42 Essential Online Community Statistics & Trends for 2025

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Daniel Nic

February 19, 2025

Digital communities serve as powerful vehicles for enterprises to connect with their customer base and foster brand dedication. Additionally, they create valuable spaces where customers can interact with one another and expand their knowledge about specific subjects or brands.

When you’re embarking on creating a digital community, numerous valuable insights and data points exist that merit careful examination and consideration.

Within this guide, I’ve assembled a comprehensive collection of meaningful digital community statistics designed to enhance your community planning process.

Now, let’s thoroughly explore the top 42 digital community statistics.

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Online Community Industry Overview

The worldwide digital community marketplace volume was projected to expand to $1.2 Billion in 2019 from $392.95 Million in 2014, demonstrating a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 24.3%.

Similarly, digital community participation among internet users has consistently increased, with 76% of global internet users participating in an online community in 2019.

Furthermore, businesses are progressively implementing online communities — 59% of organizations globally maintained an online community in 2018 compared to 50% in 2015.

In comparison to traditional physical communities, the implementation of digital communities within organizations has become remarkably widespread.

Approximately 38% of communities operated by organizations function exclusively online, while 58% of communities exist in both digital and physical spaces, and only 4% operate solely offline.

Typically, more substantial enterprises are more inclined to establish online communities than smaller businesses with micro communities being particularly advantageous. 74% of major corporations maintain an online community, whereas merely 40% of small businesses have developed an online community.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a balanced impact on online community strategies. While 40% of organizations report it has significantly accelerated either all or certain aspects of their plans, 35% of organizations indicate it has delayed their initiatives.

Online Community Business Impact

1. Within sophisticated digital communities that implement clearly established and quantifiable strategies, all participants receive greater benefits than their contributions.
2. Typically, community participants experience an impressive 9.16X ROI on their contributed value, while organizations realize a 4.46X return.
1. Communities are increasingly recognized as serving an essential function by organizations.
88% of community specialists acknowledge that communities fulfill a crucial role in fulfilling their company’s objectives, and 64% confirm that digital communities have enhanced their business decision-making processes.
1. Digital communities also substantially influence a company’s earnings, as customers invest 19% more with businesses after becoming members of their online community.
1. From a promotional perspective, communities appear to serve a significant purpose as well, with 77% of companies convinced that digital communities would strengthen their marketing efforts for existing and potential customers.
1. Additionally, the straightforward effect of branded communities on promotional activities and revenue generation is well recognized by industry experts.
66% of professionals indicate that their digital community has favorably affected customer retention, 68% report that it has assisted them in generating new prospects, and 55% mention they have witnessed increased revenue.

Source: Vanilla Forums

Digital communities are increasingly utilized across industries for gathering insights and collecting user feedback, potentially resulting in substantial cost reductions.

90% of professionals report implementing suggestions from their community to enhance their offerings and services, while 78% indicated that communities contributed to developing new products and services.

To highlight an example of an online community generating cost efficiencies, Dewalt, a power tool manufacturer, reduced market research expenses by $6 Million through establishing a digital community.

Regarding internal employee-focused communities, 54% positively influence organizational and cultural transformation, 49% enhance communication effectiveness, and 43% boost awareness and branding efforts.

In a comprehensive survey involving brand managers at Fortune 500 corporations, 54% of executives confirmed that leveraging digital communities transformed their perspective on collaboration, while 46% acknowledged it altered their understanding of customer relationships.

The importance assigned to communities by organizations is increasingly reflected in their financial planning, with 65% of professionals anticipating increased community budgets over the upcoming year.

Most significantly, enterprises are making long-term investments in digital communities. A 2025 study revealed that 42% of online communities initiated by business organizations have maintained operations for over 5 years, compared to just 28% in 2017.

Online Community User Preferences

1. Research indicates that 27.3% of consumers utilize digital communities during their online purchasing decision process when evaluating products or services.
1. Web users are progressively showing preference for participating in digital communities rather than social media platforms for numerous reasons.
36% of participants favor digital communities because they believe these spaces facilitate more substantive discussions. 28% of users choose communities because they experience greater respect within these environments, and 24% because they feel more authentic in digital community settings.

Source: GlobalWebIndex

The majority of web users are comfortable with community anonymity features. 55% of internet users are unbothered by the anonymous nature, and 40% actually view it as beneficial.

Furthermore, 60% of individuals believe people tend to express themselves more truthfully in digital communities when they remain anonymous.

Digital community participants maintain specific expectations when engaging with brands within community spaces. Dependability emerges as the most crucial characteristic community members expect from brands, with 57% of users prioritizing this attribute.

Additional prominent expectations included contemporary/stylish, humorous, exclusive, and daring, expressed by 36%, 29%, 29%, and 27% of community participants respectively.

