This document provides guidance on building a strong online community. It recommends inviting the right members through research, clearly establishing rules of conduct, and having community managers who are actively engaged. Community managers should help conversations, address issues promptly, and document activities for oversight. While allowing open discussion, companies must avoid legal issues by meeting with legal teams and following developer policies rather than individual user policies.
Slides accompanying the University of Edinburgh Digital Day of Ideas 2016 (#DigScholEd) workshop on Tweeting and Blogging for Academics run by Nicola Osborne (EDINA) and Lorna Campbell (EDINA/LTW). The workshop took place on 18th May 2016. Read more about the event here: http://www.digital.hss.ed.ac.uk/ddi/ddi-2016/
Communities of Practice: Principles and TipsStan Garfield
Presentation on April 11, 2014 to Columbia University’s Master of Science in Information and Knowledge Strategy (IKNS) Program in the School of Professional Studies
This is the public version (with some redaction) of the slides from a social media training session I ran at RSPB Sandwell valley.
The RSPB are the largest Wildlife charity in Europe, with over 1 million members.
I was asked to attend a media training day at the RSPB Sandwell Valley nature reserve to run the social media element of a media training day. We also had several 'break out' sessions where attendees of the training session brainstormed various ideas for social media use within their organisation - this culminated in the planning of how to use social media to:
* Promote a local event in advance
* Maintain engagement during the event by leveraging the power of social media
* Use social media after the event to re-connect with those that attended and drive awareness to those that missed the event, to boost attendee figures for next year's event.
This slideshow contains much of the content we covered during the day, with some parts redacted for privacy reasons.
If you're interested in learning more about the great work the RSPB does, visit: https://www.rspb.org.uk/
If you're interested in learning more about how social media can help your charity or business, contact Mike Gracia (mike@mikegracia.com) for a chat:
http://www.mikegracia.com/ (my blog and freelance site)
http://www.thinkabledigital.com/ (The digital agency I also work for)
Meaningful Social Media by Mythology LLCMythology LLC
Learn how creating meaningful conversations based on emotional and functional needs with your most prized customers and prospects can radically change how you do marketing.
Engaging Online Through Community-Based Social MarketingLauri M. Baker
Breakout session presented at the Association for Communication Excellence in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Human Sciences (ACE) Conference in New Orleans, 2017. Presentation by Dr. Lauri M. Baker, Audrey E. H. King, and Dr. Kristina Boone.
Integrating Social Media Into an Overall Marketing PlanForRent.com
Social media is an essential element to most modern marketing campaigns. The reach of social media is virtually limitless with significant power from a marketing and advertising perspective. Join Jamie Gorski, Senior Vice President, Corporate Marketing with The Bozzuto Group, and Erica Campbell Byrum, Director of Social Media for Homes.com and ForRent.com, as they examine the potential power of social media channels and share how to achieve successful marketing results with Internet marketing components.
This presentation was given at Landlord WEBCON on May 8, 2014 in Toronto, Canada.
Slides accompanying the University of Edinburgh Digital Day of Ideas 2016 (#DigScholEd) workshop on Tweeting and Blogging for Academics run by Nicola Osborne (EDINA) and Lorna Campbell (EDINA/LTW). The workshop took place on 18th May 2016. Read more about the event here: http://www.digital.hss.ed.ac.uk/ddi/ddi-2016/
Communities of Practice: Principles and TipsStan Garfield
Presentation on April 11, 2014 to Columbia University’s Master of Science in Information and Knowledge Strategy (IKNS) Program in the School of Professional Studies
This is the public version (with some redaction) of the slides from a social media training session I ran at RSPB Sandwell valley.
The RSPB are the largest Wildlife charity in Europe, with over 1 million members.
I was asked to attend a media training day at the RSPB Sandwell Valley nature reserve to run the social media element of a media training day. We also had several 'break out' sessions where attendees of the training session brainstormed various ideas for social media use within their organisation - this culminated in the planning of how to use social media to:
* Promote a local event in advance
* Maintain engagement during the event by leveraging the power of social media
* Use social media after the event to re-connect with those that attended and drive awareness to those that missed the event, to boost attendee figures for next year's event.
This slideshow contains much of the content we covered during the day, with some parts redacted for privacy reasons.
If you're interested in learning more about the great work the RSPB does, visit: https://www.rspb.org.uk/
If you're interested in learning more about how social media can help your charity or business, contact Mike Gracia (mike@mikegracia.com) for a chat:
http://www.mikegracia.com/ (my blog and freelance site)
http://www.thinkabledigital.com/ (The digital agency I also work for)
Meaningful Social Media by Mythology LLCMythology LLC
Learn how creating meaningful conversations based on emotional and functional needs with your most prized customers and prospects can radically change how you do marketing.
Engaging Online Through Community-Based Social MarketingLauri M. Baker
Breakout session presented at the Association for Communication Excellence in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Human Sciences (ACE) Conference in New Orleans, 2017. Presentation by Dr. Lauri M. Baker, Audrey E. H. King, and Dr. Kristina Boone.
