People crave recognition and belonging. When users feel seen by a community and connected to others, they don't just return—they become your most vocal advocates.
Connection is the psychological force that drives us to seek relationships, belonging, and social validation. It's about feeling part of something bigger than ourselves.
We're wired to seek acceptance and connection with groups we identify with. Products that create communities tap into this fundamental human need.
We feel compelled to return favors and maintain social balance. Products that enable mutual support create stronger engagement.
See how successful products use Connection to build communities and drive engagement.
Fitness Tracking
Shows your runs publicly to your network, lets others give 'kudos,' and displays segment leaderboards comparing you to local athletes.
Your workout isn't just personal data—it's social currency. Public kudos and segment rankings transform solo exercise into community participation and friendly competition.
Community Platform
Creates voice and text channels where communities hang out in real-time, with roles, permissions, and always-on spaces for connection.
You're not messaging people—you're hanging out in a space. The always-on nature creates belonging through presence, not just interaction.
Professional Network
Makes professional connections visible, shows mutual connections, and displays public endorsements and recommendations from your network.
Your professional reputation becomes social proof. Endorsements from your network validate your skills more powerfully than any resume.
Practical strategies to build relationships and community in your product.
Show users who else is present and what they're doing
"Create ambient awareness of community. Spotify's 'Friend Activity' sidebar shows what your network is listening to right now—you're not alone, you're part of a shared experience."
Let users acknowledge each other's contributions where others can see
"Make appreciation visible to the group. Strava's kudos appear on your activity feed for your network to see—recognition from peers, witnessed by the community."
Display what similar users chose to guide behavior and create belonging
"Guide through peer behavior. Booking.com shows '23 people are looking at this hotel'—you're making decisions alongside others, not alone."
Create systems where helping others benefits everyone
"Make mutual benefit obvious. Dropbox's referral program gives both parties storage—helping others directly helps you, creating natural advocacy."
Specific tactics to strengthen Connection in your product. Each one is grounded in behavioral science and proven in real products.
We look to others' behavior to guide our own
Booking.com's '23 people are looking at this hotel right now' creates urgency through peer behavior
Show user counts, display popular choices, highlight what similar users did, use testimonials from peers
Public acknowledgment motivates more than private rewards
Strava's kudos—visible recognition from your network motivates more than personal stats alone
Make achievements visible to others, enable peer acknowledgment, create public profiles, show social validation
Collective targets increase individual commitment
Fitness apps with partner challenges see 40% higher completion than solo goals
Create team challenges, show group progress, enable accountability partners, make success collective
People feel compelled to return favors
Dropbox giving extra storage for referrals—you got value, now help others get value
Give before asking, provide value upfront, make reciprocation easy and beneficial, create mutual benefit
Users attribute more importance to opinions from authority figures
'Recommended by experts' or 'As featured in...' signals credibility and guides decisions
Show expert endorsements, display credentials, use authority voices appropriately, build credibility through association
People judge things based on their feelings toward one trait
Apple's design excellence creates assumption that everything they make works beautifully
Excel at one visible thing, let that quality halo other aspects, make first impressions count
Users adopt beliefs proportional to how many others already have
'Join 50,000+ users' signals safety and popularity—if that many people use it, it must be good
Show adoption numbers, display trends, highlight growing popularity, make joining feel safe through numbers
Users care disproportionately about an individual vs. a group
Charity: Water showing one specific person whose life changed is more powerful than 'we helped 10,000 people'
Tell individual stories, show specific examples, make impact personal not statistical, humanize data
We seek ways to communicate our identity
Spotify's year-in-review becomes shareable because it reflects personal taste and identity
Enable profile customization, allow style choices, create shareable artifacts, let users show who they are
We favor those who are part of our group
GitHub's green contribution graph signals 'you're a developer' to other developers—tribal membership
Create insider language/symbols, build visible membership tiers, show who else is in the group, use tribal signaling
Visible markers of achievement drive behavior
LinkedIn's 'Top Voice' badge or Twitter's checkmark—signals others can see
Make status visible to others, create tiered badges, show rankings publicly, enable reputation building
Showing aggregate contribution creates meaning
Wikipedia: 'This article has been read 2.3M times, and you edited it'—your work mattered to millions
Display total community impact, show individual contribution to whole, quantify collective achievement
Start by evaluating where Connection fits in your motivational spine—then use these tactics to create the community and recognition that turns users into advocates.