their feelings about it.
Many online learning providers must battle the misperception that community-building and networking only happen in person. At Harvard Business School Online, we launched our Community in 2018 to provide online learners the chance to connect off-line by forming chapters worldwide. Over the last six years, we’ve expanded to nearly 40 chapters and more than 650,000 members from 190 countries. And importantly, we’ve evolved beyond in-person meetups to also host virtual events and discussions through our Community platform.
If you’re interested in building a global community at scale, here are seven tips to consider.
Tips for Building an Engaged Global Community
- Find Your Superusers Early
Start by identifying your most active, engaged learners. Perhaps they’re always the first to comment on their peers’ responses and provide feedback. Or maybe they’re sharing their certificate and learning experiences on LinkedIn, taking multiple programs, or promoting your school and proactively addressing questions in Reddit threads. Determine your engagement metrics and use them to spot your superusers early.
Programs should offer multiple connection points throughout the experience. HBS Online offers networking opportunities before, during and after courses. Anyone can join a public chapter to learn more about the brand and build knowledge. Once enrolled and upon course completion, they’re added to different private discussion boards and gain access to exclusive networking opportunities.
The earlier you integrate community into their experience, the faster they’ll become familiar with it and the more engaged they’ll be over the long term—helping you more easily surface your superusers.
- Transform Your Superusers Into Brand Ambassadors
Communities are stronger when everyone is involved. Once you’ve identified your superusers, empower them to be brand ambassadors. Provide ownership of the community experience to keep them invested and committed to fueling its success. In turn, you can scale faster by delegating some of the event and community management.
Our chapters are run by chapter organizers—volunteers who’ve taken at least one HBS Online course and been vetted by our team. These volunteers are responsible for hosting an event a quarter and posting on their chapter’s discussion board.
This structure enables us to grow our Community globally and offer in-person and virtual events and networking opportunities throughout the year. Our learners forge real-world connections while our chapter organizers gain experience they can add to their LinkedIn profiles and résumés.
- Provide Them With Helpful Tools, Training and Tactics
To help your learners become brand ambassadors, equip them with the right tools, tips and training. Onboard them to your community software, develop documentation and responses to frequently asked questions, and regularly host training sessions to explain new and existing platform features.
Data is another powerful tool. Track which conversations garner the most engagement or the events with the highest registrations, and share those insights with your community leaders. It will provide a jumping-off point and help them build stronger networking opportunities and relationships.
- Establish and Share Clear Guidelines
During onboarding, share clear brand guidelines and expectations with your community leaders, including:
- Your community’s goals and objectives
- What their role entails and how to refer to it
- How they should attribute your brand, and if/when they can leverage your logo
- Your social channels and any campaign hashtags
- Examples of effective content, whether a social post, forum discussion or event
- Specific brand style guidelines
By providing this material, you can empower them to be stronger advocates and alleviate branding concerns as you grow and scale your community.
- Highlight Achievements and Incentivize Advocacy
For your community to be successful, it needs to be mutually beneficial. Your learners are likely juggling their education alongside various personal and professional commitments. Acknowledge their time spent volunteering.
At HBS Online, we share our praise in various ways, including dedicated learner profiles, Community engagement and recognition badges, social media callouts, a monthly Community-focused newsletter where we promote upcoming events and achievements, and free tickets to and dedicated recognition at our annual hybrid learner conference, Connext.
Consider how you can leverage gamification to encourage engagement or incentivize your community leaders to promote your brand. Perhaps you gift them exclusive swag if they hit certain engagement metrics or welcome them to beta-test new products. Determine what works best for your institution, but ensure you’re meaningfully saying, “Thank you.”
- Give Your Community Meaning
Purpose fuels passion. Find ways to make your community something your learners are proud to participate in. Survey them to discover how they view your community and the value they derive from it and leverage those insights to create programming aligned with your institution’s mission.
Six years ago, HBS Online introduced the Community Challenge to empower our learners to enact global change. Through the challenge, we collaborate annually with a nonprofit and ask for a pressing issue facing their business. We then share that problem with our learners, who gather worldwide to develop and pitch solutions. Over the years, they’ve tackled topics like food insecurity, climate change and education access while applying the business knowledge gained through our courses and fostering teamwork globally.
- Create an Internal Support System
For any of these community efforts to take off, you need buy-in from senior leadership. Without it, you’re unlikely to get the necessary tools and resources to grow an engaged community. Communicate the value to your institution’s key stakeholders and provide them with the talking points to advocate for the initiative organizationwide since you’ll need support from multiple teams—like tech, program delivery and marketing—to make this work possible.
If feasible, having a dedicated community manager can also help supercharge your efforts. That employee can provide a safe space for your community leaders, give them a direct point of contact, listen to and enact feedback, and ensure brand guidelines and expectations are met.
Build Lifelong Relationships
Your learners are your higher education brand’s most valuable asset. They can provide insights to help you develop new programs, advocate on your brand’s behalf, build awareness and drive repeat engagement.
To foster lifelong learning, you must prioritize building lifelong relationships. Is your institution missing out on a competitive advantage?