Your content calendar is full. Posts go out like clockwork, prompts open new threads every week, and members still scroll past most of it without a word.
You’ve tightened the copy, tried better prompts, made the graphics prettier. Nothing changes the room.
What’s actually missing isn’t more content. It’s a reason for everyone to show up in the same place at the same time.
Here’s why you should host events for your community, the real tradeoffs between virtual and in person, and which type of event to try first.
Why Should You Host Events for Your Community?
According to Circle’s Benchmark Report, 100 percent of platinum creators host events, and 59 percent of their communities see 50 percent or higher attendance, compared with just 33 percent of standard communities.
That’s not a typo. Every single platinum creator in the report hosts events, and they don’t stop at one type. Group discussions, orientation sessions, live Q&As, they layer several formats instead of picking one and calling it done.
The attendance gap is just as telling. Platinum creators earn it by throwing the events their members actually ask for, attracting the right people to show up, and following up with enough reminders that nobody misses it by accident.
I spent the first part of my career as a corporate and wedding event planner, and I loved every stressful minute of it. Virtual events have become one of the fastest ways I’ve seen to drive real engagement inside a content strategy built to actually get used, not just planned once and abandoned. The two day virtual conference we built for Ashley Barlow, focused on giving educators and parents a deeper look at special education, is a good example of what one well run event can do for a community’s momentum.
Virtual vs. In-Person Events: Which Is Right for Your Community?
Virtual events cost less and reach anyone anywhere. In-person events build trust faster through face to face contact. Most communities are better served leading with virtual and saving in person for the occasional highlight.
In-person events were the whole industry when I started planning them. Every convention center I worked in was full of corporations running shows and conferences. Then 2020 hit, and virtual events became how business got done. We’ve swung back toward in person since, but virtual events have stayed a permanent fixture of any solid content strategy, not a stopgap.
Virtual Events
Virtual events remove the two biggest barriers to a full room: geography and cost.
- Break down geographical barriers so members join from anywhere, which widens both your audience and the range of perspectives in the room
- Cut costs tied to a venue, travel, catering, and on site staff
- Run on tools like Circle, Zoom, or Google Meet, which give you breakout rooms, screen sharing, live polls, and Q&A built in
- Get recorded automatically, so anyone who couldn’t attend live still gets the replay, and you get content you can repurpose for marketing or training later
In-Person Events
In-person events buy you a kind of engagement virtual can’t fully replicate, at a real cost in logistics.
- Create an immersive, hands on experience that builds trust and connection faster than a screen can
- Open the door to spontaneous conversation and nonverbal cues that deepen relationships
- Require securing a venue, arranging travel and lodging, providing meals, and making sure every piece of equipment works on the day
The tradeoff is real. In-person events cost more and take more coordination, but for the right moment, that cost buys a level of connection worth planning around.
What Types of Events Actually Work for a Community?
Four formats cover almost every community: educational, casual and social, support based, and playful. Pick the one that matches why your members actually joined.
Educational Workshops and Webinars
If your community shows up to learn, structure and expertise are what they want from an event.
- Bring in an industry expert to share knowledge on a topic your members care about
- Run a hands on instructional session on a specific skill, like social media marketing or graphic design basics
- Go deep on a specialized subject, like advanced SEO for small business or how blockchain actually works
Casual Meetups and Networking
A more laid back community builds connection through informal time together, not structured lessons.
- Host a virtual coffee chat where members drop in to talk about whatever’s on their mind
- Run a virtual happy hour for members to unwind together
- Facilitate a roundtable on a specific theme, like remote work approaches, where members share what’s actually working for them
Support Groups and Mentor Sessions
Communities built on support and guidance need a space designed for that, not a general hangout.
- Run small group sessions focused on a specific challenge, like a startup founder support group
- Pair members for one on one mentorship
- Host peer support meetings around something concrete, like coping strategies for work life balance
Games and Interactive Challenges
If your community shows up to have fun, give them something to actually do together.
- Plan a game night with trivia, bingo, or an online board game
- Run a challenge or contest, like a photo caption contest or a 30 day fitness challenge
- Host a themed party where members dress up and participate, like an 80s retro night or a Halloween costume party
How Do Events Build Deeper Engagement and Loyalty?
Answer capsule: Events create real time back and forth that a post or an email can’t match, and a genuinely good one turns attendees into people who advocate for your community without being asked.
Posts and emails are one directional by default. Someone reads, maybe reacts, and moves on. Events are the opposite. Live discussions, Q&As, and interactive workshops let people respond in the moment, and that immediacy is what builds real connection instead of just consumption.
Regular events also give your community a rhythm. They become the touch point members look forward to, which breaks up the routine and keeps the community from going stagnant between big pushes.
None of this works without the engagement fundamentals already in place inside your community. Events amplify a room that’s already warm. They don’t build one from nothing.
The experience itself does the rest of the work. Members who walk away from a genuinely useful or fun event remember it, and that positive experience turns into loyalty. Loyal members become advocates, and advocates talk about your community to people who aren’t in it yet.
Can Hosting Events Actually Grow Your Membership?
Yes. Events double as a public preview of your community, and turning attendees into members compounds through referrals and word of mouth.
Every event you publicize on social media, in a newsletter, or anywhere else is a glimpse of what your community actually looks like from the inside. That visibility attracts people who were on the fence about joining something they’d never seen in action.
- Show outsiders what your community is really like by promoting events publicly, not just to existing members
- Convert attendees with a personal follow up message or an exclusive offer for the group, since a personal touch tells someone you actually want them there
- Turn satisfied attendees into referral sources by making it easy to invite a friend, whether that’s using their own network directly or offering a group discount
None of this replaces a well written blog post, but a live event you put real energy into will usually reach further than the most polished post you’ll ever write. It has a personal touch a post can’t fake, and it shows people exactly what your community is about.
Try This Prompt
This one helps you match an event type to your community before you commit to planning one.
“I run a [type of community] for [who it serves]. Here’s what I know about them: [describe what they show up for, and what they’ve responded well to before]. Based on the four event types in this post (educational, casual and social, support based, and playful), which one fits my community best, and why? Then draft a simple outline for a first event in that category, including the format, the length, and three discussion prompts or activities to use during it.”
It matches and drafts. You still decide what actually gets scheduled.
The Room Is the Point
Events aren’t a growth hack you bolt onto a content calendar. They’re the moment your community stops being a feed people scroll and becomes a room people actually show up to.
Start with one. Survey your members if you’re not sure what they want, or grab the event resources in the free hub if you want a head start on picking a format. If you want a room of other builders to test the idea against before you launch it, that’s a lot of what happens inside coCreator Society.
The post you spend weeks polishing will never do what one good event does in an hour. Give your community a reason to be in the same place at the same time, and watch what happens to the room.
Listen to the Episode
Apple Podcasts | Spotify
If this one gave you something to work with, leave a review and hit subscribe. New episodes drop every Tuesday, and reviews are how other community builders find the show.
Watch This One
Event-tastic Content: Why Hosting Events is a Game Changer for Your Community Strategy
More like it on Your Community Strategist, new every Thursday.
More Like This
Listen: How to Create Engaging Content for Your Online Community. The content strategy that events fit into once you’re done planning them.
Listen: Mastering Engagement Strategies: The Key to Thriving Online Communities. The engagement fundamentals underneath why events work in the first place.
Watch: Crafting Engaging Content for Your Circle Community. The on screen walkthrough of the content strategy this post’s events plug into.
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