Foundation Do you have an audience to begin with?

[Cedric]

Building a community takes passion, but passion alone isn’t enough. One of the most important questions to ask yourself as a community owner is: Do I already have an audience to start my community?

It's easy to get excited about creating a space, but without a core group of engaged members, it can be tough to grow. Think about your target audience—who are they, where can you find them, and how can you draw them in? Start small and focus on building genuine relationships. Even a few dedicated members can make all the difference in kickstarting your community's growth.

What strategies have worked for you in gathering your initial audience? Let's share ideas and experiences!

 

[Nomad]

I have a few people who will help me when I start. They will create topics, reply to the topics and get the discussion going and when I start promoting, my forum will not look bare bone. However, having a couple of people to create content in your community will not be enough, therefore, in the beginning I also engage in post exchange with some forum owners.

 

[Bryn]

When I first started my forum, most of the first members that came in were from the previous one I had (after letting them now by bulk email).

Though when it came to my very first forum, it was solely from my YouTube subscribers.

 

[Shawn]

I typically use my established communities and social media profiles to get the first membership on my communities.

Some have to start from scratch.

I already had around 20 members waiting to join before I launched my biking community. It's local so the local people I ride with were ready to be a part of it.

I'm a hiking influencer on social media. I have around 40,000 followers combined from YT, FB, IG, X, and Threads. So, when I launched my hiking forum, I started promoting it to that crowd. It's still new and growing but I'll be promoting it on my 3,000+ subscriber newsletter soon and hope that helps me grow it as well.

My admin and blogging forum have pretty much had to start from scratch which is fine with me.

 

[Cedric]

I typically use my established communities and social media profiles to get the first membership on my communities.

Some have to start from scratch.

I already had around 20 members waiting to join before I launched my biking community. It's local so the local people I ride with were ready to be a part of it.

I'm a hiking influencer on social media. I have around 40,000 followers combined from YT, FB, IG, X, and Threads. So, when I launched my hiking forum, I started promoting it to that crowd. It's still new and growing but I'll be promoting it on my 3,000+ subscriber newsletter soon and hope that helps me grow it as well.

My admin and blogging forum have pretty much had to start from scratch which is fine with me.

40k followers is amazing. What kind of content do you publish that accumulated you so many followers? What platform is the most effective for your hiking?

 

[Shawn]

40k followers is amazing. What kind of content do you publish that accumulated you so many followers? What platform is the most effective for your hiking?

Facebook has been the best for me. I get 500K visits a month. I earn performance bonuses now. My strategy: Post organic content 5 times a day, every day including text posts, photos, and videos. I schedule it a week at a time.

19K followers on my page.

I didn't add my big group to the 40K... that has 46K members on it alone.

It's great but it's still sketchy because it's rented space. My goal is to keep growing my mailing list.

 

[Cory]

Thankfully, when you run a resource board like I do you gain more of an audience the more you publish resources. When I started advertising I think I gained a small audience that needed coding support, requests, or resources. But when you keep building on the foundation you already have you continue to cater to the needs of others and attract an overall audience that can find benefits using such a board. I gain 30+ members a month on average, I think last month was the most members I've gained in a single month, which was 50+ member registrations.