Community-building activities are an excellent way to bring your tribe together and nurture an online community that’s buzzing with energy. The goal is to engage your members, creating a space they feel excited to join and participate in. From activities that provide fun and entertainment to learning new skills and even making new friends, there is a huge range of ways to get everyone involved, no matter your niche.
According to The Era of We, connecting with other people with similar interests is one of the main reasons individuals join online communities. With this in mind, it makes sense that community activities can bring everyone together, creating a more engaged and vibrant space.
Here are just some of the benefits that community activities can have for your online space.
There are many different types of community activities you can use to bring your tribe together, improve engagement, and make individual members feel like they belong. However, not every type of activity will be right for your community – some will be better suited to smaller communities or specific niches. The trick is to choose activities that resonate with your audience.
Here are a few community activity types you can use to bring your tribe together.
Virtual games are a fun and exciting way to get your encommunity engaged and create a fun space members will want to return to. Whether it’s simple card games or elaborate murder mystery and escape room events, there are lots of different ways you can incorporate virtual games into your community.
You can even create leaderboards to encourage further participation and reward community members who engage in the activity. This should increase engagement further down the line.
Remote workshops are an excellent way to provide value to your community and bring your tribe together. You could theme them based on your niche. For example, if you own a reading or writing community, offering story and scriptwriting workshops from established writers is a great way to engage your audience.
However, you can always offer workshops to help your community members learn a new skill, whether art, knitting, a language, or something else. Remote workshops will ensure community members keep coming back for more, whether you have a large space or a small community designed for group coaching.
If your community is new or you want to encourage new members to participate, bonding activities are a fantastic way to break the ice and dispel initial awkwardness. Consider games such as “Two Truths and One Lie” or “Who’s the Baby?” to bring your community together.
Show-and-tell activities will help community members get to know and understand each other better. Online talent shows are a great way to encourage members to share their skills and interests with the rest of the community.
Organizing special events will create a fun and engaging space. This could be special events centered around holiday celebrations, such as Christmas-themed events or national holidays.
If you’re looking for the top virtual community-building activities, we’ve got you covered. From ice-breakers to fun entertainment nights, here are a range of virtual community builders you can adapt to bring your community together and help members form long-lasting bonds.
This game is exactly as it’s named, with each person sharing three statements: two truths and a lie. The aim of the game is to guess which statement is false.
This is a fantastic way to learn fascinating things about each other and break the ice. The facts can be funny, heartwarming, or downright shocking.
Organize a video call and plan which order members should take turns. After that, let everyone guess on video and have each community member reveal which was the lie. There are bound to be some shocking answers that will make the whole team laugh or smile.
Pictionary is a classic drawing guessing game that has captured the imagination and attention of many over the years. The virtual version is a fantastic way to spark creativity and make your community members laugh.
All you need is a digital drawing tool or a whiteboard app. There are a range of options available online, including brands such as Canva and Microsoft. Use a chat function to guess or shout out the answer if you’re playing on a group call.
Who’s the baby? is a fun way to learn more about your community members, share pieces of you personal history, and bring the tribe closer together. This guessing game involves participants submitting photos of when they were babies and letting the rest of the group match the baby photo with the now adult.
To play, collect baby photos beforehand and display them in a shared space, such as a slideshow or Word document. Host a live video session and let members guess who’s who.
Escape rooms are a fantastic team-building activity to strengthen bonds. Since Covid, more and more virtual escape rooms are popping up than ever before. These virtual spaces blend physical escape rooms and puzzles with a video-game format, allowing you to collaborate in real-time. With so many different themes to choose from, such as paranormal ghost hunts to zombie apocalypses, you can pick the right one for your team.
Different websites will have individual instructions on how to get your teammates involved.
A quiz night is a fantastic way to bring your community members together and unlock their competitive streaks. How you run your quiz is up to you and your community. Do you want to do a solo quiz or split your community into teams? The latter might work better for larger groups.
Theme topics based on your community niche, seasons, or holidays, or just opt for a general quiz. Host via an app such as Zoom and let the fun begin.
Personality quizzes are a great way to get to know each other. Try different personality quizzes, such as “16 Personalities,” which reveal your MBTI type, and share them with the team. The best part is you don’t even need to video call for this – just a place to chat.
Personality quizzes will make community members feel like they know each other better.
Create a sense of belonging within your community with movie nights. These can be a regular occurrence – set them up weekly, fortnightly, or even monthly. If your community is TV or pop-culture themed, then even better, but that doesn’t have to be the case. You can even set up polls and ask community members to vote for the movies they want to watch.
Setting up a movie night is easy. You just need a platform that allows for screen sharing, such as Discord.
Picture sharing is a great way for other community members to get to know each other. Have your community send pictures in a chat or add them to a slideshow. Let each person talk about the story behind the picture through text or talking.
