How to Use Server Insights to Grow Your Community

As soon as your community hits 500 members, you’ll be able to access Server Insights, your secret weapon for improving the growth, promotion, and sustainability of your Discord community. 

Once you’ve unlocked Server Insights, you’ll be able to see things like...

• New Member Retention rates
• Popular Text Channels
• Most used invite links

These will help you understand your server from an analytical angle, identify your community’s needs, and find new ways to promote growth as your community becomes more established. 

Using Insights to Understand Your Audience

The first step is to head to Server Insights. On desktop, you can do this by clicking on your server name in the top left and selecting Server Insights from the dropdown menu.

Once there, you’ll see key stats to understand your audience and community activity. 

One of the handiest features in Server Insights is the Audience tab, a one-stop shop for getting to know your members. 

You’ll be able to see things like what country they’re from, the devices they’re using as well as how long they’ve been a member of Discord and how long they’ve been a part of your server. All these stats will give you clues as to how you can improve your community experience and draw more  members, get them talking, and keep them around. 

Let's look at a few key examples.

• If you find that the majority of your community are new to Discord, it's a good idea to introduce some Discord FAQs covering some tips on how to update your profile picture or how Nitro works so they get up to speed quickly.
• If you’re finding your first-week retention rate is dropping, that’s a good indicator that you might want to tinker with your onboarding flow so users feel part of the community quicker. 

‍It’s easy to overcomplicate your server’s setup with an abundance of bots and automation. While these can be effective for familiar Discord users, they can also be intimidating for members that are new to the platform. 

To promote new member activity and make new members want to stick around, it’s also a great idea to make sure that your server layout and new member onboarding processes are clear and accessible!

Understanding Invite Traffic (AKA How to Know You’re Doing Things Right)

As a server admin, you’ll also be able to manage and track your server invite links. Here, you have access to a detailed log of server invite links, including the most popular links and referrers, so you’ll be able to pinpoint the invite links that have brought in the most members.

Keeping an eye on how your members found your server is a great insight into member behavior and can help you predict your community’s needs.

Finding popular invite links your members have shared on other platforms can help you maximize community growth by understanding where similar-minded users are on other far-flung corners of the internet.

Spending some time there and extending an invitation to your server is a great way to grow your community. They’re already engaged in the topics and interests of your server on other platforms, so they’re more likely to join and positively contribute to your server!

Top Tip: You have the power to disable invites, which can stop raids in their tracks and identify problematic members sharing invites with malicious intent. Here’s an article we wrote about keeping your community safe!

Most importantly, remember that while growth and promotion are important for the longevity of any server, focusing on the quality of your community will ultimately lead to the most organic and genuine growth.

Cultivating a healthy server culture is much more sustainable for server growth than inflating member numbers with insincere new join tactics. Server Insights provides the data to interpret growth, but a strong community with positive and thoughtful members is the best indicator of a successful Discord server.

With thanks to maryluv for all their help in writing this article.