By Marcia Chadly, Certified Mighty Networks Expert, Chadly Creative Consulting
In short: Many hosts initially set up their Mighty Network with content to consume and an activity feed or chat for member-led conversation. The content-to-experience shift moves you from providing information to designing what members do and experience together. In this post, I'll show you what that looked like in a real client's cohort course, why it matters, and how to apply it to your own course or community.
Why aren't my Mighty Networks members engaging?
Often, the answer is in what the network is designed to do. I’ve worked with 150+ networks, and the initial setup I see most often includes:
Information and resources
Live calls
A place where members can talk, if they want to
It makes sense. Most of us learned to provide content for others to consume.
The trouble is that simply having access to information doesn’t lead to results for many members. They get better results from doing something with it, reflecting on it, and learning alongside other people.
When the network works like a storage space, members read and watch, and the place to talk stays quiet.
What is the content-to-experience shift?
The content-to-experience shift is a change in how a host thinks about their online community. Instead of asking “What content do I need to provide?” you ask “What do I want members to do and experience together?”
When content is the star, it’s what you sell and where most of your time goes. After the shift, content becomes a supporting character. The focus moves to what happens between members as they share experiences, encourage each other, and build wisdom no single person could teach.
That experience isn’t left to chance. The host guides it, and content supports it.
Think of it this way. Many networks are set up like a library: shelves of good material, quiet rooms, everyone working on their own. A community of practice is more like a book club. The books still matter, but the value comes from reading together and talking about what you noticed.
That’s the heart of a community of practice, where people share a common goal or transformation. Each person is on their own path, but they walk it together, and their results go deeper. The host’s role moves from content expert to guide and facilitator.
The shift is to design for conversation, not for consumption.
A real example: Erin's cohort course
Erin Nolan teaches visual journal courses. She is comfortable with technology and came to me after a few months of experimenting on Mighty Networks. She’d run her 5 week course as a live online cohort and now wanted to build a self-directed version from it. She was also trying to get an alumni community going, without much success and was starting to think, “no one wants to be on an online community.”
One of our sessions focused on building a template space she could reuse for future live cohorts. Her first setup for the space had:
Events feature for each weekly Zoom call
Course feature with a section for each week: the replay, suggested activities, and further study resources
Chat feature where cohort members could talk casually if they wanted to
It’s a common approach for hosts new to the platform. It was thoughtful and well organized. But it was still content-heavy, and the chat was simply added on. It wasn’t shaping the course experience.
What changed during our session
We worked right inside Erin’s network, as she shared her computer screen. In my experience, the shift from providing content to guiding experience rarely clicks by talking about it in theory. It clicks when you’re working with your actual material.
We started with her week one information. Instead of sitting in a course lesson, I suggested, the activity suggestions could become posts in an activity feed. She turned the chat off and the activity feed on, and moved the feed so it’s the first thing members see.
Then we built a weekly rhythm from content she already had:
Sunday: Share the live call replay and post a simple, practical activity, with options for different time spans like 5 or 25 minutes, so members can choose what fits for them
Tuesday: Post one reflection question from that week’s class, as a quick multiple choice poll.
Friday: Post a check-in about members’ experience of journaling, not their journal pages. People may not want to share the content of their journals. It’s easier to share what they noticed about doing the journaling.
We built real posts as examples while we talked. I showed her how to schedule posts ahead, so she can set up the whole guided experience before a cohort starts.
Small details made a difference. For the Tuesday poll, I suggested starting the question with “Which of these...” so members know a list is coming when they see it in their notifications. And we kept every post short, so it feels doable, not like time-consuming homework.
Once the activities moved to the feed, a problem we hadn’t been able to solve fell into place. Erin had struggled to name the course feature that included activities, study resources, and replays. Now it only held replays. So we called it Replays. As Erin said, “Wow. We solved it.”
You can tell something works when it suddenly gets simple. Getting there takes effort, though. As Erin put it, “It’s funny how much time it takes to make something simple instead of complex.”
Near the end of the session, she said, “I would not have put two and two together to rearrange the content like this.”
Same content. A different member experience. As I told her, her course is now much more than a series of Zoom calls with self-directed resources.
Why does shifting from content to experience shift matter?
The short answer: members get more from what they do together than from content they can access.
