engaging and empowering your online community

Community Engagement & Development #book2 | @glecharles

Engaging and Empoweringyour Online Community

Guy LeCharles Gonzalezloudpoet.com

@glecharles

[email protected]

New York City | February 13, 2011


Community Development

What is Community Development? Why is it important? Where is your community? Whose responsibility is it? How do you do it? When will it have an impact?

Community Engagement & Development @glecharles

“Without great audiences we cannot have great poets.”Walt Whitman


What is Community Development?

Definition: To build and manage a customer base across a brand’s media platforms—print, digital and in-person events.

It involves the continual recruitment of new customers and consistent engagement with existing customers through integrated marketing campaigns that include direct mail, email, online messaging, face-to-face interaction, and word of mouth.

It includes all customer touch points—from editorial and circulation, to ecommerce and education, to advertising and customer service—via our own media platforms, and everywhere else our community gathers.

Community leads to commerce, not vice versa.


The social infrastructure of the community is much more important than the technology infrastructure.

http://bit.ly/dA1CcG


Why is it Important?

“We need to stay grounded in high-level theories of what customers want, how we can meet their needs profitably, and how we can communicate to motivate them,” says David Meer, chief research officer at WPP’s Enfactico.

“And we must do this in a world where consumers control the conversation.”

--The Endgame Of Media Buying And SellingMax Kalehoff, AttentionMaxhttp://bit.ly/fz3iiX


Community Manager Driven modelCustomers

Products

CommunityWe act and behave in groups online across social networks. You must understand the community dynamics that surround your customers if you want to sell more… and develop a B2C brand.--Shiv Singh

http://bit.ly/gXvWpP


Where is Your Community?You Don't Build Communities, You Enable Them

from the enable-people;-don't-define-them dept

What the rest of the internet has shown is that you build community not by building a community, but by enabling a group of people to do what they want. And that can include commenting on the news, creating the news or sharing the news among many other things.

There isn't a magic bullet to create a community -- but [publishers] should look to see what they can do to enable a community to form and then get out of the way.

--Mike Masnick, techdirt.com

http://bit.ly/ehqyi5


“Focus less on the products [we] have created in the past, and more on the problems and challenges [our] audience is in need of immediate solutions for.”--Dan Blank, Publishing, Innovation & the Web - http://bit.ly/gpwcCB


“Because they are voluntary, people do not remain in communities that no longer meet their emotional or intellectual needs.”

--Henry Jenkinshttp://bit.ly/fHfHA0


Whose responsibility is it?

Marketing is everything a company does to acquire customers and maintain a relationship with them.

--Investopedia.com


“Be aware that not only do you need to be prepared to communicate over these platforms, but you need to be ready to deal with the responses you get.”

--Caroline McCarthy, CNET news

FOLIO: Social Media Will be ‘Part of Virtually Everything’http://bit.ly/cyqWeK

Social Media Reality Check


Email is a more targeted form of sending content; while content-sharers may shoot off mass emails to large distribution lists, most email shares are likely sent to a person or small group selected based on the specific content being shared.

Sharing via social networks like Facebook, by contrast, typically involves feeding items to an entire friends list.

eMarketer: Email Still Tops Facebook for Keeping in Touchhttp://bit.ly/dpRyrB

Social Media Reality Check


How do WE Do It?

Create valuable content Fish where the fish are Give others a voice Spotlight your contributors Join your community

--Mack CollierFive Ways To Increase Engagement And Build Communityhttp://bit.ly/fPYJgs


Implementation and ImpactFirst steps

Quantify, identify & segment existing customer base Maximize ROI for circulation and educational initiatives Increase relevant engagement with core audience Identify opportunities for new content, products and services

Quantify, identify & segment external customer base Maximize ROI for SEO/SEM and social media strategies Deeper, relevant engagement with broader community Identify opportunities for new content, products and services

Review, coordinate and optimize all marketing points of contact Establish a consistent, authentic voice for the brand Establish standards for customer acquisition, service and retention

initiatives Develop fully integrated, community marketing strategy


Free – News, commentary, blogs, public forums, podcasts, webcasts, social media; all open access and socialized for comments and sharing.

Registered – Enewsletters, moderated forums, promotional downloads, introductory webinars, research and white paper summaries, product demos and samples. IMPORTANT: User-Generated Content (blogs, images, links)

Paid –Books, magazines, databases, professional development programs, intensive webinars, research and white papers, events.

Content Strategy


Engagement Strategy

Listening - using social media as “real time” research and gaining insights from listening to the community.

Talking - using conversations within the community to promote products or services, authentically.

Energizing - building brand stewardship; identifying enthusiastic readers and using them to persuade others.

Supporting - making it possible for readers to help each other.

Embracing - turning readers into a resource for innovation.

Via Forrester Research/Groundswell


Engagement Strategy


“Some of these conversations ended in a sale, but don’t let that fool you. The sale was merely the exclamation mark at the end of the sentence.”

Markets Are Conversations, CLUETRAIN MANIFESTO

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nic/230233024/


Engaging and Empoweringyour Online Community

Guy LeCharles Gonzalezloudpoet.com

@glecharles

[email protected]

New York City | February 13, 2011

engaging and empowering your online community

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