What Makes Online Communities Successful? 15 Community Examples
Online communities significantly enhance customer or member experiences. They transform the traditional one-way push of information into genuine, two-way communication and connection. Providing an online community for your members has an undeniable positive impact on member engagement.
Organizations can use their communities to:
- Drive engagement with personalized experiences
- Unlock the knowledge of their members
- Create loyal fans and improve retention
- Drive new revenue
- Boost new user acquisition
- Reduce support workload and administrative burden
That said, having a solid community engagement strategy imperative to your online community’s success. Good online community platforms like Higher Logic Thrive and Higher Logic Vanilla include features that make building your community and driving engagement easier. But engagement isn’t automatic.
So, what does a successful online community look like in real life?
We’ve collected 15 online community examples to help you understand what makes an online community great! These examples of community forums come from a variety of industries and offer several lessons about what helps communities thrive.
1. The Educational Theatre Association’s Community Boosts Awareness and Search Traffic
Our first example of a successful online community is from the Educational Theatre Association (EdTa). Before launching their Higher Logic Thrive Community, EdTa had a hard time reaching prospective and existing members because their organization wasn’t ranking highly in search results. This meant that people couldn’t easily find them.
To improve their digital reach, EdTa opened their community to the public to expand participation and attract more users, including those who didn’t have the budget to pay for membership. The results:
- Their community became THE destination and resource for their field.
- Membership engagement and the quantity and quality of conversations on their online community drastically increased.
- Their community is an SEO goldmine – they saw a 900% boost in their organic search rankings!
- This boost in SEO lead to a vast increase in traffic to their website
EdTa’s community example demonstrates how online community can help organizations reach more members and potential members than ever before.
SEE THE EDTA CASE STUDY | SEE THE EDTA COMMUNITY
2. Genesys Humanizes Their Brand and Deflects Support Tickets with Community
Genesys, a SaaS customer experience platform, sought to scale customer success operations and efficiently address support inquiries with their Higher Logic Community. Their online community manager pioneered a unique approach by launching a video series within the pureCloud community. This series involved pre-recorded videos on specific topics, followed by live Q&A sessions where staff answered customer questions directly within the community. They also implemented “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) style discussions.
These creative and engaging methods led to:
- A humanizing effect for the brand that fostered a more personal connection between Genesys and its users.
- Significant ticket deflection, as customers found answers within the community rather than submitting formal support requests.
- A tripling of average daily engagement metrics.
Genesys is a great community example for how to use community to improve customer experience and support.
3. Pragmatic Institute Supports Career Growth Through Community
Pragmatic Institute, a prominent training partner for product professionals, launched their online community during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic to give course alumni and product professionals a place to connect.
This community quickly proved to be a vital lifeline for its members during a period of widespread disruption, and it continues to unite professionals from diverse verticals, facilitating their growth within their respective disciplines and careers.
To help facilitate the community’s long-term success, Georgia Donahue, Pragmatic Institute’s Director of Community,:
- Started out with a phased launch plan that included a “Founders” program: a high-level leadership initiative that served as an anchor for sustained online community engagement.
- Uses their Higher Logic Thrive Community’s easy-to-use management tools, like automation rules, to scale personalized communication with community members in a way that makes them feel understood – even among thousands of members.
- Consistently curates high-quality support and resources for members in the community.
Pragmatic Institute’s online community helped them:
- Increase membership growth by 150%.
- Reduce staff effort creating content – 87% of their community content is generate by members.
- Increase member engagement – 78% of their members are “active,” with an average of 5.4 posts in the community by each member per month.
Learn how they did it in their guide for communities of practice.
SEE THE PRAGMATIC INSTITUTE CASE STUDY | SEE THE PRAGMATIC INSTITUTE COMMUNITY
4. Metal Treating Institute Powers Digital Transformation
The Metal Treating Institute (MTI), a nonprofit trade association supporting companies in the heat treating industry, strategically embraced its online community as a cornerstone of its digital transformation efforts.
By embedding their community at the heart of their digital strategy, they:
- Connected over 1,500 members across generations and geographies.
- Enabled overnight feedback on questions via active peer engagement.
- Reduced transactional requests by 50% with fewer than four staff members.
- Achieved 2,600% revenue growth and a 97% member retention rate.
MTI’s community example illustrates how online communities can be powerful drivers of digital transformation, enabling organizations to optimize resources and achieve significant outcomes. They are invaluable for facilitating knowledge sharing and peer support, especially for members who are geographically dispersed or have limited time.
5. ASAE Builds a Town Square for Insight and Engagement
The American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) utilizes their Higher Logic Thrive Community, Collaborate, as their “town square” – a vibrant central hub where members can voice their opinions, network, share information, and collaboratively solve problems. Beyond facilitating engagement, ASAE’s online community generates invaluable data about its members’ interests and emerging trends.
