CREATING AN ONLINE CHALLENGE
Community Models – The Rise of the “Pop Up” Community By Emily Brounger In the last 6 months we’ve seen a rapid rise in the amount of entrepreneurs and businesses creating communities to bolster their value and engagement and to act as a marketing vehicle. This is particularly true of coaches, consultancies and membership businesses who are charging members a subscription and feel pressure to add a community element to increase engagement and stickiness of their offer and add value to members. But 6 months after launching the community component of their offer, they’ve often found the peer-to-peer connectivity is relatively limited and they’re exhausted from constantly trying to “make” members return and maintain the energy of the community. This is particularly true of facebook groups in recent months, where facebook’s algorithm shows the content to less and less people as engagement drops off.
Enter: “Pop-up communities” or “Online Challenges”
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COMMUNITY LEADERS
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“The advantage of an Online Challenge is that it’s time-limited which means it’s much easier to create immediate impact because everyone joins within a short period of time and are engaged and excited to get started” A pop-up community is one established for a time-limited or goal-specific purpose. They’re growing in popularity as both a networking area which sits alongside a time-limited virtual or physical event, giving attendees the opportunity to connect and get to know each other, and perhaps arrange IRL meet-ups, and also in the form of an “Online Challenge”. An online challenge is an experience where you challenge your audience to do something each day, with the intention of helping them achieve a goal, get better at something or solve a problem – which often in turn builds value, authority and goodwill and leads members to a specific product or service you offer. The advantage of an Online Challenge is that it’s time-limited so it’s much easier to create immediate impact because everyone joins within a short period of time and are engaged and excited to get started. It can also be easier to manage because of the short but intensely active time-frame
