Based on my research and experiences online, here’s a one-pager for building a virtual community. Five questions to answer before you start, help picking a platform, a simple approach to planning a campaign or setting-up shop online, a pre-launch check, and what to expect once you’re live, virtually.

1. Before You Start: 5 Questions

Answer these before choosing a platform, setting up accounts, or writing a single post:

• Who will manage this, and how much time can they realistically give it each week? And also who is your audience/community?
• What are you actually trying to accomplish More attendance, more visibility, or genuine relationship-building? There is no right answer, but knowing this changes everything downstream.
• Where does your actual audience already spend time? (Hint: it’s not necessarily where you assume they are.)
• When will you post, and who covers it when that person is out?
• Why does this need to exist at all? And what’s the tradeoff in terms of cost (time, privacy exposure, moderation burden) against what you’ll actually gain?

Framework adapted from Public Libraries Online.

2. Pick Your Platform

Start from your goal, not the platform’s popularity:

• Reach the widest audience, fast → Facebook, YouTube
• Sustain real discussion, not just announcements → Discord, Reddit
• Build an immersive, exhibit-style presence → Second Life
• Reach a younger or more visual audience → TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest
• Professional development, job postings, or institutional credibility → LinkedIn
• Direct, ongoing support for a specific project → Patreon

Full comparisons and sourcing live in the Platform Index.

3. Plan Your Campaign

This section builds on a presentation I helped put together on running a successful social media campaign, following a short, repeatable cycle. The right tools can make a lot of this easier, handling the batching, scheduling, and cross-posting mechanics so you can focus on the plan itself rather than the mechanics of executing it:

1. Pick your tools, and take the time to learn them. Scheduling and content tools like Hootsuite, Buffer, or Later (we used Hootsuite for a real campaign during this project) can save real time once you know your way around them. YouTube tutorials, official documentation, and the tools own help center are usually the fastest way to get comfortable before you’re relying on a tool mid-campaign.
2. Set a theme or plan before you touch any tool. Going in without one is the fastest way to end up posting at random and wasting time.
3. Check your calendar for existing commitments before scheduling anything new.
4. Draft content in a batch, rather than daily. Leveraging existing material (photos, updates, program recaps) works better than content manufactured just for the platform.
5. Schedule ahead, then actually show up to respond when people engage.
6. Listen, Learn, and Repeat. Adjust based on what actually gets a response, not just what gets posted.

Two rules worth keeping in mind throughout: first, aim for roughly one promotional post for every three that reply, share, or point to something else useful (pure broadcast is the fastest way to look like a bulletin board) and second, actually ask your audience questions instead of only telling them things; asking is what turns a feed into a conversation.

Tip: handling pushback: every community eventually gets a negative comment or bad-faith troll. Don’t feed the trolls! Instead, set visible ground rules in advance, stay an active presence so you catch problems early, and respond to genuine criticism with facts and courtesy rather than silence or a fight. The goal is a space that fosters real connection (and stays safe), not a spotless one.

4. Pre-launch flight checks

Before you launch: run spell checks and see how posts look in preview mode (if available. And finally – the gut check: how does this build closer ties to your patrons, not just another channel to broadcast through?

5. Land the Launch: Plan for Engaging, Not Just Posting

How much ongoing interaction this needs depends on your goal and platform: a pure event-broadcast account has different demands than a discussion-based Discord server. But unless the goal really is broadcast announcements, budget real time for engaging with what comes back: replying to comments, answering questions, following up on threads people start. A community that only posts and never responds reads exactly like the “institutions show up without actually showing up” pattern flagged in What’s Trending…and it’s the fastest way to undercut everything sections 1 through 4 just set up.

Have fun!