ASAE’s community:
- Gives the organization a wealth of member data that they use to identify trends and develop programs.
- Supports their mission by enabling personalized member experiences and ongoing networking, discussion, and real-time problem solving.
- Improves their volunteer program and saves staff time by centralizing the volunteer application process, resources, and related discussions.
- Increases revenue – they found that members who are active in the community generate 5x more revenue!
ASAE’s case underscores that communities are not merely engagement platforms; they are rich data sources for understanding member needs and market dynamics. Analyzing community data can directly inform strategic decisions and accelerate program development. This demonstrates that active community engagement is a robust indicator and a direct driver of member value and organizational revenue.
SEE THE ASAE CASE STUDY | SEE THE ASAE COMMUNITY
6. Delphix Scales Advocacy Through Community
Delphix, a SaaS-based data operations platform, leverages its online community as a central gathering place for its customers. Their community enables them to:
- Gain a deeper understanding of their customers’ needs, often providing more nuanced insights than traditional Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys.
- Use the built-in advocacy and gamification capabilities of Higher Logic’s online community platform to recognize and reward customer contributions like speaking engagements and testimonials.
- Facilitate a brand champion program that amplifies positive word-of-mouth.
Delphix’s community example illustrates that communities can offer profound qualitative insights into customer requirements, complementing or even surpassing traditional feedback mechanisms. Implementing gamification and advocacy programs is also an effective strategy to motivate participation and transform satisfied customers into enthusiastic brand champions.
7. City of Hope Enhances Research Collaboration
City of Hope, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing training to medical professionals in the field of cancer genetics, utilizes its online community as a key tool for audience engagement. The Higher Logic Thrive Community plays a vital role in:
- Encouraging attendance at their specialized courses and fostering active discussion around the training material.
- Giving medical professionals a place to discuss the latest research findings and collaborate on complex patient cases.
- Extending the value of formal education programs by creating an ongoing learning environment that extends beyond formal training sessions.
City of Hope’s community use case highlights that communities are excellent platforms for extending the learning experience beyond traditional formats. They effectively foster continuous education and facilitate peer-to-peer collaboration, particularly valuable in highly specialized professional fields.
SEE THE CITY OF HOPE COMMUNITY
8. Phi Sigma Pi Engages Students with Energy
Phi Sigma Pi National Honor Fraternity provides an exemplary model of an online community meticulously designed to align with the specific needs and preferences of its user base: college students.
- Their community design prioritizes excitement, energy, and intuitive ease of use, all crafted to attract and retain student engagement.
- They enhance the member experience by curating personalized content tailored to individual student interests and providing a live chat feature for real-time assistance.
- They drive student engagement with mobile-friendly features and real-time support that’s accessible anywhere.
This example underscores the critical importance of understanding a target audience’s demographics and preferences when designing and managing an online community. Prioritizing ease of use, mobile-friendliness, and live chat can significantly enhance the user experience and drive higher adoption rates, particularly for younger, digitally native demographics.
Explore more tips from our recent blog post about engaging members on-the-go
SEE THE PHI SIGMA PI COMMUNITY
9. Certified Financial Planner Board Cultivates Professional Growth
The Certified Financial Planner Board (CFP Board), responsible for granting certified financial planner certifications, launched its online community in mid-2016. Since its inception, the community:
- Shows consistent and steady growth and engagement, serving as a vital platform for financial professionals to network and advance their careers.
- Reinforces the organization’s value proposition, providing professional networking and career support.
- Is fundamental to attracting and retaining members, driving active engagement among industry professionals.
The CFP Board’s experience illustrates that consistent and sustained effort in community management leads to measurable growth in engagement.
10. Gain Grow Retain Builds a Thriving Customer Success Network
Gain Grow Retain (GGR) stands out for achieving remarkable growth with their customer success community, amassing over 3,000 members in just under six months.
The organization initially built a strong following through LinkedIn, podcasting, and collaborative office hours, and then graduated to a Higher Logic Vanilla community for more robust community features.
Critically, the impetus for their online community came directly from their audience: members explicitly requested a dedicated online space to continue discussions and deepen their connections. In response, GGR now strategically directs all engagement back to its online community, while continuing to promote it across its established channels like LinkedIn, their podcast, and office hours.
GGR is a great example for how many organizations outgrow the limited features of social media or less advanced community platforms. While it’s important to leverage channels like social media to help cultivate engagement, a dedicated, centralized community platform offers a lot more features to improve personalization, engagement, and save time.
Learn more about the differences between social media, communities, forums, and other community-building platforms. And explore why online communities often outperform social media.
11. Broadcom Structures Community for Scalable Support
Broadcom, a developer of semiconductor and infrastructure software solutions, faced the challenge of consolidating multiple existing communities while preserving user content and earned points. Their solution involved designing a new community structure that intuitively allows users to quickly find the information they need, thereby reducing the customer service workload.
