20 Ways To Keep Your Community Engaged During COVID-19

1. Share advice on working from home

Working from home can be challenging. While the monomers in your community that are enough to be able to work from home are the fortunate ones, staying connected with the team can be difficult, and the environment can lead to demotivation and unproductivity. Everyone wants to know how the organizations they look up to are doing it, so share your favorite communication tools and home-office hacks. Right now we can all use some useful advice.

2.Organize a Q&A session

Giving your community members the opportunity to ask you questions can be a learning opportunity for everyone. It’s a great way to keep your community members engaged and to give them the opportunity to get to know your team. They can learn from the advice your experts share and have some fun in the process too.

3. Call for Interns and Collaborators

There are many very talented individuals who were suddenly left jobless. And others have considerably lower workloads due to the COVID-19 situation. Some of them are looking to create future opportunities for themselves by investing in professional relationships and growing their portfolio. Even if you are not in the position to hire anyone (and won’t be anytime soon), this is a great way to give and get value from the members of your community. 

4. Share meaningful motivational stories

Did you know that when the Great Plague hit London in 1665, young Isac Newton used his time in isolation to think and test some of his college daydream theories? By doing so, he set the foundation of calculus, light refraction, and gravity. By sharing stories like this, you can remind everyone in your community that this is a time of opportunity, and if used wisely, can lead to long-term success and universal benefit.

5. Organize an online hackathon/makeathon

The greatest way to engage your community is to give them the opportunity to join forces and creatively collaborate. Techstars, for example, is organizing the first-of-its-kind Global Online Startup Weekend to find solutions for COVID-19 related problems. We will personally take part in it by organizing the local COVID-19 Startup Weekend. Click here to find out how you can participate too.

6. Share relevant content

Your community’s interests are shifting and your content needs to go in the same direction. Focus on giving rather than getting, sharing advice rather than selling, and throw in some entertainment in the mix. Make sure that the content you share is either compassionate, educational or entertaining (in a relevant way). To make it even more clear, you can share blogs about useful tips, educational video content and funny screenshots from your team’s video chat calls. You can also encourage your community to share theirs as well.

7. Ask ask ask

The members of your community can be a very useful source of knowledge and inspiration. This is a great time to ask them for ideas, opinions, thoughts, and tips. They will gladly share, and by showing them how much you value their opinion, you will also strengthen their bond with your brand.

8. Share the best recipes to make from home

Everyone loves food and with limited options for getting ready-made meals, we are all resorting to at-home cooking. Share the best recipes your team-members love to make, and ask your community members to try them, and rate them based on how easy to make and delicious they are.

9. Suggest online workout classes and courses

Staying in physical shape might be more difficult when we have limited movement, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t stay active. Exercise is also a great mood enhancer so it’s really important to our mental well being as well. You can ask the more active members of your team to share their routine in a video format, or their favorite streaming online workouts.

10. Organize an online event

It’s great to share content from other creators, but it’s even better when you create it yourself. Organize an online event (a webinar, or live Q&A session) with members of your team, or other experts and speakers. You can even team us with professionals to organize virtual workout sessions or make along with tutorials. The possibilities are endless, but whatever type of event you organize, your community will appreciate it.

11. Create online games and quizzes

Everyone gets excited about games and quizzes on Social Media. Throw in a digital award in the end and you have yourself a virtual party. Games and quizzes are a tried and true way to keep the community engaged even in normal circumstances, so you can count on them being even more attractive now that all attention is online.

12. Suggest ways they can go places without leaving the home

Just because all travel is canceled doesn’t mean we can’t see the world. Here are some great lists of virtual travel locations that your community members can see from the comfort of their couch, and virtual experiences that are a total treat even compared to free Netflix.

13. Share DIY ideas

Odds are, there are many craftsy DIY-ers in your community with a lot of time on their hands. Share relevant DIY ideas that will get their creative juices flowing and give something cool to do in the house. You can even create a DIY challenge, and award the winner a virtual King-of-the-DIY-club crown. Just make sure that it’s one they can print out – that’s a gift they would really appreciate. 

14. Give advice on Digital Cooperation

For those working from home, digital cooperation is one of the greatest challenges. As much as technology has made communication faster and easier, nobody can argue that ae-mail can replace a real meeting, and a video call can replace an actual workshop. However, there are things we can do to make cooperation easier and more effective. For inspiration, check out our list of ways we can work together without being together.

15. Set an engaging challenge

There are a few things that get people as excited as a good old fashioned challenge. There are challenging times, but we can still have fun, learn new things and get out of our comfort zone (without physically leaving it of course). Challenge your community to read a book a week, share a story that taught them an important lesson, or post their most embarrassing childhood photos on social media. A good challenge always gets people excited and ultimately will make this situation a little less depressing for everyone.

16. Share free learning opportunities

Especially now, there are endless free online learning opportunities to pick from. From free Ivy League online courses, online course websites that now offer free access, to good old Duolingo (that has and always will be free), sharing free learning opportunities that are relevant to your community members is really the best way to show your appreciation.

17. Share your list of musts

Everyone has a list (usually in their mind) of movies they think everyone should see, games everyone should try and brands everyone should know about. Ask your team members to share their lists and ask your community members to do it too. We can all use some noteworthy recommendations at times like this.

18. Remind everyone to stay positive and informed

Continuously share positivity and important information in fun ways. Creating infographics and gifs is a great way to draw attention to the messages that matter most: how to stay physically healthy and preserve mental wellbeing.

19. Share good causes to join

Some local businesses and organizations are doing things to help the most vulnerable. Help their initiative by sharing the cause with your community members. With your influence, you can really help the broader community by reaching more people that are willing and able to help.

20. The first thing to do after quarantine is over

Sooner or later, this situation will be over. Keep your community members thinking ahead by suggesting the first things they should do, visit or eat when life goes back to normal, or ask them to share what they are looking forward to doing the most.