Integrating Social Media Into an Overall Marketing PlanForRent.com
Social media is an essential element to most modern marketing campaigns. The reach of social media is virtually limitless with significant power from a marketing and advertising perspective. Join Jamie Gorski, Senior Vice President, Corporate Marketing with The Bozzuto Group, and Erica Campbell Byrum, Director of Social Media for Homes.com and ForRent.com, as they examine the potential power of social media channels and share how to achieve successful marketing results with Internet marketing components.
This presentation was given at Landlord WEBCON on May 8, 2014 in Toronto, Canada.
5. Or one that devolves into anarchy. Building a strong, engaged
community takes planning, time and effort to execute.
6. HOSTING A GREAT COMMUNITY
• Invite the right guests
• Help strike up the conversation
• Be clear on rules of etiquette
• Be a present, generous host
• Document the occasion
• Steer clear of law enforcement
7. INVITE THE RIGHT GUESTS
• Gather research about the people you expect to join your community
– Online surveys or focus groups
– Personas
– Simmons data, Forrester Technographics
• Visit and observe communities with a similar audience
– Facebook, Twitter, blogs, community sites, online comments
– Listening tools – Radian6, Google Alerts, Social Mention
• Articulate your value proposition
• Plan to attract an audience
– Advertise (especially important on Facebook)
– Contribute to an existing community
– Leverage the social graph (i.e., people want to be where their friends are)
8. HELP STRIKE UP THE CONVERSATION
• Outline your content strategy
– Identify the kinds of content you’ll post to your community (making sure
content aligns with your value proposition)
– Strike a balance between starting conversations and pushing out
messages
– Vary the types of content – text, photos, videos
– Document the voice and tone of the content you’ll create
• Anticipate the kinds of questions and concerns you’ll get, and work with
subject matter experts to create answers
• Create an editorial calendar
– Ensure appropriate frequency
– Strike a balance between content types
– Ensure that you are aligned with other communication channels for both
messaging and timing
– Share your publishing schedules with other stakeholders
9. BE CLEAR ON RULES OF ETIQUETTE
• Create and publish community-facing guidelines
– Special K
– BoingBoing
– Gawker
• Develop robust internal-facing guidelines
– Document what is allowed and not allowed in the
community to as specific a level of detail as possible
– Give people tools to guide action within the
community
– Start with existing social media policies if any
10. BE A PRESENT, GENEROUS HOST
• Find the right community managers. They will be crucial to your success.
– Adept and actively using social media platforms
– Cares about the same things the community does
– Builds relationships within the community and with your stakeholders
• Provide coverage to effectively manage the community
– Community Management is very labor intensive
– Vendors like Vitrue and Context Optional provide tools to streamline publishing
and moderation, but you need a highly engaged person involved in your
community
– Nights, weekends and holidays
• Bring out the best in your community
– Prepare to welcome new members, answer questions and address issues quickly
– Remove haters and trolls, but allow fair and balanced dialog
• The community will often jump to your defense
– Recognize your most active members
– Accept that your community members may take the community in new directions,
and allow them to help shape the conversation
11. DOCUMENT THE OCCASION
• Keep careful records of activity within the community
– Having a log of activity and key decisions helps ease handoffs
between moderators
– Allows you to cross train moderators/managers on multiple
communities
– Enforces best practice processes
• Keep your stakeholders in the loop
– Define your key performance indicators and measure against
them
– Create a regular schedule for reporting to stakeholders
– Modify your content strategy or approach to community as
necessary
• Celebrate your successes
– Share stories as well as metrics
– Make sure feedback makes its way thru your organization
12. STEER CLEAR OF LAW ENFORCEMENT
• Remember that companies and brands are held to a different
standard in the social space than individuals
– A user can say things online – even in your community – that
you cannot
– Don’t follow user policies; look for developer policies
– The law is nascent and evolving
• Meet with your legal team early and often
– Brief them on your plans
– Seek their input and approval for guidelines and escalation
processes
– Seek approval for content
– Provide feedback if their constraints are too restrictive; view
the guidelines as a living document that can be negotiated
• The best crisis management is crisis avoidance
13. RESOURCES
IMAGES - used under a Creative Commons license
• Slide 2: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaako/
• Slide 3: http://www.flickr.com/photos/_sml/
• Slide 4: http://www.flickr.com/photos/salz/
• Slide 5: http://www.flickr.com/photos/endiaferon/
RESEARCH TOOLS
• Forrester Technographics: http://www.forrester.com/empowered/tool_consumer.html
• Radian6: http://www.radian6.com/
• Google Alerts: http://www.google.com/alerts
• Social Mention: http://www.socialmention.com/
EXAMPLES OF COMMUNITY GUIDELINES AND SOCIAL MEDIA POLICIES
• Special K on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/specialkus
• BoingBoing: http://www.boingboing.net/2009/10/01/commenting.html
• Gawker: http://gawker.com/commentfaq/
• Air Force Blog Policy: http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2009/01/airforce_blog_rules_010909/
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
• Facebook Developer Policy: http://developers.facebook.com/policy/
• Social Media Update Law Blog: http://www.socialmedialawupdate.com/
• TechCrunch: http://techcrunch.com/
• Mashable: http://mashable.com/
• AllFacebook: http://www.allfacebook.com/