How to Build a Minecraft Server Community

When embarking on a project, whether big or small, having a supportive community can be the difference between success and stagnation. They are there alongside you to participate in and enjoy what you're building. A strong community is more than just numbers— it's a good source of staffing, advertising, funding, and most importantly, motivation.

Many are quick to jump in on scheduling community events, giveaways, or other common means of maintaining a community, but these methods often fall short and are incapable of building one from the start.

A thriving community isn't built overnight. Instead, it must be grown and cultivated from an infinitesimally small start: you.

From an Idea to Reality

You, an individual armed with an idea, have everything to prove to people who might be interested in your project. People who decide to check it out may already start from a skeptical perspective, meaning you have to dig your way out of a hole through no fault of your own.

Luckily, you have already chosen a solid idea for your project after considering some of the basic concepts in our post on how to choose an idea for a Minecraft server.

Important of Welcoming Players

If people are sold on your idea and it resonates, it is now time to sell yourself as the right person to deliver it to them. Introduce the heart behind the it: you.

To grow a community, you have to lead by example. This means as a Minecraft server owner, you play the game that you are making. You experience everything from the players' perspective, keeping cheat permissions out of use and instead focusing on participating in what you are hoping to build.

When you are working on files for your server, you should always keep tabs on game chat to ensure that you can welcome people who join. Personalize the experience, make them feel important and it is more likely that they will stay.

Too many servers forget to greet new players or simply don't consider anything beyond a "Welcome!" message. CMI is an amazing Minecraft plugin to solve give a better welcome, and lets you add a custom welcome message with the players' skin with custom placeholders too. Learn more about adding custom text here.

But that being said, every players loves to be welcomed warmly into a server, and will most definitely increase their retention and make them feel part of your Minecraft community. Take advantage of it, as it will become one of the most helpful tips on how to build and grow your playerbase too!

Having trouble with keeping the players engaged or alive? Not to worry, we've also written a blog post on keeping your Minecraft players alive and engaged.

Invite Them to Your Discord Server

Once personal connections are made, chat and hang out with players on your server. You could achieve this by suggesting the player to join your Discord server and engage with the community there already. They could make new friends, and increase average playercounts across your server too!

Of course, don't bombard them with messages immediately. Instead, make them realize that it's fun to talk with you and other players too! If they seem interested, drop them a Discord link to your server.

Having to have a plugin link between the Discord and the game could better connect both homes of the community! You could also optionally give players who link their account a unique role or rank so that they feel more a part of the community.

DiscordSRV is a great plugin for that sort of use-case, it bridges your Minecraft server with Discord letting you sync chats, send alerts and forward your Minecraft console to channels, and more!

Worried about troublemakers or moderating users? We've written an in-depth guide on moderating a game server community with best practices and strategies we've learnt along our journey.

Players Helping Players

After you have gotten to know a few people who have decided to check out your project, it is important to see if some of them can help with welcoming new players. You cannot always be there for when somebody joins, and it is important to make every new join count when first starting.

If new players are inspired enough to help out, your community growth will begin to sustain itself as more and more people become involved. Not only will your server population rise, but you will also now have your first few candidates for staffing positions readily available.

It's still important to not promote all of these potential candidates, as maintaining a community feel wherein players and not just staff are chatting helps make a server feel alive.

Interested in diving deeper into community building? Have a chat with us at berrybyte.net/discord— share your thoughts, we'll give our $0.02 and drink enjoy some virtual coffee together. If you're looking for an affordable Minecraft host with powerful hardware, spin up a server at berrybyte.net/minecraft