How to build a thriving online community from scratch
Why is it that many online communities become ghost towns within weeks after launching?
Yet, some marketers are building communities that thrive and eventually become the backbone of their entire marketing strategy.
The difference isn’t luck or having a bigger budget either. It’s the understanding that building a community is like building trust, and trust takes time, intention, consistency, and real human connection.
The communities that grow are the ones where people feel seen, heard, and valued. They aren’t just members, they’re part of something bigger than themselves.
As a marketer, your ability to build and grow a community could become your most powerful advantage, whether you’re doing it for a brand, an event, or a shared goal with others. In this article, we’ll dive into what it takes to build a thriving community, not just in theory but through insights from experts and their experiences.
Let’s get into it.
Table of content:
1. What it means to build a community as a marketer
2. Benefits of building a community
3. Essential steps to build a community from scratch
What it means to build a community as a marketer
Community building, at its simplest, means creating a space where people feel a genuine sense of belonging, connection, and shared purpose. It’s not just a captive audience for your brand; it’s a network of individuals who interact with each other, not just with you.
As Etashe Okpola, former Community Lead at Smarketers Hub, puts it: "A successful brand community is one that consistently delivers on both your business goals and the needs of your members." That way, everyone has something valuable to gain from the community.
Benefits of building a community
Building a community is a two-way street, and when done correctly, it becomes a powerful asset that delivers numerous benefits for both your brand and its members.
Here are some key benefits many marketers have noted from their experience in community building:
1. Customer loyalty and advocacy
When people feel connected to a brand through its community, they’re more likely to stick with it in the long term. This loyalty then translates into something even more valuable: organic brand advocacy.
At the Hub, we’ve been able to turn some members into genuine advocates who, on their own, spread the word about what we do and the impact we’ve made in their careers.
2. Improved feedback and insights
Communities create an organic feedback loop that can help shape most of your brand decisions. Our community feedback at the Hub influences nearly every major decision, from content topics to resources we share. This continuous listening process includes studying member behavior, tracking conversation topics, and identifying what truly resonates.
3. Real audience connection
When you build a loyal community around a brand, product, or mission, you get to connect deeper with your audience, and this changes everything. You see their challenges in real time, you hear the words they use to describe their needs, and you witness the emotions behind their decisions.
That depth of understanding lets you create offers, content, and experiences that actually meet them where they are.
4. Built-in community marketing
A healthy community is like having your own marketing engine running 24/7, powered by people who actually believe in what you do. When members genuinely connect with your mission, they start telling your story for you.
We’ve seen members post about our events, share resources we created, and recommend us in conversations or places we weren’t even part of, all without being asked. And that’s the beauty of marketing with a community. It’s authentic, self-sustaining, and deeply aligned with your brand’s values.
Essential steps to build a community from scratch
Building and maintaining a community that grows and stays active doesn’t happen by chance. It requires a series of strategic, step-by-step approaches, and based on insights from successful community builders, here's how you can approach building a community or scaling an existing one:
1. Define the purpose and vision of the community
Every successful brand community starts with a clear “why.” Before you even think about platforms or engagement tactics, you need to step back and ask yourself:
Why does this community exist?
Is it to help people grow their careers, solve everyday problems, or create a deeper connection with your audience?
When your purpose is clear, it becomes easier to rally the right people around it.
2. Set clear goals
Once the “why” is defined, the next step is the “what.” What do you want this community to achieve in its first 3–6 months?. Goals keep you grounded, give you clarity, direction, and a way to measure progress beyond vanity metrics such as the number of members added.
Try to think about your goals in terms of impact, not just size. Do you want to:
Improve peer learning
Encourage product feedback
Create a support system for a niche audience
By identifying your goals, you avoid building a dead group and instead focus on quality growth. When setting goals about the size of your community, the idea is to start small (first 50, then 100, etc. ), before targeting larger numbers.
3. Research and understand your audience
Once you’ve defined the purpose and goal of your community, the next question is simple: Who exactly are you building for? Communities thrive or die by relevance, and you can’t be relevant if you don’t deeply understand the people you want to bring together. So, before creating any platform, start with audience research.
Etashe explained that her very first step in growing our community was research. She combed through our email lists, social media channels, and past events to know our audience, then had in-depth conversations with our founder about the business and the type of people we serve.
