8 Online Community Engagement Strategies – Ep 51
Social media is a great strategy for growing a strong community around your brand or cause, but you need community engagement strategies to keep it going. Here are 8 of our favorite community engagement strategies to keep your community going strong.
Here are our 8 Community Engagement Strategies to keep your online community growing strong. This episode is about how to get your people talking, keep them engaged and how to promote other collaborations from the relationships they build.
Episode Highlights:
Activate super fans to help out
^ Reach out to people who are super fans. We define a super fan as someone who consistently shows up and participates in an online community. Invite them to be a part of a smaller group of people that reaches out to other members. Madalyn discusses how she uses ambassadors during her Twitter Smarter chats to help warm up the crowd and welcome people.
^ Create Direct Message groups on Twitter, Facebook Messenger, LinkedIn or Instagram, where your small VIP group can connect, check-in and communicate.
^ Be sure to regularly show appreciation to your small group for their service.
Use Twitter Lists to Organize
^ Create a private Twitter List of super fans. When you talk with someone that is an obvious super fan, add them to your list. Keep track of who those people are because you may need to reach out to them at some point, and they will help to spread the word.
^ Create a public Twitter List of people that engage and make an effort to connect and engage with those people periodically to grow those relationships.Post a welcome message
^ When people join your community, encourage them to introduce themselves. That gets them in the habit of posting in your community.
^ People can be nervous to talk and may wait to speak until prompted by a post. Show them that it’s a warm place and a great place to connect. It’s important to foster collaboration and sharing in your community and make everyone feel welcome and comfortable.Use live stream video
^ Use video and live streaming to connect your groups.
^ There are so many reasons to live stream. People care what you’re doing and you’re allowing them to have a front row seat.Find an accountability partner
^ If you haven’t already done so, you should have an accountability partner. You should also encourage others to do the same.
^ Create an accountability partner system within your community where everyone chooses their partner and has someone to buddy up with. This will increase engagement as people in the group get to know each other better.Use email
^ Send an email with a link to a specific post in your Facebook group and ask for feedback.
^ This tactic works well for people who may miss activity, but have a lot to offer to the community.Create hot seat opportunities
^ Create opportunities for people in your community to ask you anything and interview individuals. This works well as a video in a private Facebook group.
^ Creating “Hot Seats” in your group, where you help one member solve a problem while others watch, provides a learning opportunity and gets people talking to each other.
^ Also, having an individual in the hot seat introduces you to the other person’s community.Conduct surveys
^ Use the polling and survey functions in your social media networks to listen to and understand the challenges people are facing, how they can overcome them and what’s motivating them.
^ Refer back Episode 44, Asking for Feedback from Customers with Polls and surveys, for more in-depth information on this topic.
Tools, links and apps mentioned:
Take Action
Come comment on our post in our Facebook Group and tell us which of these 8 Online Community Engagement Strategies (or even some we didn’t mention) that you will try this week to connect with your online community.
How to reach Kami:
If you’d like to learn more about Kami Huyse, visit her website at www.zoeticamedia.com. You can contact her by email at kami@zoeticamedia.com or tweet to @kamichat.
How to reach Madalyn:
If you’d like to learn more about Madalyn Sklar, visit her website at www.madalynsklar.com. You can contact her by email at madalyn@madalynsklar.com or tweet to @MadalynSklar.
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