How Community Facilitators can help power the Community
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This document provides 11 tips for community facilitators to help engage and retain new community members. The tips include introducing yourself to welcome newcomers, sending a welcome pack with community information, advertising the community on social media and professional networks, helping new members make introductions to others, sending personal invites to potential members, creating a members' marketplace to connect people, providing useful community content, posting forum discussions on other sites to drive engagement, publishing regular newsletters, hiring bloggers to contribute content, and hosting "hotseat" question and answer sessions to involve members. The overall goal is to welcome newcomers, encourage participation, and help people connect to build a regular community.
How Community Facilitators can help power the Community
- 1. Batteries Not Included How community facilitators can help power the community www.communities.idea.gov.uk
- 3. Community facilitators help power the community so choose your batteries wisely…. Here’s 11 tips that can help power your community, especially around….
- 4. From stranger to passer by From lurker to participant From participant to regular From passer by to lurker Getting and Retaining members .
- 5. So you have 21 days Supposedly it takes 21 days for something to become a habit. So if that’s the case, if you can keep new members of your community engaged for their first 21 days, they should become hooked.
- 6. Tip 1 - Introduce yourself Don’t send a standard e-mail. Welcome the newcomer and ask relevant questions. The goal here is to begin a conversation, a conversation that continues past the initial interaction. Highlight discussions they might like to participate in. Give them something to do.
- 7. Tip 2 - Send them a welcome pack C O P A welcome pack brings newcomers up to speed with the latest happenings in the community and its history.
- 8. Tip 3 - Advertise Join us Update your email signature with a link to the community Create some simple postcards or business cards with the what’s in it for me (WIIFM) for the potential members Tell people about it on other professional networks or social networking sites e.g. Twitter, LinkedIn
- 9. Tip 4 - Introductions Help to place the newcomer in a group with others. Ask those with similar interests or location to introduce themselves
- 10. Tip 5 - lots of invites Think about your potential audience and tailor your invites to each of them. A personal message is better than a mass mail out. Also ask your current members to invite new people
- 11. Tip 6 - Members Market Place A marketplace could be seen as a ‘dating service’ for knowledge. It identifies what people know and what they need to know on a particular subject, then connects them appropriately.
- 12. Tip 7 - Content Content is key Article’s Presentations Reports Guides Video Etc
- 13. Tip 8 - Forum posts exchange Strike a deal with members or facilitators of similar communities where you can cross post discussions and help each other to stimulate discussion
- 14. Tip 9 - Newsletters Read all about it!
- 15. Tip 10 - Hire bloggers Encourage key members or subject matter experts to blog on a regular basis. This will give the community a heads up on upcoming topics or an insight into the hottest topics and events
- 16. Tip 11 - Hotseat Hotseat’s are a useful tool that can be used within a Community of Practice; it enables participants to ask the person or persons in the hotseat questions, which they can post over a set period of time. Normally these questions and answer session are hosted within the forum to help capture the responses.
- 17. Welcome them, give them pointers on getting started, suggest topics where they might participate, and tell them about any interesting upcoming events. Provide some reward to those who make the effort From stranger to passer by Make personalised invitation From lurker to participant From participant to regular From passer by to lurker Getting and Retaining members Make potential members aware of your community Building content that will attract members Encourage members to bring in interesting participants Send an email to new members within 24 hours of their membership Highlight community content Create "small steps" for encouraging participation, posting regular questions or forum answers ALWAYS greet newcomers, and encourage other community members to welcome them. Write a regular newsletter highlighting your site and community People return to places where they find a group of people to talk to. If you do not have such a place, you will not be able to retain members. No effort on your part, no matter how great, will create a regular where there is no community Facilitate members to find people to talk, through personal profiles, highlighting member interests, discussions, and so on.