This gave her a clear picture of who they were, what they cared about, and what they struggled with, which are essential insights she needed to build a space that members want to belong to. When researching potential community members, try to find out the following:
Demographics & background: Who they are, age, gender, what they do, and career stage. Knowing this helps shape both the tone of your space and the value you offer your community members.
Challenges and goals: What challenges do they face in their careers or day-to-day lives, their desires, etc? The best communities often become safe spaces to solve these exact struggles.
Motivations for joining: Not everyone joins for the same reason. Some because they believe in your product or brand, others want networking, or learning opportunities. You need to dig deep to find out why they joined, and what would make someone want to join the community.
Preferred platforms & behaviors: Meeting potential community members where they already are increases your chances of getting them to join your community.
Cultural fit and values: Every thriving community has unspoken values. Understanding which values matter most to your potential community members is very important.
This kind of community-building research doesn’t always have to be complex. It could mean running surveys or simply talking to a handful of potential community members before building. The key is to listen because the more you understand their world, the easier it is to create a space they care about and want to return to.
4. Choose your platform strategically
Choosing the best platform to build your community requires meeting your audience where they already are because the platform you decide on shapes how members join, interact, and engage with the community.
Here are some key factors to consider when selecting a platform.
Community purpose: The goal of your community will determine the type of platform you choose. Do you need structured channels for different topics? Slack or Discord might be preferable. Select a platform that suits your community goals.
Audience: Where are your target members already spending time? You need to pick a platform that your audience is familiar with because the easier it is to join and participate, the better. If your platform choice is too complex or they're not sure about it, you’ll lose people before they even experience the value you’re offering.
Scalability: Communities grow in ways you can’t always predict. Starting a WhatsApp group might be fine for 20 people, but at 500, it quickly becomes chaotic. Always think about what the platform will feel like when you’re 10x bigger.
Features: What tools or features do you need to improve member experience? Could be through event hosting, subgroups, polls, etc.
At the Hub, Slack was an easy choice for us because we’re a marketing community, and most marketers already use it for work. It allows us to run multiple activities with organized channels, making it easy for our members to access resources, join discussions, and connect.
💡 Pro-tip: How to onboard your first community members
1. Start organically
“If you want to build a community, you have to start with people you know — people who already believe in what you’ve built in the past or what you’re about to build,” says Odoh Benjamin, community growth strategist.
Your first 50–100 members don’t need to come from ads or campaigns. In fact, the strongest communities often begin with small groups of trusted believers. This organic approach can look like:
Personally reaching out to your first members (emails, DMs, calls).
Starting with friends, colleagues, and collaborators who’ve engaged with your brand before.
Bringing in people who trust your work and understand your mission.
The ripple effect here is powerful: when early members genuinely believe in your vision, they’ll naturally advocate for it, making it much easier to attract newcomers through word of mouth, campaigns, or ads later.
2. Design a community onboarding structure
Getting people to join your community is just the beginning. The real challenge is helping them understand the value and know how to participate from day one. A well-designed onboarding process can be the difference between active members and people who join but never engage.
Based on our approach at the hub, you should
Use thoughtful member application questions: Instead of just asking for name and email, ask questions that help you understand new members and match them with relevant resources or connections. This also helps gauge their commitment level and expectations.
Build good welcome sequences: Create a simple but effective onboarding experience for new members. One that helps them immediately understand what the community offers, how to navigate it, and what's expected of them.
Introduce clear community guidelines: Set expectations early about how members should interact, what type of content is welcomed, and what the community stands for. This creates a foundation for healthy engagement.
Facilitate early connections: Don't leave new members to figure things out alone. Introduce them to other members with similar interests or challenges, and help them start their first conversation or resource.
At SmarketerHub, for example, new members go through a structured onboarding that includes a Slack orientation and follow-up emails. This helps them immediately see value in the community, while giving them direction on how to get the most from resources like career tools and networking opportunities.
Proven strategies to boost community engagement
Once you have members in your community, keeping them engaged and invested requires ongoing strategies. Based on insights from our community and successful community builders, here are some approaches that actually work:
1. Lead with value
People join communities for value. Share informative, educational or entertaining content, tips, resources, and exclusive things that your members can’t easily get anywhere else.
