Host more dinner parties to learn about onboarding.

The Digital Community Leaders Report highlighted the importance of investing in outstanding onboarding processes, let's chat about how hosting more dinner parties will help you hone you're onboarding.

The Digital Community Leaders Report highlighted the importance of investing in outstanding onboarding processes.

Threado's Community Benchmark Report '23 found that good onboarding will achieve x2 more engagement from new members.

I'm sure you've experienced that feeling when you find a new product, service or community, start to sign up and feel the excitement drain from yourself, as you begin to get lost and confused and ultimately end up abandoning your intentions altogether. 

We see onboarding a little like hosting a party. 

You want to; 

- Set the tone

- Have a plan

- Make people feel comfortable

Vincent Boon of Standing On Giants had this to say on the matter; 

Effective onboarding starts with ensuring your community is open and friendly to new users coming in and asking questions that have been asked a million times before.

If their first interaction within a community setting is a positive experience, they will be much more likely to try again and invest time in learning the culture.

If the culture you have cultivated is one of mutual support and understanding, it will shine through the messages they read before committing to their first post, lowering the threshold to participation.

Equally, there are technical tricks and processes that can be set up. From new members automatically get a private

welcome message in which you provide information and an open invitation to reach out should they have any questions, to enable people to write a message first and only on trying to submit the message to ask them to register.

Tracking people who post their first message is also a good way to ensure you can give them a warm welcome, or even setting up a welcome group of volunteer community members who specifically keep an eye out for those people who have just started participating are all good ways of ensuring people have a great first experience.

Let's start with setting the tone.

If someone decides to stop registering for your community because it doesn't feel right for them, that's okay. In fact, that's excellent news.

This means, rather than trying to be everything for everyone, your onboarding process has clear indicators of who is 'your people'. A software engineer in a trade-only plumbing membership platform makes little sense.

Having a plan and making new folks feel comfortable.

From the moment someone 'enters the door', what are the three things that would make them feel settled?

Finding somewhere to put their coat, a drink in their hand and being shown to the crowd? 

Let's move that into joining a community:

• Help the new member find a welcoming space.

• Prep your existing community members to welcome others.

• Signpost them to resources and tools.

While it's great to be hospitable, you're not their babysitter. We are creating a place where the community welcomes them, not just yourself.

Lastly, technological advancements, particularly in AI and machine learning, can be utilised to automate the onboarding process.

Automated welcome messages, guided tours of the community platform, and AI-driven content suggestions tailored to individual interests can make the process more efficient and engaging.