3 Learnings From Building an Engaged Student Community Online
The Spiritual Mastery Accelerator attempts to bring students to full self-actualization while treading a spiritual path. This program and its online community is the brainchild of S. Ali Myers, whose motivation to help others achieve spiritual mastery stems from his vision of bringing about global self-god-realization.
Spiritual Mastery
S. Ali Myers, the Project Manager, has been teaching spirituality and metaphysics for the past half-decade, encountering all kinds of people with different mindsets and outlooks on life. He has been in charge of the community for one and a half years.
The Spiritual Mastery Accelerator is geared towards providing the right framework, support and guidance to attain high levels of spirituality without being mired in dogma and doctrines. Rooted in free will, the mission, therefore, is to inspire souls to be accountable for the mastery of their spirituality whilst building their individuality and autonomy.
An online community hosted on CMNTY Platform became key to Myers’ goal to provide a suitable space for his students to master their spirituality in the company of like-minded individuals.
The Challenge
With the goal of helping the students to tune into their inner self and improve their spirituality, Spiritual Mastery Accelerator needed to find a platform that was devoid of the noise. In other words, a quiet online environment that provided a conducive atmosphere for participants to focus on the program and building their personal growth.
Initially starting out as a group on Facebook, Myers found that the distractions were too many for the participants to engage wholly with the program.
“Facebook has its pros and cons,” says Myers. “It led people away from what their main goals were.”
Finding the Right Platform
On realizing that Facebook did not meet the moral and spiritual fiber they wanted for the community, Spiritual Mastery Accelerator embarked on a search for other platforms to host the online community.
Myers wanted the platform to essentially start as a forum but also build into a center for modules and educational discussions for the students trying to grow their spirituality at their own pace. The platform also needed to be able to handle the engagement of the members as numbers grew.
Since the program comprises paying members, Myers also needed a platform that guaranteed quality, while maintaining a strict budget. He set out in search of a platform that could foster engagement, host his desired activities and is fairly priced.
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The Solution
Spiritual Mastery Accelerator project manager S. Ali Myers discovered CMNTY. The platform offered a straightforward forum that was akin to social media, making it a fairly familiar interface with non-tech savvy community members.
This also provided a safe space to encourage students while they’re seeking spiritual enrichment. CMNTY, therefore, offered a place that was devoid of the noise and harassment that one could find on Facebook.
Myers explains, “I created the program so that people could come together in real true ways where there’s no judgment, no racism. With everybody coming together with one goal; to grow spiritually.”
Implementation
Despite the slight learning curve, Myers was impressed with how seamless it was to set up the platform on CMNTY. There was a marked difference between running a Facebook group and setting up one of CMNTY. However, Myers had some experience in building websites on WordPress, eBay and Amazon.
When hitting some hurdles, he reached out to CMNTY customer support. They readily provided help and gave step by step directions on how to get the problem fixed. On the whole, Myers says he felt appreciated.
The Aftermath
After getting to grips with the platform after the learning curve in the first month, Myers says he “did not have to ask anything and knew where to go to do the work.”
The community is running smoothly on CMNTY platform and does everything and more he wanted from it.
The Results
After migrating from Facebook to the CMNTY platform, Spiritual Mastery Accelerator is experiencing numerous benefits which both Myers and his spiritual students are appreciative of.
#1 Students Applied The Lessons into Real Life Actions More Easily
While it can be easy to talk spirituality as a part of an online community, translating these words into real life actions can be harder to implement.
The Challenge module on CMNTY goaded the members into action.
One of the students was less active on the Facebook group but gained more confidence from constantly responding to challenges and engaging on the platform. This translated into her professional life where she built her career and manifested an opportunity to work with a local television celebrity in Atlanta.
Myers explains, “[Challenge module] forces you to act. Not engage, not talk, it forces you to do something.”
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#2 Students Engaged More Readily
The students engaged more readily when on the platform because of the warm welcome that they were afforded. On initially signing up for the accelerator, they receive an email instructing them to introduce themselves in the online community.
Even with some trepidation on the part of the non-tech savvy members, building the distraction-free online environment provided the perfect place to engage more openly and grow their spirituality.
#3 Challenging Students Led to Thought Provoking Engagement
Myers understands many students only engage on a surface level with online content as, “most people are going to scroll, look, like, heart”. He found the students challenging themselves through thoughtful, introspective responses were growing.
Students that take ownership of the opportunity to put themselves out there to the community show the most growth. The online community helps S. Ali’s students get uncomfortable and motivate themselves to do something meaningful.
The members of the Spiritual Mastery Accelerator are happy with their own online community and are reaping benefits from it that have positive impacts on their personal and professional lives.