Someone joins your community on a Monday night. They get the welcome email, log in, and land in a feed full of conversations that started without them. They click around. They aren’t sure where to introduce themselves, or whether they should. They close the tab.
Nothing went wrong, exactly. Nobody told them what to do. And that quiet first login is a big part of why new members leave your community.
A Circle onboarding course fixes that first login. It walks new members through the essentials one short section at a time, and hands them something to do at the end of each one.
By the end of this, you’ll have the seven sections I’d put in yours, and a look at what mine actually contains.
Why Set Up Community Onboarding as a Course in Circle?
A course turns onboarding from a pile of instructions into a guided path. Members move through it in order, finish each step, and come out knowing how the community works.
A welcome email and a checklist tell people things. A course walks them through it. That difference matters because onboarding is doing three jobs at once:
- It’s the first impression. The course is the first real interaction a member has inside your community. It’s where they decide this was worth joining.
- It shows them how things work. Not every detail. The essentials: your guidelines, how to get around your spaces, and the few actions worth taking right away.
- It gives them confidence. When members know what to do, where to participate, how to get help, and what to expect, they’re far more likely to engage and stick around.
Don’t think of it as formal lessons, either. Think of it as short, easy sections that take a member step by step. When they finish one, they hit Complete Lesson and move to the next.
Small thing. But it gives a new member something they rarely get on day one: the feeling of having finished something.
What Sections Should a Circle Onboarding Course Include?
Seven sections cover it: a welcome, your community guidelines, the platform basics, the mobile app, events and RSVPs, how to get help, and managing their subscription.
Welcome to the community
This sets the tone for everything after it. Skip it and the course reads like a manual.
What that looks like:
- Say what the community is for and who it’s for
- Tell them what they can expect from being here, and how they’ll benefit
- Give them a reason to be excited about what’s next
Keep it warm and personal. The directions come later.
Community guidelines
This is the foundation for a respectful space, and it runs in both directions.
What that looks like:
- State what’s expected of members, in plain language
- Cover posting etiquette, including what goes where
- Explain how you handle conflict
Don’t skip the other half: what members can expect from you. That’s the part that builds trust.
Mastering the basics
The core platform skills a member needs to find their way without asking.
What that looks like:
- Set up their profile, including a photo and a headline
- Manage their notification preferences
- Review their account permissions, like whether they show up in the member directory and who can DM them
Keep this one simple and visual. And give notifications real attention: Circle’s defaults can be too much for some members and too little for others.
Download the mobile app
If your members are on the go, or you plan to use workflows with push notifications, this lesson is a must.
What that looks like:
- Show them how to download and set up the Circle app
- Link straight out to the App Store and Google Play
- Point out what they’ll get: instant updates on events, announcements, and messages
Push notifications only reach members who have the app. This lesson is what makes them work later.
Events and RSVPs
This is where participation starts, so make getting there easy.
What that looks like:
- Show them where events live
- Walk them through how to RSVP
- Explain how to actually attend on the day, including adding events to their calendar or setting reminders
An event is one of the simplest ways to get a new member actively involved right away.
How to get help
Members should never have to guess where to turn.
What that looks like:
- Point them to your help space or FAQ
- Tell them how to contact you directly
- Give them a way to report a problem, like a form
Knowing where help lives makes members feel supported from the start.
Managing their subscription
If this applies to your community, include it.
What that looks like:
- How to upgrade
- How to downgrade
- How to cancel
Yes, including cancel. Being upfront about it builds trust and keeps members in control of their own membership.
What Does a Circle Onboarding Course Look Like in Practice?
Mine drops new members into a Start Here course on their first login, then ends nearly every lesson with a task that links them back into the community.
After a new member gets their onboarding email, they log in for the first time and land right in the Start Here space, inside the course. If you’re setting up that space too, here’s how I build a start here space that onboards members.
The course follows the seven sections closely, with a few additions for how my community runs:
- Welcome. What they can expect inside, including our pods: special interest groups where specific types of members go deeper together. Plus a short welcome from me.
