Building Engaging Communities with Salesforce Experience Cloud

Online communities have become essential for businesses aiming to build stronger relationships with customers, partners, and employees. These platforms offer a dedicated space for sharing knowledge, resolving queries, and fostering brand connection.

In fact, 77% of companies see online communities as a key driver for brand exposure, awareness, and credibility​. Also, 90% of brands use community suggestions to improve products and services​. Beyond engagement, communities lower support costs, strengthen peer trust, and uncover valuable user insights.

Salesforce Experience Cloud (formerly Community Cloud) is built to power this kind of interaction at scale. It provides the tools to create branded portals, forums, and sites that integrate seamlessly with your CRM data. This means you can deliver personalized, data-driven experiences to every community member, enhancing their satisfaction and your business outcomes. 

In this blog, we will explore the core features of Experience Cloud, strategies for building active communities, and how Ksolves supports implementation across a variety of business use cases.

Key Features of Salesforce Experience Cloud for Community Building

Salesforce Experience Cloud offers a rich set of features that empower organizations to create vibrant online communities. Its capabilities support everything from the initial design of the community site to ongoing management and engagement. Here are some of the key features that make Experience Cloud ideal for community building:

• Branded, Easy-to-Design Experiences

Experience Cloud comes with an Experience Builder and pre-built templates that allow you to design a community site without coding. Using a drag-and-drop interface, businesses can quickly create responsive, mobile-friendly pages that match their brand identity. Templates for common use cases (like customer support portals, partner portals, or forums) jump-start the process, providing built-in layouts and components that you can tailor to your needs. This makes it easy to launch a community that is both visually appealing and aligned with your business objectives.

• Seamless CRM Integration

A major advantage of Experience Cloud is its native integration with the core Salesforce CRM. Your community can directly connect to Salesforce objects such as cases, accounts, contacts, opportunities, and more​. For example, customers can log support cases through the community and see updates in real time, or partners can access leads and sales data. This deep integration ensures that community interactions tie into your business processes. It provides a unified experience where data flows securely between the community and your internal systems. 

• Personalization and Customization

Keeping users engaged often means delivering content and experience tailored to their needs. Experience Cloud provides robust personalization capabilities to target content based on user profiles, behavior, or CRM data​. You can define audience segments (e.g., by customer type or interests) and show different banners, topics, or recommendations to each segment. This level of personalization makes the community feel relevant to each member, increasing their engagement and satisfaction. In addition, the platform is highly customizable. You can extend it with custom pages, components, and branding so that the community truly feels like an extension of your business.

• Engagement and Collaboration Tools

To foster interaction, Experience Cloud includes a variety of social and collaboration features. Members can participate in discussion forums, ask and answer questions, comment on posts, and share files. There is an Ideas exchange component for crowdsourcing suggestions, and Chatter feeds for real-time updates and conversations​. These tools encourage users to collaborate and help each other, building a sense of community. A well-implemented community can become a rich knowledge hub, where discussions and Q&A threads build a searchable archive of wisdom over time.

• Gamification and Recognition

Salesforce Experience Cloud has built-in gamification features that add an element of fun and reward to community participation. You can set up reputation points, badges, and leaderboards to recognize active members​. For example, users earn points or badges by asking questions, providing answers, or sharing useful content. High engagement can be showcased through leaderboards or community ranks. Gamification motivates members to contribute more. By acknowledging top contributors, you not only increase their loyalty but also encourage others to engage.

• Analytics and Insights

To grow and refine your community, you need to track engagement and content performance. Salesforce Experience Cloud includes analytics dashboards and reporting tools to monitor key metrics. You can see data on active users, popular topics, search queries, case deflection rates, etc., all within the Experience Cloud Workspace. These analytics provide insights into how members are interacting, helping you identify what content is working and where to improve​. With real-time data and customizable reports, businesses can make data-driven decisions to optimize their community strategy and demonstrate ROI.

Strategies and Best Practices for Engaging Communities

Building a community is not just about deploying the technology; it’s about nurturing engagement and delivering ongoing value to members. Here are some proven strategies and best practices to build and sustain an engaging community using Salesforce Experience Cloud:

• Personalize the Experience

Tailor content and user journeys to each segment of your audience. Leverage Experience Cloud’s personalization tools to show relevant topics, products, or knowledge articles based on a user’s profile or past activity.

For example, you might have a section for new customers with onboarding resources, while long-time users see advanced tips. Personalization makes members feel understood and valued, which boosts engagement. Regularly refine your audience criteria using CRM data and feedback to keep the experience relevant​.

• Incorporate Gamification

Encourage participation through friendly competition and rewards. Set up a reputation system where members earn points or badges for contributions such as posting questions, answering others, or sharing ideas​. Publicly recognize top contributors on a leaderboard or “Member of the Month” feature.

Gamification works as a powerful motivator – it taps into users’ natural desire for achievement and status. Make sure the rules are clear and the rewards align with behaviors you want to encourage (like helpful answers or quality content). Salesforce Experience Cloud’s built-in gamification features (like levels and badges) make it easy to implement this. 

• Foster Knowledge Sharing

Create a culture where knowledge is freely asked for and shared. Seed the community with high-value content. For instance, upload a collection of FAQ articles or how-to guides in the knowledge base, and start a few discussion threads on hot topics. Encourage your team and early adopters to answer questions so that newcomers see activity.

Utilize features like Topics and Q&A forums to organize discussions. Experience Cloud can auto-generate topic pages that collect all related questions, files, and expert insights in one place for easy discovery​. Make it easy for users to find information by enabling search and tagging content appropriately.

• Use Effective Moderation and Guidelines

From the start, establish clear community guidelines so members know what behavior is expected. Actively moderate the community using Salesforce’s moderation tools to keep the environment healthy and respectful. Set up automated moderation rules to catch spam or offensive content (e.g., flag posts containing banned keywords) and have moderators review those items​.

Promptly remove any inappropriate content and gently correct users who violate rules by reminding them of the guidelines. It’s also important to moderate for quality – merge duplicate questions, move posts to relevant topics, and summarize resolutions. 

• Keep the Community Active and Fresh

Sustaining engagement requires continual effort. Plan regular updates and events in the community. This could include weekly discussion prompts, monthly product update posts, or quarterly contests. Use the Experience Cloud CMS and scheduling tools to publish fresh content like blog articles, video tutorials, or customer success stories that spark conversation. Another best practice is to solicit feedback within the community.

For example, run polls on what features users want next, or open an “Ideas” section for suggestions. When members see their input being taken seriously (and implemented in your product or services), they become more invested. Also, be responsive: ensure that questions posted in the community get timely answers, whether from your support team, experts, or other users.

Conclusion: Empowering Engagement and Business Growth

Online communities have emerged as a strategic cornerstone for businesses looking to deepen engagement and collaboration. Salesforce Experience Cloud provides a robust, flexible platform to build these communities, offering everything you need to create a rich digital experience for customers, partners, and employees. By taking advantage of key features like seamless CRM integration, personalization, gamification, and moderation tools, companies can foster active and vibrant communities that drive real business outcomes.

The journey to an engaging community is made easier with the right expertise. Ksolves, with its extensive Salesforce Experience Cloud services, helps businesses blueprint, implement, and customize communities tailored to any use case. Through professional guidance and technical excellence, Ksolves ensures that your community not only looks and functions as envisioned but also delivers continuous value through integration and ongoing support. Contact us today!