Community is a space to network, struggle together, find support, and have fun. When it comes to adult education, it should be part of the core product.
Building and breathing life into the community is a full-time role. At scale, it might be even a separate team. But even at the limited resources stage, there are options to host a great one.
I won't go into strategic community values development, branding, or members' behavior patterns. That's nice to have, but secondary. What's primary is whether the community is alive.
We run SternMeister, a German e-learning platform with accounting courses for adults. Our chats used to be dead, now they are all memes, questions, and constant support.
Here are 5 things we’ve learned about keeping a community alive.
1. Be where people already hang out
Ask learners where they usually chat with others before picking a place for the community. Do they live on Telegram? Somewhere weird, like Discord? Cool, go there.
No one will download Signal just to talk in your group if all their other chats are happening elsewhere. Don’t make it a chore.
2. If people don’t engage in the first 72 hours, you’ve lost them
Imagine awkwardly walking into a room full of strangers. Especially when half of them have blurry avatars instead of faces and 2 letters instead of full names. It's uncomfortable.
People would not naturally want to post or connect. They need help. Engage new members within the first 72 hours after someone joins.
Think a bit about those first hours. Who’s gonna drive the vibe early on? When someone new joins the chat, what do they say? What’s the one question that could get people talking?
3. Make the most out of online
Just text is fine, but if the platform or messenger you use supports voice notes, video replies, and custom emoji packs, use all of that.
For intros, don’t just ask people to introduce themselves. Ask them to drop a 20-second voice note telling who they are and what they’re currently stuck on. It feels way more natural.
Community drivers (you or someone on your team) set the tone. Go first, be the one who opens up the space and makes it feel okay to show up the same way.
Check how the live format works with the group. A couple of group calls in the first three days with a bit of FOMO might be a good test.
4. Facilitate personal bonds within the group
Help people connect 1-on-1. Start with something simple, like Random Coffee or splitting people into pairs during group calls to do a mini task together.
Give them something fun: a challenge to meet someone from the group in their city and send a selfie. Bonus points if they did it.
Even small things like this make it easier for people to show up and feel like they belong. Make sure there’s space for these connections to happen.
5. Encourage vulnerability
Real community learning starts when people aren’t afraid to ask the dumb questions. But no one wants to look clueless, so often people are shy.
Community should be a place where this is celebrated. When someone says they’re stuck, notice it, thank them, and say, “Yeah, been there.” Then, support and help to navigate.
That openness helps build psychological safety. People won’t feel judged and are more likely to participate again.
Those “dumb” questions usually indicate that something in the lessons needs fixing. Use them to improve the program, and say it out loud when it helps everyone.
These 5 rules are quite obvious, but also the easiest to forget.
Communities are held together by people, especially the ones who set the tone. If you assume it will run itself, it dies. And it’s nearly impossible to bring it back to life from that point.