How would you revive a dead community?

I've developed a playbook for reviving dead communities. You can revive any dead community by listening to users, identifying issues and then creating low-stakes opportunities for engagement. Let's go one by one.

Step 1: Start listening to users

Before jumping into solutions, take some time to understand why things went quiet. Was there a specific event that caused the drop-off? Did key members leave? Has the content become repetitive or irrelevant? Sometimes communities die because their purpose shifts, or external factors change (like competitors popping up).

Action Step : Send out an anonymous survey to your members asking for honest feedback. Keep it short but focused:

• "What do you enjoy most about this community?"
• "What would make you want to participate more?"
• "Is there anything missing that you wish we had?"

Use these responses as a roadmap for what needs fixing. Our next step is to redefine our core purpose.

Our second step is to identify the main reason your community exists. Make sure that it's relevant to the time. Old communities which were active need not exist today.

Step 2: Identify your reason for existence

Every thriving community has a clear reason for existing, i.e. a shared passion, goal, or problem to solve. If yours has drifted away from its original mission, now’s the time to realign.

Ask yourself: What was the initial spark that brought everyone together? Can you rekindle that excitement?

For example, if your community started as a place for hobbyists to share tips, maybe focus on reviving those practical discussions instead of overloading it with events or unrelated topics.

Action Step: Write a heartfelt post reminding everyone why this community matters. Share personal stories, highlight past successes, and invite them to help shape the future direction.

Then, make sure that all the relevant members have actually received your message through email or through DMs. This is very important.

Once you know why your community should exist, it's time to spring into action. It starts with identifying and empowering the key members of your community.

Step 3: Identify and empower key members

In every community, there are usually a handful of super-engaged individuals who care deeply about its success. These folks are gold! Reach out to them privately and ask for their input; or even better, enlist them as moderators or champions.

Why It Works: People trust peer recommendations more than admin-led initiatives. Having active members lead conversations makes others feel safer participating.

Action Step: Offer incentives like special badges, shoutouts, or exclusive perks to reward their efforts. Make them feel appreciated. Trust me, it’ll inspire others to step up too.

Identifying your key members is an important step - and that sets you for the next step. Creating low-stake opportunities for the key members to engage with existing content and create new content.

Step 4: Create low-stakes engagement opportunities

Even if your members were active - they won't dive straight into creating awesome content for your community. Aim for a slow start - and create some opportunities for low-effort, low-pressure engagement.

Example:

• Question of the day: Ask a simple question daily that your members can answer without much thinking. "What's your favorite email app?" or "What's your top recommended thriller movie?".
• Run polls: These are ultra low-effort and people love to participate in polls to see the collective wisdom.
• Photo Sharing: Photo sharing is yet another low effort, low pressure content opportunity that engages people.

Action Step: Experiment with different content formats until you find what resonates with your members. Experimentation is the key. What worked months or years ago may not work today. Keep that in mind and keep experimenting.

As a community builder, the responsibility of content generation until your community gets some momentum lies on you. Think about fresh ideas for content generation.

Step 5: Inject fresh content and ideas

It's important to mix your low-stakes content with some fresh content at regular intervals. Following are some of the ideas you can try depending upon your community:

• Partner with influencers in your niche and conduct AMAs, chat sessions etc.
• Launch "theme of the month" that encourages discussions and ideas exchange around some central topic.
• "Member of the Month" - public recognition of your key members is essential. It motivates your members to contribute meaningful content to the community.

Action Step: Keep experimenting until you hit on something that clicks. Don't be afraid of pivoting if something doesn't work. Keep in mind that the goal is to find what gels with your members and then double down on it.

That's pretty much it. But if you want to go a step ahead, there are few more things I'd like you to try.

1. Connect with your key members one on one. Engage with them through DMs, talk to them about their aims, dreams, plans etc.
2. Consistency is the name of the game. Your efforts will give you compounded growth over time.
3. Celebrate wins. I'd say - celebrate every small and big win. Creating a positive atmosphere within the community will set your community for a big comeback. It may be slow - but consistency always works.

I hope these steps will help you revive your community. If you have specific questions, feel free to ask below or create a new discussion.

Good points! I'll share a hack to get people talking: Create a controversial debate in your community. It sparks engagement, and people can't resist jumping in.

For example, if your community activity is low, start a debate relevant to your niche. I manage a tech community, and I recently started a discussion on: "Will AI replace developers, or is it just another hype cycle?"

The result? The thread got 70+ replies in just 24 hours.

Thank you for sharing this. We have a customer community that gets about 20 support messages every day. I wish to boost activity and encourage members to share more personal stories and feedback and not just support queries.

Quizzes seem to be an interesting idea but I don't know how to organize them.