LIVE SITE REVIEW AND REVAMP

Heather McNair – Director of Client Success, Higher LogicJacqueline Slater – Senior Project Manager, Higher Logic

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Keys to a successful community• Remove any barriers to participation:

• Auto-login• Auto-subscribe• Simplify navigation – make it easy to get to the most common items• Don’t drive members to other social networking sites

• Never stop building awareness• That which gets measured improves. That which gets measured and

reported on improves exponentially.

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About APSA• The American Political Science Association,

founded in 1903, is the leading professional organization for the study of political science and serves more than 15,000 member political scientists in over 80 countries.

• APSA launched its Higher Logic Connected Community site, APSA Connect, in the summer of 2009.

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Community Health Check1. Is APSA on Higher Logic’s most up-to-date, best practice template?

• No

2. How many people have logged in? • 13,597 members in the Directory, but only 35% have logged in

3. Are users networking with one another? • Only 15% of users have uploaded a profile picture

4. How are members engaging on the platform?• Members are segmented into hundreds of Communities within 41 Community

Types. There is no consistent, daily conversation in any one Discussion Group• No Open Forum Community where all members can interact with one another

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Streamline the Community Structure

1. Launch an all-member open forum (>25,000 members, this may be a couple of forums)

2. Archive all inactive communities

3. Consolidate redundant communities

4. Archive all inactive microsites

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Community Re-launch Strategy – Open Forum

Auto-subscribe members to an open forum. If done right, you’ll have less than a 15% unsubscribe rate. This compares to a 20% subscribe rate with an opt-in model. The math is easy!

TIP! There is a direct correlation between the number of seed questions that you post to the Open Forum and the success of the community site! QUALITY MATTERS. Submit a spreadsheet containing each seed question, the subject-line of the question and a link to the profile that you will impersonate to post the question to Higher Logic for review prior to launching the Open Forum.

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Market the Community to Members

1. Incorporate the community site into your strategic planning

2. Create a detailed site marketing plan with weekly and monthly tasks

3. Remember to push users to the community from your main org site (use our new APIs)

4. Hold engagement contests• Messaging is key (WIIFM)• Simple incentives work

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Define Success – Set Engagement Goals

• What does success look like for your Community?• For every 1000 members, aim for 20 messages posted to the Open Forum by the

third month after the launch/re-launch. • 3 Months Post Launch - Aim for 260 unique messages in the Open Forum • 6 Months Post Launch – Aim to double participation again – 780 messages total for 6 month

period. • 1 Year Post Launch – Aim to engage 20% of subscribers (divide # unique authors or posts by the

# Open Forum subscribers).• Six months post-launch, 20% of your members should have logged in to the

community (unique logins)• An additional 15-20% should log in each year (Year 1 = 40%, Year 2 = 60%, Year 3 =

75%)

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Define Success• Track other relevant engagement stats on a month-by-month basis.

• To collect stats, visit Admin > Reports. Record stats on an engagement dashboard.

• Present engagement successes to your leadership with an infographic.

• Set specific short-term goals: Profile Picture iPad Marketing Campaign

• Aim to double the number of users with Profile Pictures from 801 to 1602 during the course of the iPad marketing campaign

• After the campaign, Higher Logic will provide APSA with two custom reports: a list of all users with a picture, and a list of users without a picture so that they can target these unengaged users in future campaigns.

Heather McNairDirector of Client Successheather@higherlogic.com202.350.3502

Jacqueline SlaterSenior Implementation Project ManagerJacqueline@higherlogic.com703.201.5958