Today in this post, we are presenting you the online community statistics. Online communities help brands and organizations take their business to the next level. They help you network, engage your users, collect feedback, promote and sell your products, and more.
If you already have an online community or thinking to build one, these online community statistics will help you.
Key statistics:
- The average global market growth rate of online communities is 13.9% CAGR.
- 88% of the community professionals agree that the community is a critical part of their business.
- Monthly Active Users (57%) (MAUs) is the most popular metric used to measure online communities.
- 59% of organizations use online communities to provide customer support.
- 85% of the brand owners say that having a branded online community provides greater trust among the audience.
- According to 57% of those with branded communities, the community contributed to brand SEO.
- 90% of the brands told that they use the community members’ suggestions to improve their products & services.
Online Community Market Size
- Enterprise social networks and online communities market size is expected to reach US$ 7.3 Bn by 2022.
- The average global market growth rate of online communities is 13.9% CAGR.
- CMX reports that 65% of the organizations will increase their budgets for the community in the next 12 months.
- The primary goal of most communities is to retain customers.
Growth of Online Communities
- 88% of the community professionals agree that the community is a critical part of their business.
- According to 85% of online businesses, communities have positively impacted their business.
Existence of online communities:
- In the survey of 533 community professionals, most of their communities evolved as long-term, and 42% of the communities existed for over 5+ years.
- 20% of the communities have existed for about 3 to 4 years.
- 21% of the communities have lasted for about 1 to 2 years.
- 10% of the communities have just survived for less than 6 months.
Facebook (29%) and Slack (23%) are the top platforms used by organizations to host their communities.
As Facebook Groups are cost-free and most of the users use Facebook, many brands host their communities on this. But some go for dedicated community platforms like Slack or Discourse, to keep their members away from all the distractions.
Which option best describes the strategy for your community program?
- Majority of online communities focus on scaling. In nearly three out of five cases, community professionals have the goal of scaling up their existing communities (59%).
- While 22% of those have revealed that their main strategy is revitalizing an existing community.
- 10% of them told that revitalizing a dormant community is their strategy.
88% of community professionals said that community is critical to their company’s mission.
Online community engagement statistics
Consistently keeping the members engaged is the top frustration that 55% of people faced in online communities.
Source: CMXHub
Next to that, 44% of the hosts think it is hard to quantify the value of the community. 40 percent of people do not automate their communities, so they spend more time manually managing them. So, it is advised to use Zapier or go with the online community platforms* that support built-in automation.
Monthly Active Users (57%) (MAUs) are the most popular metric used to measure online communities.
MAU’s is the measure of how many members have returned to the community in the last 30 days. This is followed by a new user/member sign-up.
- 59% of organizations use online communities to provide customer support.
- 85% of the brand owners say that having a branded online community provides greater trust among the audience.
- Online communities hosted on dedicated platforms have more engagement rates than compared to those hosted on social media platforms like Facebook Groups. Studies conducted by Michigan University found that customers spend 19% more time after joining an online community compared to third-party sites like Facebook.
- Online communities are a great platform to collect customer feedback. 40% of the organizations have seen better results with this.
- For 88% of the organizations, online communities helped them achieve their mission. While 64% agreed that it helped them in improved decision-making.
Managing the online communities
28% of online communities use CRM tools to keep track of community members’ data.
34% of the organizations say they don’t use CRM. I advise using CRM tools like InfusionSoft which helps in organizing the member data and using it to automate the member tasks and provide more value to the community members.
23% of the organizations have agreed that online communities provide more value to them than in-person and offline communities.
In the survey conducted, 75% of the respondents agreed that managing an online community requires less budget and is affordable.
- 31% of online communities fail because of the lack of internal support and resources.
- While 24% of the communities fail as the engagement sucks.
- 17% of the communities fail because organizations fail to address the members’ needs.
- 7% fail because of poor community management.
- 80% of organizations track community success using some sort of metrics like traffic, posts, or the member’s activities.
83% agree that branded online communities are more powerful than non-branded communities, while 34% don’t think so.
Why do some organizations don’t have communities? What are the reasons?
41% of the organizations don’t have online communities, because of a lack of sufficient funds, staff, or other resources.
Benefits of branded online communities
- The main benefit of online communities is customer engagement. Branded communities help you understand the customer or prospect’s needs in a better way.
- The 2nd benefit is it helps build a loyal customer base.
- The next is it helps in improving the quality of customer support. .
- These communities also help in validating new ideas for marketing the content.
- Etc.
Building a loyal online community takes time. The organizations with the oldest communities have more members.
People trust and value online communities because they think that communities are close to them and help them in value-based conversations. They also think that –
- They have meaningful conversations – 36%
- They are respected by others – 28%
- They can really be their own self- 24%
- They feel appreciated by others – 21%
- Their voice is heard – 19%
- They have a sense of belongingness – 18%
According to 57% of those with branded communities, the community contributed to brand SEO.
What do community users expect from the brands?
57% of the community users expect the brand communities to be reliable. They also expect some personal networking and connectivity with other members and want behavior like –
- Reliable (57%)
- Trendy/Cool (36%)
- Funny (29%)
- Exclusive (29%)
- Bold (27%)
- 90% of the brands told that they use the community members’ suggestions to improve their products & services.
- 56% of professionals believe community engagement is a more important part of their organization’s mission.
- 15% of the communities use advanced strategies to scale up the community and increase members’ engagement.
- Online communities are getting a lot of importance nowadays. 88% of organizations have at least one dedicated community manager.
- For 77% of companies, online communities helped them in better marketing.
- 65% of the organizations have allocated more budget to improve their communities.
Online communities are the future
- Compared to offline communities, the number of online communities is raising. The vast majority of 38% of organizations operate online-only communities, while 58% of organizations operate online-and-offline communities, while only 4% operate exclusively offline.
- 74% of large companies are likely to have online communities while only 40% of small companies have an online community.
- 27.3% of the customers use online communities before making product purchase decisions.
Wrap up
This is all about online community statistics. I hope these stats helped you realize how important online communities are and how they contribute to business growth.
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