TIP – This activity may be better for smaller groups. Make sure everyone knows they don’t have to participate if they don’t feel comfortable sharing pictures.
Digital card games have been around for decades, but now there are many different ones to choose from, with ways to involve multiple members. Create polls asking members to vote on which card games they’d like to play and set up weekly game nights. You could even create a leaderboard, igniting your community’s competitive spirit.
Platforms like Teach.IO use gamification strategies such as leaderboards to improve engagement. Try Teach’s 14-day free trial now.
You don’t have to be a cooking community to try your hand at this community activity. Create a dedicated sub-channel or space for users to swap their favorite recipes with each other. You could even theme it, encouraging them to exchange cookie recipes one week and omelet recipes the next. This activity will strengthen community bonds as everyone helps each other out and may even build lasting friendships.
Get your community members to show off their skills with a virtual talent show! This is a fantastic and fun way to help community members get to know each other, laugh, build bonds, and even discover their own hidden talents. From playing spoons and singing to magic tricks, you’re in for a night packed full of fun.
Host your talent show over Zoom, Teams, or an integrated video software within your platform. Your community members might just surprise you.
Scrabble is a classic game that has captured the attention of family and friends for decades, so it’s no surprise that there are many online versions, such as Words With Friends. Depending on the app, community members may have to set up accounts, but once that’s done, they can play until their hearts’ content.
Although this is a great idea if you run a fitness or nutrition-based community, it’s not exclusive to that niche. No matter who your audience is, encourage them to get moving with weekly or fortnightly fitness classes. From dancing and Zumba to step aerobics or weight training, decide which type of class would be the best fit for your community and go from there.
Organize the classes through a live event. Set up your studio and a camera, and encourage participants to follow along.
Apps like Spotify include a feature to make collaborative playlists with others. Create a “community playlist” and encourage users to add their own songs. You can even play the playlist during other activities, such as fitness sessions, game nights, or quiz nights.
This is a great way to get to know the music taste of your community members and bring them together through the power of song.
Book clubs are perfect for bringing like-minded individuals together and building bonds. Assign books at the end of every month, giving people plenty of time to read the pick. Then, host a live call or chat session the following month (or every two weeks) to talk about the book.
To include community members in your decisions, you could always encourage them to vote on which books they’d like to read next. This won’t just make them feel included – it will also help you understand your community members and their tastes better.
Bring your community together with a virtual murder mystery. There are many options online, some hosting hundreds of people at one time, or you can make your own. This is a fun game that will encourage your community to work together, fostering team spirit, building bonds, and creating a fun environment. If it’s successful, you could even host this type of event a few times a year.
If you have a spiritual, mindfulness, or mental health community, meditation sessions are a wonderful way to bring community members together and improve their mental health. However, this doesn’t just have to be limited to this niche – no matter your community theme, members still might benefit from these sessions.
Hold them monthly, fortnightly, or even weekly. Set them up as a live event, with you (or an instructor) on camera, guiding the members through the meditation process. By the end, they should feel relaxed, engaged, and calm.
Just like meditation sessions, yoga sessions are another way to calm community members and create a space full of peace and tranquillity. Film yourself carrying out the session, encouraging users to participate as much or as little as they’d like. If you plan on hosting multiple sessions, start with beginner poses and work up to more challenging and complex poses as community members develop their skills. Afterward, they should feel rejuvenated and relaxed.
This universal game is a fantastic way to break the ice and bring your community members together. This game involves asking members to choose between two different options. E.g – Would you rather be poor and happy or rich and sad? These questions can be super easy, funny, or even give your members a minute to think. It’s great for learning more about each other.
You can play this game through polls in your community or even during a live, virtual event. The choice is yours! All-in-one community platforms such as Teach.io give you the tools to host these types of events all in one place. Try their 14-day free trial now.
This is another great activity that can shed some light on your community members and bring them together. Ask community members to send pictures of their desks, and ask others to guess whose desk it is. This quick, fun activity will help bring your community’s competitive streak.
This exciting game is a great way to unite your community and reveal snippets about their lives. Community members should be on video for this game to work properly. Give them a specific amount of time to find different objects in their homes. For example, you could ask them to bring back something orange or an item beginning with B. The first one back to their computer with the item in their hand wins the game.
As the scavenger hunt goes on, you could shorten the length of time they have to find the items, taking the game to the next level.
Here are some examples you can use in your scavenger hunt:
Just because your community is from different corners of the world, this doesn’t mean you can’t have a good night out. There are many immersive online spaces where you can “meet” your community members and friends in a virtual bar and chat, just like real life.
But even if you don’t want to use a virtual space for this activity and would rather host the night in your community platform, all you need is access to video. Ask questions, get to know each other, or even play some of your favorite activities from this list – just make sure community members bring their favorite drinks.
This classic party game is a fun way to break the ice, create funny moments, and bring your community together. Make sure everyone is on camera for this, and ask them to hold up their hands. Each person puts a finger down (or takes a sip of their drink) if they’ve done what the question is asking.
