How do you grow an online community from zero?

Here are the 7 steps to build your own online community.

Identify key stakeholders for the online community.
Define the purpose and goal.
Select a community platform.
Build a member profile.
Develop rules and norms.
Set up your community.
Identify key stakeholders for the online community.
Promote your community.

There's no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, as the best way to grow an online community from zero will vary depending on the community's purpose and target audience.

However, some tips for growing an online community from scratch include:

• Creating engaging and shareable content
• Reaching out to influencers and other potential members
• Hosting events or meetups
• Find and connect with like-minded people on LinkedIn, and ask them to share about
  your community.
• Create Social profiles. It will help you create more value.

I think these tips will definitely help you out. 🤝

We are also building a community for every individual criticdesigns.com

Platform and network effects seem to matter. Have you tried Discord or Slack?

Hey! I think for your product, content marketing would be key.

Try to get certain content go viral on sites like Reddit. A lot of marketers are scared of Reddit (for the wrong reasons) but because you’re a free offering doing something good, Reddit users are generally more chill with it.

I really like your idea because people are really struggling these days and a community would fulfill a strong need.

I’m only recommending this approach because of the free no-cost nature of your site. If the site was a paid product this wouldn’t work and would backfire.

Here’s the framework I’d suggest:

• Browse rising Reddit for posts relating to the economy/work/cost of living/etc.
• Read through the thread. Try to understand what the general “vibe” is.
• Create content on your website that’s somehow relevant to the conversation taking place.
• Write a comment on that Reddit thread that adds to the conversation and links to your website page.

No need to be discrete, you can say it’s your website. I’ve seen several community oriented sites employ this tactic with good success.

You can also make posts, not just comments. But again you have to be creative with the type of value added content you write. It can’t just be spam, it has to provide value to the end user.

The key is to have it be relevant to the thread and not some spam message. It’ll take work but Reddit is extremely high-traffic so even getting 20 votes is significant enough to make a difference.

I’m a firm believer that community oriented sites need to be “jump started” with content created by the developer before they take off.

A few methods and ideas

1. Start with an email list. 90% of people will lurk. It is easier to lurk on an email. But you are still gathering interested people.
2. Start asking your list for input. Run polls, surveys etc. Then send out those results. Get people used to contributing, and seeing other people in the same 'group'
3. Reach out to a core group. Pinterest seeded their community with people who uploaded nice images. It sets the tone. So reach out to those who would contribute good stuff.

Honestly, start by building an audience and an email list, keep in touch with relevant things, try experimenting with stuff and see what works.

A community is not a platform and it's honestly hard work to get people to show up without trust in who you are.

Community often doesn't look like a community when you are starting, it evolves into it.

I pretty much write about community building every day, this might help you get started:
https://rosie.land/tag/starting
https://rosie.land/tag/community-discovery

I have build one of the biggest communities for Micro SaaS builders at Micro SaaS HQ

There is a lot of difference between followers vs audience vs community. Building a community takes considerable amount of time and efforts.

I wrote more about it here on how the ecosystem works around this.