At the Hub, our members become more invested when we connect them to resources or opportunities that genuinely help them move forward or solve a problem. To do this effectively, you need to:
Understand what members actually want to discuss, not what you think they should discuss
Pay attention to conversations that happen naturally in your community
Share content around the problems members are already discussing
2. Build rituals and recurring activities
Activities help to create a sense of belonging in community members, so host activities that keep the community alive and make your members look forward to them. In our community, we have activities such as:
Question of the Day (QOTD) discussions
Peer-to-peer learning and interactive sessions
Community challenges or quizzes
All these help to build a connection between members and the community
3. Encourage two-way conversations
When trying to grow your community, always prioritize feedback from members. Ask questions, encourage debates, and welcome their ideas even when you might not implement them. These make them feel heard and seen, and part of the building process.
That way, they become more emotionally invested in the community.
4. Create opportunities for peer-to-peer interactions
Your members often learn or interact more with each other because people connect better with those in similar stages or facing similar challenges. When you create a space for members to share, you strengthen their connection and deepen engagement with the community.
Our Marketers on Marketers event demonstrates this approach perfectly, where rather than positioning a single expert in the spotlight, we created a live space for members to share knowledge, ask questions, and connect in real-time. The feedback was amazing, with members calling it “one of the most engaging and beneficial sessions they’ve had.”
5. Celebrate milestones and progress
This applies to both community milestones and member achievements or progress. Acknowledging these milestones makes members feel valued, builds stronger bonds, and creates an emotional connection between your brand and community members.
Trust me, collective recognition breeds a feeling of shared identity. Some events you can celebrate include:
Hitting new member milestones (100, 500, 1000)
Recognizing active contributors with badges, points, roles, incentives, or exclusive shoutouts
Highlighting member success stories, birthdays, etc.
Mistakes to avoid when building a community
Building a successful community isn’t easy, and making mistakes along the way can slow your momentum early. Here are some common mistakes we've noticed and how you can avoid them:
1. Overpromising value you can't deliver
Making grand promises just to get people through the door is one big mistake some communities make. Sure, big promises will bring people in at first, but when members don't see real value, they leave just as quickly.
Be honest, set clear expectations, and deliver genuine value to community members. That's how you build trust and grow your community over time.
2. Over-complicating your community structure
Complexity can kill engagement. At a point, we noticed members weren't engaging much with our content at the Hub. After reassessing, we realized we were adding to their cognitive load by having too many channels.
It was overwhelming. So, we streamlined our structure, keeping only the most essential channels, and saw engagement climb again. The lesson here is to always focus on creating clear, simple pathways for community members to participate and engage with your community.
3. Building without listening
Communities die when members feel ignored. If you build based on assumptions instead of feedback and active listening or paying attention to members, you’ll miss what people actually need. Instead, create regular feedback loops such as surveys, polls, or casual check-ins, and let community members help shape the community.
4. Treating your community like a sales channel
Your community is not just another marketing funnel. If every conversation feels like a sale, people will disengage. Instead, focus on building strong relationships with your community first. Deliver value, build trust, and let sales be a natural byproduct of strong engagement.
5. Focusing on the wrong metrics
Many community builders make the fatal mistake of prioritizing member numbers over meaningful connections. And this vanity metric is what leads to large but dead communities with inactive members.
Focus on quality metrics such as member engagement rates, conversation depth, active members, etc. It's far better to have 50 genuinely engaged members than 1,000 who never interact.
On a final note
“If you don’t know what your people care about, you don’t have a community, you just have an audience,” says Carrie Melissa Jones, community builder and strategist.
This sums up what makes a successful community thrive. It’s not the platform, the activities, or even the content; it’s the people. Your members are the heartbeat of your community. When they feel seen, valued, and connected, they stick around. When they don’t, no amount of strategy or marketing can save it.
Think about the most successful communities out there, whether it’s the Marketers' Room, HubSpot’s community, or those that thrive without massive budgets. What unites them isn’t just growth tactics or campaigns, but a relentless focus on delivering value, solving real problems, and giving members something worth belonging to.
And if you’re a marketer looking for a space that lives by these principles every single day, that’s exactly what we’ve built at Smarketers Hub, a space for marketers to connect, learn, and build global careers together.
