Your chat is the heart of your community, but what happens if no one is saying anything?

You COULD fix this by talking the most to fill the silence, or talking first, or prompting others... but a community where you’re entertaining everyone all the time isn’t the point of community.

And it definitely isn’t sustainable.

The key is to remove any reliance on you to get people talking to each other.

You’re there to initiate conversation, rather than leading every discussion that could be happening. You want people to participate in the chat so the community can sustain itself.

Luckily, there are a bunch of ways you can get that chat active!

Below are some of our faves 👇

You can use the Announcement space on your Community Page to direct your community members to their chat space.

This also makes it easy for new members to find it. Encourage them to write a message introducing themselves to the chat with interesting facts about themselves.

Engagement and Prompts

While you don’t want to be the only active person in the chat, getting people talking — especially in the early days of your community — can be a challenge.

One way to fix this is to prompt discussion with topics in the chat. You can choose anything open-ended… Be controversial, thoughtful, anything goes as long as it’s not offensive and doesn’t alienate your community members.

Examples of discussion topics include:

Choose topics that go beyond “yes” or “no” answers. Otherwise, the conversation dies before it even has a chance to get started.

Create a Chat for Newbies Only

Joining a group where everyone knows each other can be a massive barrier for new members to engage. No one likes to feel like the new kid at school.

You can remove this barrier by creating a chat server or group for new members only.

New members can get to know each other and feel out the vibe of your community without feeling like they’re intruding upon an established friend group.

Once they’ve gained confidence, they’ll have an easier time participating in the main chat, knowing that you helped support them in their earliest days and understanding the culture of the community.

We hope this helps you build an engaged community chat! If you need any help or advice, message us in the Chat in the corner and we'll get back to you as soon as possible :)

Happy building!

PS: If this article was helpful, drop a reaction below 👇