Community Building Tiffany St James Stimulation Ltd Digital Engagement – Public Participation As entrepreneurs we are always looking for cost effective ways to achieve our business objectives: growth / sales / positioning One way is through creating and leading a community of interested people in your sector Suppliers, clients, competitors, stakeholders, authorities

Blogs Podcasts Wikis Digital channels Social Networks Mashups I’m preaching to the converted I’m sure about the ways that social media can enable this It useful to be aware that everything you say and do in these spaces Exists in perpetuity Affects how people think about you and your brand Podcasts Mashups

How? The Coca Cola way.. There’s a party YOU are invited Behave as a guest Bring a gift Visit often Coca cola’s use of social media guidance is light and applicable if taking part in a community Online conversations are very much like offline ones They happen in spaces Offline that might be the pub If you worked for shell you wouldn’t barge up to a group of strangers and try to sell petrol You’d listen You might hang around the edges to see if it’s the right group for you You might join in my commenting on what someone else has said Agreeing, or giving different info, asking a question..

There’s some great free or cost effective tools that you can use to garner opinion Survey tools can help PR’s love them – statistics are marketable Show of hands – who has heard of Wufoo? A survey tool Uservoice? - allows you you to ask questions, people can add questions and then everyone can vote them up or down

Netvibes? Tool to capture current conversations and themes on social media for searchable terms COI National Pandemic Flu ‘ Swine Flu’ digital comms strategy We monitor what’s being said about Swine Flu on different social media so we can quickly respond to popular public opinion on information gaps Netvibes is public-facing – whatever you are searching for will be shown

Blending on and offline The reason we are all here today as a community endeavour by The Engine Room Particularly good at blending on and offline community building Use social media to promote events and give more information Gather people together at free and paid for events Capture the event and post back online Closing the loop

Face to Face Creative solutions to gathering your community in one place without you having to bear all the organisational or financial concern Other meet ups Entretain allow you to buy block tickets for your clients or community at an event they organise, ensuring you have 2 hours business time but then you have a social offering that expands beyond your industry

Cialdini’s six principles of influence Reciprocation Commitment and Consistency Social Proof Authority Liking Scarcity Dr Robert Cialdini is best known for his popular book on persuasion and marketing, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion Cialdini defines six “weapons of influence”: Save energy to save the world Save energy to save money Save energy because your neighbours are doing it already Only the third seemed to have a significant impact on the behaviour of the people People will do things together, if other people are, not to be left out or behind. Marketers know this

The principles have not changed It all starts with strategy What are your objectives? Who is your audience? Where are they? What are the influenced by? This is no different to any of your current strategic thinking