Almost every community tells new members to introduce themselves, and almost every introductions thread ends up as a wall of hellos that nobody reads after the first week. A new member writes a careful paragraph about who they are, gets two emoji, and learns that posting here goes nowhere.
An introduction is only worth asking for if someone reads it and does something with it. This is a guide to running an introductions thread where that happens: what to ask, how to reply, how to turn introductions into connections, and how to protect the people who share.
An introduction nobody reads is a form, not a welcome
The introductions thread is the first thing most communities ask of a new member, and it is usually the first place they are ignored. The owner replies to the first few dozen, then gets busy. The thread grows long. New introductions land at the bottom of something nobody scrolls, and a new member's first post receives the same response as a form submission.
That is worse than not asking. A member who was never asked to introduce themselves has lost nothing. A member who did, and heard nothing back, has learned exactly how much this community notices them.
Ask a better question than "tell us about yourself"
"Tell us about yourself" produces biographies: job, city, a hobby, and nothing anyone can reply to. The prompt decides what you get, so ask for the things that start conversations.
| Instead of… | Ask… |
|---|---|
| Tell us about yourself | What are you working on right now? |
| What do you do? | What could you help someone here with? |
| Where are you from? | What made you join this week, rather than last year? |
| What are your hobbies? | What would make this community worth it for you in three months? |
"What could you help with?" is the most useful question on the list. It gives new members something to offer rather than only something to ask for, and it tells you exactly who to introduce them to.
Every introduction gets a reply
The single most important rule: no introduction goes unanswered, and the reply comes within a day. Not an emoji. A sentence that shows someone read it: "a bookkeeping course for creative freelancers is a gap I have not seen anyone fill well; what made you pick that audience?"
In a small community, that is your job, and it is the best hour you spend each week. As the community grows, hand it to a rota of members who enjoy welcoming people; a reply from a peer often lands better than one from the owner, because it shows the new member that other members, not just the person who sells the membership, are paying attention. That is one of the clearest things to hand over to members.
The real job of the reply is a connection
A warm reply is good. A reply that connects the new member to someone specific is far better: "You should meet Dana — she moved from agency work to courses last year and has opinions about exactly this." Then mention Dana, so she sees it.
That one move does what no welcome message can. It gives the new member a person rather than a place, and it gives Dana a reason to show up. It is the same matchmaking that gets members talking to each other everywhere else, introducing two people in public with a reason and naming what each of them knows. The introductions thread is where it pays off most, because the new member has just told you what they need.
One thread forever, or one a month?
A single introductions thread that runs for years becomes unreadable. The newest introductions are buried, nobody browses old ones, and joining it feels like signing a guest book in an empty hall.
There are two better shapes. In a small community, a fresh thread each month gives the newest members a room together and a natural moment to welcome them as a group; the alumni guide recommends exactly this for each new cohort. In a larger one, an introductions space where each introduction is its own post works better: every newcomer gets their own replies, and each introduction can be found on its own instead of being stacked inside one enormous thread.
Whichever you choose, keep the prompt pinned at the top, so the question you want answered is the first thing a new member sees.
Introductions are not the same as profiles
A profile is what stays true about someone; an introduction is what is true this week. They do different jobs. The profile answers "who is this person" when someone looks them up months later, which is why what you ask on a member profile deserves its own thought. The introduction answers "what are they here for right now", and it is the thing worth replying to.
So do not make the introduction repeat the profile. If the profile already says what someone does, the introduction can skip straight to what they are working on and what they need.
Protect the people who share
An introductions thread is a list of people describing what they are working on and what they are struggling with — which makes it, unavoidably, a target list for pitches. Ask only for what members are comfortable sharing in public, never require personal details, and tell new members in the same breath that unsolicited sales messages break the rules and how to report one.
The members most likely to share openly are the newest ones, and they are also the least likely to report a problem. Protecting them is part of running the thread.
Not everyone will introduce themselves
Some members will never post an introduction, and that is fine. Many will read the thread for weeks first; some will reply to someone else's introduction before writing their own, which is a perfectly good way in. Do not make introducing yourself a condition of anything, and do not chase people who skip it: members who only read are often getting exactly what they came for.
What the software can and cannot do
In Mateflow, an introductions thread can be a single pinned post that members reply to, or a feed space where each introduction is its own post; schedule a fresh monthly thread in advance if you choose that shape. Mentioning a member in a reply notifies them, which is how the connection reaches the person you are introducing.
The onboarding checklist can point new members straight at it: add a Visit Link step with the thread's address, and write the step's title and description yourself. An automation can assign a tag when someone introduces themselves (triggered by a new post in the introductions space, or by a comment if introductions are replies to one thread), and the member list filters by tag, so you can see who has introduced themselves; automations are on every plan, with the number of rules set by your plan. Members can choose not to appear in the member directory, and custom profile fields, for the details that belong on a profile rather than in an introduction, are not on every plan.
The part the software cannot do is the reply. A tag tells you who introduced themselves, not who has been answered, so a rota of welcomers, or you, reading the thread every day is what makes it work.
Three things not to do
Do not ask for introductions you will not read. An unanswered introduction teaches a new member that nobody is listening.
Do not let one thread run forever. Start a fresh one each month, or give each introduction its own post.
Do not reply with an emoji alone. One sentence that shows you read it, and one person to meet, is the whole job.
The bottom line
The introductions thread is where most communities first ask something of a new member, and where most of them first let that member down.
So make it worth answering: a question better than "tell us about yourself", a reply to every introduction within a day, a connection to one specific person, a thread that stays fresh, and a warning about pitches before anyone receives one. Do that, and an introduction becomes the first conversation a member has in your community — not the last time they post in it.