I know the other side of this personally. Years ago, I joined a membership full of wonderful content continually being added to. The host often told us to take our time working with the material, but I still felt like I was not taking advantage of what was available. Eventually, I left.
When the experience is designed and guided, it looks different. Members are guided to take small, doable steps. They share what happened. They learn from each other, often more than a host could teach on their own. And the members keep coming back, because they’ve found people on the same path.
It’s also less work for the host. Erin’s new setup uses content she had already written and she doesn’t feel like she has to continually add more.
And this shift matters more now than it used to. Information is everywhere. A guided experience with other people isn’t something members can get from a search or talking with their favorite AI tool.
How does this apply to a Mighty Networks community?
Many hosts start with a community rather than a course. The shift works the same way. The rhythm is just lighter.
A cohort course is intensive: members meet weekly for a set number of weeks. A community is ongoing, so it needs a rhythm people can keep up with month after month. Here’s the pattern I come back to most often:
A monthly theme tied to the results your members want
One or two live gatherings each month, on the same day and time
Two short posts each week to guide the experience, such as an activity, a reflection question, or a chance to share
One activity feed for both freeform and guided conversation, so members always know where to go
Information and resources that support the guided experience
That’s how I run Success Partners, my paid community for Mighty Networks hosts. Each month we look at one platform feature. I post a short intro with links to Mighty Networks’ own how-to resources. On Tuesdays, I post a simple question or poll to help members think about using that feature in their own networks. On Fridays, I post a question designed to spark sharing about the experience of hosting. And we meet for a group call once a month.
I don’t try to teach everything about the monthly feature. Members bring their own ideas and experiences, and we all learn more because of it.
When Erin is ready to add an alumni community to her network, much of what we designed for her cohort course will carry right over.
How to make the content-to-experience shift in your own course or community
When I explain this shift, hosts who have never been a member of a community like this may understand the words. But it’s hard to really picture it until they try it with their own content.
So start there. Look for content you already have that can be repurposed from self-directed reading to activities, questions or polls that guide member experience.
Helpful rules of thumb:
Keep activities simple and doable. Choices of time length options can be offered.
Design polls and questions that members will be interesting in talking about and that can be quickly answered.
Don’t post every day. For a cohort course, three posts a week is often a good cadence. For a community, fewer.
Schedule posts ahead. Mighty Networks lets you set up as far in advance as you’d like.
Ask yourself one question before you post: Does this position me as the expert, or does it prompt members to share?
That last question came from another Mighty Networks host, and it changed what I post. A few years into hosting my own community, I wrote a Tuesday Tech Tip every week: a few paragraphs about an online tool, with a question at the end. It got harder to come up with each week. Her question made the reason clear. So I changed the post to a short tech question inviting members to share from their own experience. It got members talking, and it was less work for me.
Watch what happens after you shift and adjust. Your community is a living thing. What members actually do will show you what to try next.
Frequently asked questions
What is the content-to-experience shift?
It's a change from using your online community to store and deliver content, to designing what members do and experience together. Content moves into a supporting role, and member interaction becomes the main value.
Should I use a chat or an activity feed for my Mighty Networks cohort course?
I usually recommend an activity feed for cohort courses, especially when you want to guide members' experience between live calls. Chat works well for casual conversation, but posts scroll away quickly and are easy to miss. I explain the differences in this video.
How often should I post in my Mighty Networks community?
Less often than most hosts think. For a cohort course, three posts a week is often good. In Success Partners, I post a monthly intro, two questions or polls each week, and we meet for one group call each month.
Do I still need course content?
Yes, but in a supporting role. Information and key resources are helpful for members to return to. The difference is that content supports what members do, rather than being the whole experience.
Can I use my existing course content in an activity feed?
Yes, and it's often the best place to start. Activities, reflection questions, and worksheets you already have can become short, scheduled posts.
What is a community of practice?
A community of practice is a group of people working toward a shared goal or transformation. Each member is on their own path, but they learn and make progress together, guided by the host.
About the author
Marcia Chadly is a Certified Mighty Networks Expert and the founder of Chadly Creative Consulting. She has hosted her own Mighty Network for more than six years and has advised 150+ networks. She helps solopreneurs, small businesses, and organizations build online communities of practice where members connect, learn together, and get results.
If you'd like help making the content-to-experience shift in your own network, you can learn about working with me or join Success Partners, my community for Mighty Networks hosts.