Loyalty in online communities is important because it will advance your forum from a small community to a larger community used by people who want to be around each other.
Loyalty is how you make a forum become an active community. Community is different than a forum. A forum is a platform, while community is people who resonate with one another and have relationships.
How are you all building loyalty in your online communities?
I'll be honest with you, in the past I've struggled with getting loyal members to be active on the forum but I also realize now that there could have been things that I could have implemented that would have made a good difference .
I agree that having loyal members is important because they are the ones that are going to help shape the forum/community and they will also be the ones staying active.
There are a lot of loyalty building things you can do such as events, contests, recognitions etc. to help encourage and motivate members.
I haven't owned my own forum in almost a decade so I must say I've learned a lot about forums and management in that time. I feel like if I were to re-open a community/forum I would have a better run at it this time, though I'll be honest I don't have the time to run a successful forum at this time.
Loved your question! Think it's a fantastic thing to think about.