Internet users participate in digital communities for numerous diverse reasons. Research indicates that assisting others through sharing information, concepts, and personal experiences ranked as the primary motivation, mentioned by 78% of users.

Alternatively, engaging with communities alongside their peer networks was identified as a motivation by 66% of users.

Digital communities also serve as highly effective learning environments with 94% of community members acknowledging their use of communities as avenues for exploring unfamiliar subjects.

Additionally, online communities cultivate collaborative learning environments, which can dramatically enhance educational outcomes and course completion statistics. HBS online experienced completion rates approaching 85% across all educational offerings due to interactive, social learning methodologies.

By 2025, 72.6% of worldwide internet users will exclusively utilize smartphones for internet access, making mobile-responsive community design essential for community administrators.

55% of social media interaction occurs via mobile devices, suggesting that increasing mobile technology adoption plays a fundamental role in digital community popularity growth.

Online Community Management

Community specialists utilize various metrics to evaluate a digital community’s business impact. 54% of community professionals indicate they track customer retention to demonstrate their community’s value.

Additionally, customer acquisition, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty were measured as indicators of their digital community’s value by 37%, 37%, and 31% of professionals respectively.

Source: CMX

Quantifying their community’s impact has benefited community specialists in numerous ways.

59% of professionals reported that it facilitated community team expansion, 90% indicated it generated increased leadership support, and 73% noted it secured additional budget allocation for their community initiatives.

Organizations are increasingly prioritizing the expansion of their existing digital communities, with 59% of community specialists indicating their central focus involves scaling current community platforms.

Conversely, 32% of professionals report their emphasis is on rejuvenating an established or inactive community. Additional focus areas constitute merely 9%.

Correspondingly, organizations are investing in recruiting full-time personnel as integral components of their digital community teams.

Approximately 57% of companies operating online communities employ at least 2 full-time team members within their community management department, while 34% of companies maintain 1 full-time position.

Most communities administered by organizations remain customer-focused, with 43% of community participants being customers. Comparatively, developers, industry professionals & influencers, and volunteers represent 12%, 8%, and 6% of membership respectively.

Regarding funding acquisition for digital communities, 56% of online community professionals identified securing executive leadership support as the most effective strategy.

Alternatively, 45% of professionals recognized identifying crucial business requirements that communities could address as the most successful approach for obtaining financial resources.

When evaluating digital communities against physical communities, online platforms appear to offer numerous advantages.

79% of community specialists believe digital communities provide greater scalability, with only 12% maintaining the opposite perspective.
Furthermore, 47% consider online communities more manageable, while just 19% perceive in-person communities as easier to administer.

Source: CMX

Meta Groups and Slack communities emerge as the leading online community platforms utilized across professional organizations.

These platforms capture 29% and 23% of organizational adoption respectively. Meanwhile, self-hosted community groups and LinkedIn professional networks account for 15% and 11% of organizational community presence.

When evaluating community performance, monthly active users stands as the predominant success metric, employed by 57% of businesses.

Following this primary indicator, new member registrations, daily engagement figures, and fresh user-contributed content represent the next most valued metrics, utilized by 43%, 39%, and 37% of companies respectively.

Research shows that approximately 48% of online community members participate actively within their digital neighborhoods in various capacities. This contrasts dramatically with social media platforms, where merely 0.5-5% of followers demonstrate meaningful engagement.

Evidence strongly supports implementing gamification elements within online communities to enhance workforce motivation and participation.

Research indicates that an impressive 83% of team members who experience gamified training programs report heightened motivation and engagement levels.

Online Community Challenges

Facebook Groups and Slack are the most commonly used online community platforms among organizations.

They are being used by 29% and 23% of organizations respectively. On the other hand, internally-hosted groups and Linkedin groups are used by 15% and 11% of organizations.

The most popular metric for assessing an online community’s success is monthly active users, which is used by 57% of companies.

On the other hand, new user sign-ups, daily active users, and new user-generated content are the next 3 most popular metrics used by 43%, 39%, and 37% of companies.

On average, 48% of online community members are active within their communities, in one way or another. In contrast, only 0.5-5% of social media followers are usually engaged.

There is a strong case for organizations to introduce more gamification elements in online communities to improve employee motivation.

According to a study, 83% of employees who go through gamified training see an increase in motivation levels.

Sources

About The Author

Daniel Nic

Daniel NicFounder, SellingOnliceCoursesGuide.comis an entrepreneur and digital education specialist who founded sellingonlinecoursesguide.com, a platform dedicated to helping creators and educators successfully navigate the online course marketplace. Through his website, he shares insights and strategies for developing, marketing, and monetizing online educational content. His work focuses on empowering course creators to build sustainable online businesses while effectively sharing their knowledge with students worldwide.