For community creators, one of the most difficult tasks is finding meaningful ways to keep community members engage. Sending personalized notes to individual members can really help you keep engagement up! Scheduled direct messages are a relatively new feature that many community builders wish existed, and aren't aware that we've built this feature at Burb! Scheduling a direct message to all or a segment of your members at a future date makes it easy to give reminders and build relationships.

First, we'll show you how this feature works! Then scroll down for five ways to use this feature to help keep community members excited about participating.

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Great! Now you know how to use this feature. Here are five ways community builders have used Burb's scheduled direct messages feature to increase meaningful engagement.

😓 1. Create an onboarding series to tackle the drop-off problem

Most creators see a drop off after the 3rd week of membership. With attention spans as short as they are, if a new member doesn't feel like they're getting a value or making connections, they'll likely stop checking in and engaging. We've seen community builders create an onboarding series of direct messages (& responding to replies quickly), helping new members get oriented, feel  supported, and stay on the right track.

📅 2. Drop a note to increase event RSVPs

Your event is coming up and you want to make sure your community members don’t miss it. Here’s how to increase event RSVPs and fill that virtual zoom room. Send a note to your community members, letting them know why they shouldn't miss this one!

📋 3. Get actionable feedback from members

Direct messages are an effective and easy way to find out what members are getting out of their membership, where else they'd like support, and how else they're interested in contributing to the mission. (Surveys are great, but not a substitute for conversations!)

👋 4. A nudge to engage in a weekly challenge or prompt

Are you hosting a new challenge and want to get members participating? Have a weekly ritual you want members to remember to engage in? A personal note can be a great reminder! You won't want to do this weekly, but even a short note very few weeks to a segment of your community can help with engagement!

🎉 5. Surprise & delight your community

Burb gives you a list of your most active members every week. From this list, it's quite easy to drop a DM to these community members and show gratitude. You can also segment members and send 'thank you's, special resources, early access to content or features to reward your community for their contributions.

We hope these ideas inspire outreach that supports your goals! Just remember, sending DMs in bulk to your community is super powerful, but if used too often, or without care, you'll weaken trust and connection between yourself and your members. Be thoughtful, and always be sure to have to bandwidth to get to all the replies you'll surely get!