"Fake it til you make it: when someone engages, make sure they have great response (ideally from others)" - Erik Torenberg

Communities are all about helping people be themselves and helping them help each other. Every time a member engages with the community is an opportunity to help them in their journey. An engagement or message left unanswered is an opportunity missed to build on the member's trust and sense of belonging with the community.

Back in the earliest days of building Zomato in any city, there were two habits that had become muscle memory within each local team that helped us delight our community across markets:

• For any restaurant review that was posted on Zomato, the team ensured it was acknowledged - a simple 'Thank you for writing the review' works, and over time, users started engaging on each other's reviews organically.
• For any query that was posted on Twitter around restaurants, we would be the first ones to respond with a relevant link e.g. list of cafes in the area. This helped not just in delighting users but also in growing our community.

Here are some other examples of founders of the communities responding to member messages and connecting with them:

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