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Jatra Community

  • Should we incentivize content creation for community growth? Is it worth it?

    Erin May

    Member

    Updated: Apr 27, 2025
    Views: 23

    I run a D2C customer community with around 700 registered users, most of them are our customers. Right now, only 4-5 members post or engage daily, which feels a little low considering the size of the group.

    We never forced anyone to join the community, so I’m wondering why the activity is still so low.

    I’m now considering offering incentives to encourage members to post. Maybe a voucher or a discount coupon for adding 20 posts per month.

    I’m a bit worried though. I don’t want the community to feel transactional or turn into a "paid to post" space. My goal is to build a naturally growing community where members genuinely help and learn from each other.

    What are your thoughts? Will incentivizing content creation backfire?

    PS: I’m new to this community. Hope this is the right section to post this!

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  • Kaustubh Katdare

    Founder • 1d

    Welcome to Jatra Community, Erin. Thank you for describing your situation so openly. It's common challenge that many community builders face, especially in the early days of community building.

    To answer your question: Do not offer incentives for content creation. In our experience, small, thoughtful gestures work better than incentives. Here are a few examples:

    1. A personalised direct-message thanking the user for a thoughtful discussion.
    2. Adding a 'badge' on their profile.
    3. A public shoutout to the most helpful members.

    It creates a positive vibe in the community and prevents your community from going transactional. Others also see that genuine contribution is appreciated; and it motivates them to participate.

    I'd also like you to address the root cause of the problem:

    1. New members may get confused by the platform. I noticed that your community is on Discourse. Discord's UI is not optimal.
    2. Are there enough, small engagement opportunities for the members? For example, on Jatra, we have a small, fun Community Quiz section that users can engage with.
    3. Do you have enough 'painkiller' content on the community? It helps make the community relatable.

    People often join the community thinking they'll get good value from it. But after joining, they realise that it doesn't meet their expectations.

    If you want, we can perform a joint audit of your community. Let me know.

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  • Erin May

    Member • 1d

    Wow, that was fast! Thank you for the reply. Definitely not happy with Discourse, but I don't get to decide what platform to use. I am pushing for re-platforming the community and hope to succeed.

    I'm all in for a joint audit of the community. It'd be nice to have an additional pair of eyes on the community. Let me know how to proceed.

    I should have done the RCA of the problem. I think most of our members access the community on the phones and Discourse is not optimized for mobile layout. It could be confusing to them.

    In the early days of launching the community, we created FAQ and the community is driven by the small team of customers who are enthusiastic about our product.

    This is very helpful. Thank you once again.

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