Creative tips and tricks

It's time to tap into the sense of community that exists in communities

Aug 17, 2022

Yet in many ways, it is only the beginning. The online learning environment offers many potential to expand and develop in relation to connection and learning styles. In fact, it's an ideal time to reflect about how we experience online learning, and how gathering people can be the most effective, and profitable way forward to everyone.

Jump ahead:

The virtue of being different

Those with knowledge created the course material on their own schedule and let students consume the content on their own schedule. This gave both learners and course creators liberty, as well as the opportunity to spend their precious time in other areas. While this increased liberty was beneficial to both parties however, there is a second way to a successful and enjoyable learning experience as well as a growing company, that needs to be discovered.

Reuniting again With Communities

The freedom to design or consume educational content on your own through courses is a huge benefit, courses alone are not the complete apex of a complete learning experience. They are not the ultimate goal of an enterprise that is a learning one. The benefits of communal the learning experience that we've all been through are not fully explored.
 
 They are among the biggest advancements in online learning in recent times, and, for course designers, they are the ideal method to prepare for the future.

Synchronous and asynchronous learning, together

Students can take in the course material for hours in a day and then participate in a discussion with a live audience in the evening. Or the other way around The possibilities are entirely dependent on you.


 The combination of stickiness and complementarity of community-based learning makes communities the ideal operating system for online learning companies. They're live and on-demand. Interactive and self-guided. Interactive and flexible. Communities let students choose how and where they want they want to be involved. Most importantly, they are a perfect complement to other forms of learning online to create strong businesses.

It's also much easier to start together

Ask anyone who has ever developed an online course, and they'll tell you the process isn't easy. The process of packaging your knowledge, creating material, and creating experiences for learning can be an extremely time-consuming task. It can take up to a month or more of production before getting meaningful indications (and earnings) from students.

With a learning community and a learning community, you could get up and running in an hour (or even minutes). Instead of building a course, you simply create an environment for your students to connect with your knowledge and expertise -and also to get connected with one another.

If you're only beginning your journey, learning communities are a great opportunity to validate your product or course as well. The community's founding members will help jumpstart your business and help build the momentum that fuels growth to create learning opportunities that are complementary.

They are here to create content, but they stay to build communities

For established course creators the learning community can provide immediate value. A community can transform the business model of your company from a one-time purchase to the kind of experience that has value over time. Communities allow customers to connect in their interactions with each other -- which is precisely what online courses cannot do.

How do we know that learners appreciate the learning community? To answer the question, our team conducted a survey of over 2,000 people who have paid for an online course. If we asked the respondents to determine if they could get greater worth from an online class if it was accompanied by an online community to it, the overwhelming answer was yes.

The overwhelming majority of students claim to get better value from online courses with learning communities attached. The buzzing of a community increases perceptions of value to students. They're not just getting your knowledge content but they're also having the opportunity to create connections through ongoing assistance that enhances the effectiveness of your expertise. It's an enormous benefit.

Another reason to choose this method is the fact that communities are supportive of other methods and ways of learning which helps more students achieve their goals. Nearly 40% of online students have paid for a course that was not completed or bought the course, only to find later that they regretted the purchase. This seems to be inherent in any approach to online learning.

Communities can be great for attracting and engaging these students with different experiences. They offer practical and continuous applications of learning that keep up with your customers' interests and needs. Features such as profiles, comments, spaces and even events provide students with more ways to engage with knowledge.

The advantages of communities outshine the chart

One of the greatest positives of learning communities is the creation of greater predictability in income. One of the most popular approaches is the membership model however, communities also provide effective lead generation that is cost-effective and also a multitude of selling techniques. Sustainable and scalable income is much more achievable with multiple offerings.

A further benefit is that members are often content contributors, moderators as well as instructors or coaches within your community. These are reasons for returning that don't depend on the efforts of you all by itself. Your most engaged customers have opportunities to practice, develop and share their expertise and increase the value of your enterprise.

Perhaps you think that a strategy for communities is only intended for people with massive followers, however this is exactly what makes this so intriguing. Our trends research found that learning communities provide a significant value driver for creators with smaller followings, too. In general, smaller communities can facilitate more intimate and deeper bonds between the students.

Businesses may also offer their community for free in order to generate leads and increase their audience for bigger revenue. With more ways and more diverse options to interact and communicate with your audience, more chances are to expand your business from existing customers, while at the same at the same time, reducing the cost of acquisition. This is the way that profitable online learning companies are able to grow and prosper.

It could be a Community but you're in charge

If the web has shown us anything in the past couple of years, it's that no thing is ever permanent. In an instant, algorithms can change and websites can pull content and foreign governments can infiltrate your information, and whole countries can block access to your data.

In the case of businesses that are learning, this makes ownership of your customers, content and income streams ever more crucial. It isn't enough to rely solely on social media because every year you could get less people to join your community. A community that increases student engagement is often more sustainable and valuable as opposed to securing an audience that is ephemeral.

These two resources are both extremely useful However, an audience is not a constant stream of information, while a group is active and passionate. In order to engage your viewers your audience, you have to fight for attention with everything that is happening in their feeds. You're subject to algorithms as well as distractions, advertisements, and politics. By contrast, community participants have a specific interest in you and your business according to your own terms.

When you own your community You control the relationships with your personal identity. It is possible to direct your customers through any other medium without leaving the social media baggage in the dust. It is possible to put your company directly into the hands of students via mobile apps. If you manage the community, you have control over the level of participation, content strategies for sales, and channels.

Future is already coming together

In the past decade or so If you were to say "online learning" what do people imagine? Video playlists. Slides. PDFs. Corporate training. Everything is neatly packaged into what's called"online course. "online training course."

In the present, learning courses are only the beginning of online learning. The most effective companies in learning offer information and connection in multiple products and configurations. They view learning as a journey, traveled by a group, not as a web site.

The truth is that online learning -- as offline education is not able to thrive forever with a single-dimension form. People learn in all sorts of methods. To serve as many possible people as efficiently as you can The most profitable businesses make use of a range of methods of teaching and learning. Communities, classes, memberships as well as other types of learning can be used in isolation however they provide the most benefit when they are combined.

Learning online isn't going away However, the characteristics of an effective business are changing. This is making it simpler than ever to help you get there.