Here are some Never Have I Ever questions to get started:
This game is a fun way to bring your community together. On a video call turn your camera off and leave your audio on. Play sounds and ask your community members to guess. Those who guess right get a point. This is a super fun and easy game that can be played as an icebreaker, or as part of a larger game night. It’ll bring out the competitive spirit in everyone.
If you’re looking for an icebreaker activity to introduce newer community members, this is the one for you. Hot Seat works best with a smaller community or if you’re just starting out, but that doesn’t mean larger communities can’t play it, too. If you have lots of people joining your community, pick someone at random who would like to be in the “hot seat.”
This activity involves asking specific questions. Keep the questions light and fun – don’t dig deep into their past or try and pull out answers they might not be comfortable sharing.
Here are a few examples of questions:
You can even make the questions community-specific. For example, if you’re a cooking community, ask members what their favorite sweet treat is or, if they could only eat one meal for the rest of their lives, what would it be? This is a fantastic way to bring people together and get to know them better.
Yes, you can do this virtually! Invite the wine enthusiasts in your community to join in this live event. Encourage them to buy a bottle of wine for the event. Or, if you really want to get organized or you have a small community, team up with a home wine-tasting kit and send samples to different members. This might be tricky if you’re from different parts of the world, but well worth it if your community is local.
Ask community members to describe what they can taste, such as the different notes in the wine, just like they would for a physical wine-tasting event.
If you like the idea but above don’t want to include alcohol, tea and coffee tasting is a great alternative to create a fun evening and bring people together. Ask members to bring unusual flavors to the event, or send them their own. Like with wine, ask them to describe what they’re tasting.
This classic game is sure to bring your community together for some lighthearted fun. Acting as the caller, you can navigate the game through video or audio chat, and plan a fun night everyone will enjoy, regardless of age and gender.
Werewolf is a fun game that anyone of any age can play. This guessing game will bring your community together by drawing out their competitive streaks. The aim of the game is to hunt down the “werewolf” who is terrorizing the village. Each community member should be assigned a player. There are four different types of players:
You can message certain players privately to give them their roles. From then, you can use platform-specific tools (such as polls) to encourage “villagers” to vote.
Although this is more complex than the other activities on this list, it makes for a fun and lively game night that is bound to bring the whole community together.
Meet up with community members for a catch-up and a meal out – only online. You can plan invitations, encouraging them to bring a meal and a beverage of their choice. If you’re a food community, why not theme the night? Encourage members to cook or bring something Italian, Thai, or anything else. This will create a challenge and encourage community members to talk about why they chose specific dishes, bringing the whole tribe together.
Community-building activities are a fantastic way to bring your community together, encourage teamwork, provide value, and strengthen bonds. However, a poorly thought-out activity may have the opposite effect, and members might not wish to participate in future sessions. Here are a few tips you can follow to make your community-building activities the best they can be.
It’s important to choose the right software for your activity. For example, if you’re hosting a movie night, you need a platform or app that supports high-quality screen sharing. A pixelated picture will put community members off, and they may not wish to participate in future movie nights. Furthermore, a quiz night or fitness session will require software that supports live videos.
Make sure to test tools and equipment beforehand. Whether you’re using live video, audio, slideshows, or even just text, tools that don’t work may frustrate members of your community.
Getting your community members to choose which activities they’d prefer to participate in is the best way to encourage engagement and make them feel part of the community. Community members are more likely to engage in activities they’ve had a hand in picking themselves.
Create polls and ask members to vote on their preferred activity. Furthermore, you could create a “suggestion box” using Google Forms (or a similar tool) and ask members to submit their favorite types of activities.
When it comes to making the final decision on which activities to try, make sure they align with your group or niche. For example, will a gaming community really be interested in yoga or meditation? Don’t just try anything and hope it sticks.
That said, some things may surprise you. That’s why it’s good to use polls to gauge your audience’s tastes, rather than just assuming.
Unless your community niche is regional-based, you’re likely to have members from all over the world. Although this makes for a vibrant and exciting community space, the different time zones can make scheduling group activities difficult. Pick a time that incorporates all timezones.
To do this, run a poll to see which time works best for members. Alternatively, you can also run multiple sessions, depending on the activity and your group size. This will help make all community members feel included, no matter where they are in the world.
Active community building is so important for the health and growth of your online community. Community activities can enhance engagement, creating a lively and more interactive space that people will be compelled to interact with. They’re also a great way to introduce new members who might have otherwise been feeling overwhelmed, and provide value to existing members.
There’s a world of variety you can harness for your community, and use to create a space people will be happy to be a part of.
If you’re looking for a community platform that gives you the tools to grow, Teach is your number one choice. With gamification features, video calling, one to one chats, and support for live events, you can create a thriving and vibrant community that members can be proud to be a part of.
