Engaging members in your Connected CommunityTM

Why is engagement important?

• Member engagement = member retention• Community engagement can be a gateway to

further engagement, e.g. volunteerism, writing, speaking

• High engagement provides content and value to members without intensive staff resources

“I want to tell AANAC how impressed I am with the LTC Network Digest on AANAConnect. I am learning something new every day. And, when I have questions of my own the

answers are always helpful and prompt. I once posted a question and received a response in 7 minutes - you just

can't get that kind of attention anywhere else.”

Jan Davis, RN, CRNAC

How do members engage?

Creators

Critics

Collectors

Joiners

Spectators

Inactives

From Groundswell by Forrester Research

Today’s Agenda Beta-testing Launching your site Marketing your site Getting discussions going Generating Traffic Gamification Reporting Community 201

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Structure for Success

Who needs to be involved?

• Executive team• Staff• Traditional volunteers• Community champions• Subject-matter experts

Plan Your Beta Testing

Staff

50-100 trusted volunteers

1,000 volunteers

Entire membership

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How to recruit beta testers

• Send email asking for volunteers• Attendees of a smaller event• Hand-selecting from known, engaged

members• Committees

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Stages of Beta

• Formal: Have testers complete a set of tasks• Informal: Let testers play• Final: Let testers build content for others

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Ready to Launch?

Phase 1: Start Simple

Open Forum or Primary Groups – one community per 20,000-ish members

First wave of committees Too many groups, people don’t know where to

post

Phase 2: Building on

Install and roll out any add-on modules: mentoring, volunteering, microsites, etc.

Roll out to additional committees

Phase 3: “Full” launch If the site is thriving, consider adding

additional communities if members are requesting them or there is a business need.

Roll out blogs, glossary or other outstanding modules.

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Exercise

Take a moment to list what will happen in each phase of your rollout.

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Get the word out!

Plan Your Launch

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Coming Soon: A members-only forum for connecting, collaborating, and engaging with SWACHA employees and members. View our video to learn more!

Get the Word Out!

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Exercise

Brainstorm five tactics you could use to make your users aware the community is coming.

Contests Messaging is key: a complete profile helps others find you Simple incentives work!

Amex gift card Recognition Conference registration

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ExerciseClients have successfully used contests such as “Everyone who uploads a file to X library this week will be entered in a drawing for a gift card.”Brainstorm three other activities you could turn into contests to get members engaging in the site.

Plant the seeds

How to get conversation going?• Auto-subscribe all members to an open forum• Don’t expect discussion to happen organically• Develop seed questions • Controversy is OK!!!• Feature articles from journal, news stories,

etc.• Get subject matter experts out there• Make sure questions are answered

Discussion Group Launch Strategy1. Announce the community site via other vehicles

first (i.e. your e-mail marketing provider)2. Initial post from President/CEO/Board Chair3. Immediate response to initial post by community

manager so that question + response dynamic is established in the daily digest

4. Work with volunteers to develop 20 to 30 seed questions which will be “posted” by 10 to 15 different members over the first two weeks

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Importance of Seed Questions

For an organization that auto-subscribes 20,000 members:• With 30 seed questions, you can expect 200

messages posted in the first month.• Without any seed questions, you can expect

30 messages posted in the first month.

Exception: When an org is migrating from a previously active email based community.

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Seed Question How-To• Gather questions from active volunteers, beta

testers, or email a group of members.• Impersonate members with their permission

and post on their behalf to control the flow.• Plan to post two messages per day for the first

two weeks. • Enlist volunteers to answer the questions if it

doesn’t happen organically.

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Seed Question Exercise

What is the prevailing reason why you are a member of [your association]?

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Dear Colleagues, Someone recently asked me what the primary reason is that I’m a member of ABC. For me, it’s the ability to have easy access to me industry peers (to network and collaborate). However, it did start me thinking about what the primary reasons are for others?What are your thoughts? What’s your number 1 reason you are a member of ABC? (or if you’re up for it, the top 3 reasons).

Seed Question Exercise

What are the benefits of the ABC certification?

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Hi Everyone, I’ve been in the association world for a few years now and am thinking of studying for my ABC. I’ve looked at all the requirements and it seems like a huge amount of effort. I’m not opposed to putting in the hours, but I’d like to hear from others on whether you see value in it? Is it likely to help my career and will it benefit my employer?

Don’t:• Make the questions sterile• Use the same salutation or sign off with each

message• Ask your members to post the questions• Use all your more provocative questions all at

once

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Do:• Personalize the question, add a story/reason for asking the

question • Provide context• Ensure the author’s profile is complete• Ensure there is a response to every question within two

business days• Impersonate to post the seed questions at the right time• Ensure you have a pool of “champions” which you can reach

out to, to respond to questions etc• Thank the author of any organic post and ask them to update

their profile

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Driving Traffic

Traffic from Main Site

Develop Training Materials

• FAQs on community site• Training videos• Live webinars• Demos at events• One-on-one walk-throughs• “Did you know” ads

“Did You Know?” Ads

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Bi-directional Marketing

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Engagement Strategies• New Members –

Introduce Yourself– Change your onboarding

process to emphasize community

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More Engagement Strategies• LinkedIn Strategy – Migrate Engagement• Embrace Non-Members• Open the Conversation (or some of it) - SEO

Events

Conference Microsite Keep community elements in the background

Conference Community Open six weeks before event Use for attendee communications Post handouts to libraries Encourage speakers to get involved Extend learning/resource sharing

Member community lounge or help desk “Appy” hour Informal one-on-one training Giveaways Professional photographer Ribbons

Onsite Conference Tactics

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Inspire competition, reward success

Other recognition tactics Community moderator – official volunteer

position Give community champions a “sneak peak” at

upcoming upgrades – keep them in the know Contact members who receive MVM ribbons –

use other volunteers to help Recognize MVMs at conference awards

ceremony – silly and serious

Measure!

Pearson's Law: “That which is measured improves. That which is measured and reported improves exponentially."

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How to Read Engagement Stats• Agreed to terms: how many users have accepted that initial terms

of use page• Communities: the total number of communities. This includes all of

the hidden ones, so it's not all that useful.• Community members: a non-unique count of how many people are

in communities (if I were in two, I'd be counted twice)• Connections made: the number of contact requests that have been

sent and accepted• Content contributions: the number of discussion posts, blogs and

library entries have been made (I believe this number is also determined by multiplying the raw number by engagement point value)

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How to Read Engagement Stats• Engagement score: aggregate of all engagement activities hat have

happened within the site multiplied by their assigned point value (see Users and companies > engagement points)

• People with >2 friends: users who have two or more contacts in their contact list

• Profiles created: a misnomer since all members have a profile. It's actually a count of how many people have added a pic or bio to their profile

• Profiles with pictures: the number of profiles with profile photos added

• Total logins: how many total logins there have been to the site• Unique logins: how many unique individuals have logged into the

site.

Other measures

Renewal rates Member satisfaction (overall + community-

specific questions) Non-community engagement

Your job is never done

Explore Other Community Uses• Certification study groups• Staff/chapter leader branding library (logos,

guidelines, etc.)• Mentoring• Volunteerism (micro-volunteerism)• Directories• Intranet and/or www website

Client Examples• American Staffing Association – Public-facing

directories• Alliance of Cambridge Advisors’ Braintrust –

heavy use of tagging• Medical Group Management Association –

Online certification study groups• CASE (Intranet)

Angelika LipkinSenior Manager, Client Communicationsangelika@higherlogic.com202.559.7734

Heather McNairDirector of Client Successheather@higherlogic.com202.350.3502