A new member joins your community. They log in, scroll the feed, open a space or two. They’re glad they’re there. They’re also not quite sure where to start, or whether anyone noticed they showed up.
A few days go by. They haven’t posted. Then they stop logging in.
Nobody said hello in a way that felt meant for them.
A Circle welcome DM workflow handles that first hello for you. By the end of this, you’ll have two personal direct messages that reach every new member at the right moment, timed around your welcome emails, without you sending a single one by hand.
Why Send New Members a Welcome DM?
A welcome DM gives a new member a personal, low-pressure way to reply, ask a question, or get oriented. It turns joining into a conversation, which is where early engagement starts.
New members arrive excited and a little intimidated. The feed is full of people who already know each other. Posting publicly feels like a big first move.
A direct message is a much smaller one. They don’t have to perform for the whole community. They just have to answer you.
That’s why this matters more than it looks. This workflow is one of the things that helped me increase early engagement by more than 70 percent in my communities. Personal connection drives engagement, and engagement is what keeps people around. A quiet, unacknowledged first week is often why new members leave your community without ever telling you.
How Should Welcome DMs and Welcome Emails Work Together?
Emails carry the structure: how to log in, where resources live, how to get around. DMs carry the conversation. Space them a day or more apart so a new member never gets both at once.
Your welcome emails and your DMs do different jobs. The emails are the orientation. The DM is the part that feels special, because it’s one person talking to another inside the community itself.
If you don’t have a welcome email sequence yet, build one. It does work a DM can’t, and an onboarding email series is the place to start.
The trick is timing, so the touchpoints add up instead of piling up. Here’s the rhythm I use:
- Day 0: Welcome email, sent the moment they join
- Day 1: First DM
- Day 3: Second welcome email
- Day 4: Follow-up DM
That’s steady contact across the first week without anyone feeling bombarded.
If you’re not sending welcome emails at all, skip the first delay and send the DM right away. There’s nothing for it to compete with.
How Do You Set Up a Circle Welcome DM Workflow?
Go to Settings, then Workflows, and create a custom workflow triggered when someone joins. Add a one-day delay, a DM, a three-day delay, and a second DM. Then activate it.
Create the workflow and set the trigger
The trigger is what starts everything. Here, it’s a new member joining your community.
What that looks like:
- Open Settings, then Workflows. You’ll see every workflow you already have in place
- Choose New workflow, then custom workflow and automation
- Name it something you’ll recognize later. Mine is New Member Welcome
- Click Add trigger, choose Joined community, and continue
Add a one-day delay
This gives your welcome email a head start. The email fires the moment someone joins, so they have a day to get into their account, find their feet, and look around before your DM lands.
What that looks like:
- Click the plus sign
- Scroll down to Flow and choose Time delay
- Set it to wait one day and continue
Add your first direct message
This is the message that makes joining feel personal.
What that looks like:
- Click the plus sign and choose Send a direct message
- Choose who it comes from. As the host, mine comes from me
- Paste in your message body
- Add the member’s name with one of the variables listed below the message field
- Choose Preview message and check how it reads
One thing that saves a headache: write the message somewhere else first, then copy and paste it in. It’s the easiest way to keep your line breaks. And do look at the preview. Mine came in with more spacing than I wanted, so I took out a few hard breaks and checked it again.
Add the three-day follow-up
The second delay gives the member time to settle in and get used to hearing from you. Some will already have replied to your first DM by the time this one goes out.
What that looks like:
- Click the plus sign, choose Time delay, and set it to three days
- Click the plus sign again and choose Send a direct message
- Paste in your follow-up, with the name variable in place
- Preview it and continue
Activate it and confirm it’s running
When you’re ready, activate the workflow. Then go back to your full list of workflows and open the Automations tab, which sits alongside tabs like Bulk actions and Scheduled. Your new workflow should be listed there as active.
What Should Your Welcome DMs Say?
Write every welcome DM to get a reply, not to deliver information. Use the member’s name, keep it short, and give them one easy thing to answer.
The emails already handle the information. If your DM reads like another list of links, it’s just a second email in a different inbox.
So each message has a narrower job:
- The first DM welcomes them warmly and offers one specific, easy way to engage. Mine is a simple welcome and an invitation to keep the conversation going.
- The follow-up checks in, especially with anyone who hasn’t responded yet, and gives them another easy opening to connect.
The wording matters more than the length. “Here’s where everything lives” gives them nothing to say back. A question does.
I keep mine in a swipe file with the member’s name placeholder already typed in, so I can paste a message straight into the workflow without rebuilding it each time. Whatever you write, the test is the same: does it feel personal, and does it fit where this member is right now?
How Can You Build on a Two-Message Welcome?
Once your first two DMs are running, add messages tied to what members actually do, like a note after their first post or at their 30-day mark. Build from what gets replies.
Two messages is the starting point, not the ceiling. As you learn what your members respond to, extend the journey with touchpoints based on what they do:
- A third DM after a member makes their first post
- A special message when they reach 30 days of membership
- Recognition inside the community, like Circle member tags that automate onboarding, awarded when they finish your onboarding course
The same Workflows area runs all of these, so you’re adding to something you already know how to build.
And if new members don’t have an obvious next step once they reply, fix that too. A start here space that onboards members gives your DMs somewhere useful to point.
Add one layer at a time. See how members respond before you add the next.
Try This Prompt
If you want a head start on the messages themselves, this drafts a matched pair you can edit into your own voice.
“I run a [type of community] on Circle for [who it serves]. New members get a welcome email when they join and a second one on day three. I’m setting up a welcome DM on day one and a follow-up DM on day four. The one easy action I want new members to take first is [describe it, such as replying to introduce themselves or visiting a specific space]. Draft two short DMs in a warm, conversational voice, each using [member name] as a placeholder and ending with a question they can answer in one line. Give me three versions of each so I can pick the one that sounds most like me.”
Read every draft out loud before you paste it in. If it doesn’t sound like you, it won’t feel personal to them.
A Welcome Only Works If Someone Can Answer It
It’s easy to treat onboarding as information delivery. Send the links, explain the spaces, hope they figure out the rest.
But new members don’t stay because they know where things are. They stay because someone talked to them, and they talked back.
That’s what these two messages are for. Not a formality, not another announcement. The start of a conversation a new member didn’t have to work up the nerve to begin.
Set it up once, and every person who joins gets that, even on the days you don’t have a spare minute.
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More Like This
Listen: Engage Mode: Activated! Crafting a Welcome Series That Captivate. The email side of the rhythm your DMs are timed around.
Listen: How to Build a Community Onboarding Process That Sticks. The full system these two messages slot into, from first email to first post.
Watch: How to Onboard New Members with Ease: Create a Circle Course That Works. Give new members a clear path to follow once they’ve replied.
Watch: Transform Your “Start Here” Space: Streamline Onboarding for Your Circle Community. Build the place your welcome DMs point people to.
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
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