How to Design Real Engagement in Your Community

“My engagement’s dropping and I have no idea why.”

Sound familiar? You’re not alone — and you’re not failing.

It’s easy to think the answer is more content, more events, more reminders. But real community engagement doesn’t come from showing up more. It comes from designing for behavioral momentum; knowing what brings people in, what keeps them there, and what nudges them into deeper connection.

Let’s break this down through three mentorship calls I’ve had this week inside the Candid Community, with Jembi Health Systems, Whimsy Forge, and The Bearded I.T. Dad.

Spoiler: None of them needed “more stuff.”
What they needed was a tool.

Before you “boost engagement” you need good UX

Ask yourself:

• Are notifications set up properly?

• Can members find the right next step after joining?

• Is anything confusing, overwhelming, or sending people in circles?

Because if the user experience during onboarding is broken, you’re trying to build a habit loop on a cracked foundation.

Take the Bearded I.T. Dad, Dakota Snow for example, after moving his community off Circle, he noticed a huge drop in engagement.
Why? After some investigation he learned:

He didn’t launch another event or poll his audience. He wrote a script that:

• Automatically turned on email notifications.

• Took members directly to his onboarding course, no extra clicks, no login friction.

That’s what reactivated his lurkers.
Accessibility = the first step to engagement.

So what is REAL engagement?

Let’s reframe it. Because engagement isn’t “more activity.”
It’s building a habit loop:

This is where your strategy begins.

Let’s use Whimsy Forge as an example, a community that gathers creators of all levels to make fantastical crafts. One of their challenges?

People would get excited about a pattern, say “I’m going to build this!”… and then disappear. 😬

So we mapped the habit loop:

• Trigger: New cosplay pattern drops.

• Action: Member says “I want to build this!”

• Reward: …nothing happens. No follow-up. No accountability.

No wonder they drop off.

So we designed a new loop:

• Trigger: “I want to build this.”

• Action: Immediately opts to get paired with a peer accountability buddy.

• Reward: They feel supported, seen, and now have someone to check in with and reason to come back into the community!

Engagement is a ladder.

Not everyone’s starting from the same place, nor do they engage in the same way!

Each type of persona in your community, will likely act differently based on what motivates them. And the more motivated they are by what they get out of engaging, the more likely they are to come back and do it again.

Here’s what a basic engagement ladder looks like for any one persona:

As you can probably guess, there are about a bazillion engagement tactics that you could brainstorm to “trigger” engagement in your community.

Here’s an example of what it might look like if you mapped out your engagement ladder for each level of engagement with all the member types in your community:

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should

This is where a lot of people fall into the “engagement trap.”

They see low interaction and immediately ask:

• Do I run a new challenge?

• Should I post more behind-the-scenes?

• Maybe I need a podcast now??

But when you’re building a community-led business, your engagement strategy isn’t about activity. It’s about intentional momentum.

You don’t need more.
You need to know why engagement matters for your goals, and who you’re trying to engage.

Ask yourself:

• Do I need more trust at the top of the funnel?

• Do I need higher retention inside my paid offer?

• Do I need stronger connections between my power users?

The who always shapes the what.

For example, Zane leads all things “community & comms“ at Jembi Health Systems — a global nonprofit working at the intersection of health equity and open-source tech. Engagement is critical for them… but it's not engagement for engagement’s sake.

They needed:

• Researchers to trust them.

• Developers to contribute to their platform.

• Governments to recognize their product’s value.

• Funders to actually invest in their product development.

But they weren’t getting traction.

So instead of adding more posts or newsletters, we zoomed way out:

From there, we redesigned their value loop:

• Case studies that spotlight partners.

• A certification path that moves lurkers → learners → contributors.

• A narrative hook that positions them within a known ecosystem.

Each engagement action became a step on a path, not a one-off idea.

When your engagement strategy is aligned to your business goals + community goals, the loops build on themselves.

Ready to build your Engagement System?

Here’s the exact framework we use inside the Candid Community, and yes, you can follow it step by step using the Engagement System Canva board I created for you here.

Step 1: Map your engagement goals

What does engagement actually mean for your business right now?

• Are you trying to build more trust?

• Spark peer-to-peer connections?

• Boost retention inside your paid offer?

Then, get specific about who you're targeting.
Who needs to engage? Why? What kind of action do you want them to take?

Step 2: Understand existing habit loops

You can’t move people forward if you don’t know where they are.

Identify the current habit loops for each key persona in your space:

• What are they already doing?

• What’s triggering that action?

• What (if anything) is rewarding them?

This gives you a realistic starting point, and prevents “tactic soup.”

Step 3: Ideate engagement ideas

Now brainstorm ideas for light, medium, and deep engagement.

Don’t worry about filtering just yet, just think across your whole ecosystem:

• What small actions could nudge lurkers to contribute?

• What events or rituals could deepen loyalty?

• What systems could turn regulars into leaders?

Step 4: Prioritise & map to your goals

Take your best ideas and map them into a table:

• What tier of engagement are they designed for?

• Which type of member do they target?

• What’s the expected action + reward?

From there: pick only THREE tactics to test.
No more. You’re building a repeatable system, not a stress spiral.

Step 5: Test & Evolve

Run your chosen experiments.
If something works? 🎉 Add it to your Engagement Playbook.
If it flops? Cool. Drop it, learn, and try the next thing.

This is the actual work of community leadership, not doing everything, but doing the right things with purpose.

Want my eyes on your Engagement Plan?

This is what we do in mentorship sessions inside the Candid Community, map the loops, run the tests, and grow your kind of momentum.

✨ Grab the Engagement System Canva board
✨ DM me for a review or walkthrough
✨ Or just jump into the community and let’s build it together 👉 Join Candid Community

Because engagement isn't about doing more.
It’s about creating reasons to come back, again and again.

Let’s design your system.
Together.