Now that you have spend the past month and a half taking a look at identify and building a customer journey process through your community, it is time to look at how to use Vanilla to implement your strategy!
Here is an overview of some of the ways you can move your audience from Content Consumers to Super-Users:
Gamification Tools
Purpose: Reinforce positive behaviors with intrinsic and extrensic rewards
- Badges & Points: Awarded for milestones (e.g., 10 replies, 5 answers marked as helpful)
- Ranks & Titles: Visibly show progression (e.g., “Newcomer” → “Contributor” → “Guru”)
- Leaderboards: Encourage healthy competition and visibility
💡 Tip: Tie badges to valuable behaviors (e.g., giving accepted answers, starting conversations, adding a profile picture to make the community more ‘human’)
Recognition & Advocacy Programs
Purpose: Create identify and pride around community contribution
- Featured Members: Highlight monthly contributors on the homepage or in newsletters
- Community Champion Groups: Invite top users to an exclusive group with perks
- Customer Titles/Ranks/Icons: Offer personalized flair for high contributors
💡 Tool Example: In Vanilla, you can use customer roles and ranks with permission levels to offer Champions early access or special privileges
Advanced Analytics and Segmentation
Purpose: Identify rising stars and tailor engagement
- Engagement Metrics: Track post quality, accepted solutions, event participation
- Behavioral Segments: Create automated ranks like “Active Leaner,” “Emerging Helper,” “Community Leader”
💡 Use case: Segment members who frequently post replies but haven’t authored topics - encourage them to lead discussions
User Generated Content Support
Purpose: Empower members to co-create value
- Discussion Templates (Post Types): Make it easy to share use cases, tutorials, or troubleshooting tips
- Wiki-style Knowledge Base Contributions: Allow trusted users to edit or suggest content
- Co-hosted Events or AMAs: Feature super users in webinars or “Ask Me Anything” sessions
💡 Tool Example: Vanilla’s Knowledge Base can allow certain roles to draft or edit articles
Mentorship & Group Features
Purpose: Foster deeper relationships and learning
- User Groups/Small Communities: Form niche cohorts by topic, product, or role
- Mentorship Programs: Pair super users with new members or prospects
- Private Areas: Give top contributors access to backstage forums
💡 Bonus: Private spaces create exclusivity, which builds status and retention
Integrated Communication Channels
Purpose: Maintain multi-touch engagement and reactivation
- Email Campaigns (currently using an integrated 3rd party email tool like Active Campaign, Hubspot, Marketo with Zapier): Re-engage active users who drop off
- Digest Emails or Notifications: Highlight activity in the community with weekly or monthly digests to keep the community top of mind
- In-Platform Nudges: Tag users in comments with prompts such as “Share your insights”
💡 Tool Example: Add the tabbed discussions widget and surface unanswered questions
If you have any questions, please ask our community!