- Explore. A tour of the favorite things: workshops and events, coworking sessions, retreat meetups, where resources live, the monthly content drops, the pods, and the community lounge.
- Introduce yourself. A prompt, plus a sample post they can copy and paste.
- Guidelines. What’s expected of them and what they can do where.
- Tools. An embedded video on setting up their profile, then notifications, connecting with others, account permissions, and the mobile app, with links out to both app stores.
- Join a pod. What pods are, then a drop straight into the space where they choose theirs.
- Events. Where events are, how to RSVP, and how to actually attend.
- Get help. Where the FAQ lives, a form for issues, and how to DM us.
- Manage your subscription. How billing works.
The thread through all of it: members are constantly given a task that sends them back into the community. The course isn’t somewhere to sit. It’s a set of doors.
Two decisions worth making on purpose before you write your version.
DMs. We allow them, but we don’t want members spamming each other. So the connecting lesson points people to the member directory and the lounge, and pushes them toward joining a pod. Decide your stance first, because members take their cue from the lesson.
Billing. We don’t use Circle’s paywalls. We use Spiffy for payments, for a few features that aren’t quite available inside Circle, so that lesson teaches members to manage billing there. If you’re on Circle’s paywalls, point the lesson at those settings instead.
Where Should Onboarding Help Content Live Long Term?
In two places. Anything in your onboarding course that counts as help should also go into your FAQ and help space, because most members won’t go back to the course to find it.
I’m a big proponent of this. Everything I build into the course that could count as help, I turn into an FAQ and drop into the help space.
The course is for a member’s first week. The FAQ is for the moment months later when they need to change their notifications and have no idea which lesson covered it.
Same information, two front doors. One for the path in, one for the question that comes up later.
And the course only covers the inside of the app. Pair it with an onboarding email series so new members hear from you outside it too.
Try This Prompt
If you’re starting from a blank course, this gets you an outline to edit instead of a page to stare at.
“I run a [type of community] on Circle for [who]. New members currently get [describe your welcome email and anything else they see first]. My spaces are [list them], I [do / don’t] allow DMs, and members pay through [Circle paywalls / another tool / not applicable]. Using these sections as a starting point (welcome, community guidelines, platform basics, mobile app, events and RSVPs, getting help, managing their subscription), outline an onboarding course for my community. Give me a numbered list of lessons, with three bullets on what each lesson covers and one task at the end of each lesson that sends the member back into the community.”
You’ll still cut, reorder, and rewrite it in your voice. That part’s yours.
The Course Is the First Conversation
Onboarding as a course works because it matches how a new member actually feels on day one: interested, a little unsure, and not about to go hunting for instructions.
You’re not trying to teach them everything. You’re getting them from first login to first post, first RSVP, first pod, with no guessing in between. It’s one piece of a bigger community onboarding process, but it’s the piece members actually walk through.
Start with the seven sections. Then put your own spin on them, so the course sounds like your community and not a help center.
A member who knows what to do next stays long enough to find out why they joined.
Watch the Video
New videos go up every Thursday on Your Community Strategist.
Watch This One
More like it on Your Community Strategist, new every Thursday.
More Like This
Listen: How to Build a Community Onboarding Process That Sticks. The full system the course sits inside, from first email to first post.
Listen: Engage Mode: Activated! Crafting a Welcome Series That Captivate. The email side of onboarding, for everything the course can’t reach.
Watch: Why Your New Members Are Secretly Planning Their Exit (And How to Stop Them). What’s going on in a new member’s head while you’re building this.
Watch: Circle Space Access Explained: Open vs. Private vs. Secret. Settle who can see your Start Here space before you drop members into it.
Keep Going
coCreator Society is where community builders and membership founders work through this together, with the templates, the walkthroughs, and people who are one step ahead of you. Join coCreator Society
If you would rather not do this part alone, Rachel and the team build, migrate, and run communities for founders who need it done properly the first time. Talk to the team
Comments +
Comments