- The new community features “buckets” for discussions, blogs, and ideas, enabling customers to view only the products relevant to them.
- Users can personalize their experience by subscribing to specific communities and receive tailored notifications, effectively filtering out irrelevant information.
- Broadcom actively engages with users to foster open conversations and establish a productive feedback loop, with users “constantly posting good ideas”.
- The company leverages gamification in the community to reward users for desired activities.
- User-generated content within the community is highly beneficial for long-tail SEO.
Broadcom’s approach illustrates that a meticulously planned information architecture is crucial for both optimizing user experience and deflecting support inquiries, particularly for complex product ecosystems. Gamification can significantly boost engagement, and user-generated content is a valuable asset for enhancing long-tail search engine visibility.
12. American Occupational Therapy Association Connects During Crisis
The American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) community example exemplifies how professional associations can leverage their online community to provide critical support to members and industries during times of crisis. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, AOTA’s online community, “CommunOT,” emerged as a vital source of connection and education for its members.
When members needed them most, the community was there:
- The community saw a significant surge in engagement: overall logins increased by 109%; new member logins—individuals accessing the community for the first time—increased by 149%; and discussion posts increased by 48%.
- The community gave members an easy way to access critical resources: content engagement (library views) increased by 100% increase and library downloads increased by 122%.
AOTA’s experience demonstrates the additional value communities prove during periods of crisis. An online space for essential peer support, timely information, and a crucial sense of belonging is more important than ever when members most need help and support. The heightened engagement AOTA observed underscores this fundamental human need for connection and shared resources.
13. Imperva Drives Retention and Reduces Support Cases with Strategic Community Engagement
Imperva, a cybersecurity software and services company, launched the Imperva Community in 2019 with multiple strategic objectives:
- To provide peer-to-peer networking
- To establish a comprehensive knowledge base
- To optimize product usage for clients.
- To reduce their support case load and create a centralized hub where customers could seamlessly find the information they needed.
Imperva was able to achieve all these goals and more! For example, they noticed a direct correlation between customer engagement within the community and higher retention rates. As Chris Detzel, Global Community Manager at Imperva, noted, “When customers engage in the community, and they reply, ‘like’ posts, or add questions, you’ll generally retain them, and retain them at a higher rate”.
Additionally, Imperva’s Higher Logic community helps them capture more search traffic by providing key SEO value. Online communities naturally answer searcher questions in the way they are posed, which can generate new marketing leads.
Imperva’s online community example shows what a powerful tool they can be customer retention and support deflection. They also serve as a source of marketing leads by organically addressing search queries through the rich content generated by users.
14. Jama Software Enhances Support and Product Development with a Robust Knowledge Base
Jama Software transitioned to a Higher Logic Vanilla community to gain enhanced functionality, particularly for customer support and product feedback. The community has proven highly active and impactful!
- It generates over 700 discussion posts and 14,000 sessions per quarter.
- It functions as a primary knowledge base, serving as the first resource customers consult when seeking assistance. This has led to a 28% decrease in support ticket volume.
- It provides a valuable channel for customers to submit suggestions for new features or improvements, directly benefiting Jama’s product team.
- Community data, such as page views and posts, is integrated into JAMA’s CRM to develop a more comprehensive understanding of customer interests.
Jama Software’s experience demonstrates that a well-maintained community knowledge base can substantially reduce support workload, even amidst customer base expansion. Communities foster direct feedback loops that are invaluable for continuous product development and improvement.
15. Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society (RAPS) Got Help Building Their Community
Not every organization has staff they can dedicate to online community management. When the Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society (RAPS) initially launched its online community, it lacked the dedicated resources for a full-time community owner. Recognizing the untapped potential, RAPS partnered with the Higher Logic Services team to secure a dedicated community manager.
This strategic investment yielded dramatic improvements in engagement. The community manager introduced a variety of new activities designed to boost participation, including a volunteer appreciation week that highlighted a different RAPS member daily, quarterly “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) sessions with experts, and weekly tech tips.
These initiatives led to significant quantifiable results:
- A 96% increase in logins
- A 277% increase in posts
- A102% growth in views per post
- A 138% growth in replies per post.
RAPS’s online community is a great example of how – when you have limited resources – partnering with an online community software provider you trust can help you jumpstart engagement.
Learn more about Higher Logic Thrive Services and explore how our expert advisors can help you with one-off projects or ongoing support.
Conclusion
And There You Have It: 15 Examples of the Best Online Communities!
These organizations are setting the standard for what a successful online community can achieve. From boosting member engagement to cutting support costs and uncovering valuable insights, these community examples show what’s possible when you invest in connection.
Looking to launch or grow your own online community? Check out our resources on online community strategy and engagement tips to get started.
This blog post was originally published in October 2020. It has since been updated, using generative AI, to reference the latest resources.
