It’s late on a Wednesday evening as I write, and to placate the content gods but still maintain my sleep schedule, I’ve decided to provide you all with a lightly-researched, BuzzFeed-style list for your own personal amusement—and maybe for your community’s as well. Enjoy these five forum and online community games to help get the convo started.
Lie to Me.
A classic ice breaker. Try it on your community. List a few “facts” about yourself or a member—making one a lie, of course—and see who guesses it.
Object to your left.
Open up Paint or Word or Illustrator and draw an arrow pointing to the left. Type something underneath it like “the object to your left is now the only thing you can take with you to a deserted island. What is it?” GIF it and send it. Ask your members to respond with pics of the arrow and whatever they would take.
And… scene. With GIFs.
Pose a scenario to your community and invite members to post a GIF in response. Perhaps you’re out of coffee…again—why is the coffee always gone?!?—or maybe that member who’s always violating the ToS is at it again. You write the story.
The Anonymizer.
Pick a member and have them post one of their likes or dislikes anonymously then see who can guess it. Your members will probably have to know each other pretty well to manage likes/dislikes, but you could always have members post a previous job and see who can guess it. LinkedIn, anyone? And if you can’t post anonymously on your community, use a moderator.
Werewolf/Mafia/Assassin—whatever, just die already.
This one I learned about recently—shout out to the crew at Higher Logic. If you’ve got a close-knit online community in your neighborhood or an intranet at work…watch out. They’re coming for you. Read the rules and start scheming.