1. Engaging members in your Connected Community TM

2. Why is engagement important? Member engagement = member retention Community engagement can be a gateway to further engagement, e.g. volunteerism, writing, speaking High engagement provides content and value to members without intensive staff resources

3. “I want to tell AANAC how impressed I am with the LTC Network Digest on AANAConnect. I am learning something new every day. And, when I have questions of my own the answers are always helpful and prompt. I once posted a question and received a response in 7 minutes - you just can't get that kind of attention anywhere else.” Jan Davis, RN, CRNAC

4. How do members engage? From Groundswell by Forrester Research

5. Today’s Agenda  Beta-testing  Launching your site  Marketing your site  Getting discussions going  Generating Traffic  Gamification  Reporting  Community 201

6. Structure for Success 6

7. Who needs to be involved? Executive team Staff Traditional volunteers Community champions Subject-matter experts

8. Plan Your Beta Testing Staff 50-100 trusted volunteers 1,000 volunteers Entire membership

9. How to recruit beta testers Send email asking for volunteers Attendees of a smaller event Hand-selecting from known, engaged members Committees 9

10. Stages of Beta 10 Formal: Have testers complete a set of tasks Informal: Let testers play Final: Let testers build content for others

11. Ready to Launch? 11

12. Phase 1: Start Simple  Open Forum or Primary Groups – one community per 20,000-ish members  First wave of committees  Too many groups, people don’t know where to post

13. Phase 2: Building on  Install and roll out any add-on modules: mentoring, volunteering, microsites, etc.  Roll out to additional committees

14. Phase 3: “Full” launch  If the site is thriving, consider adding additional communities if members are requesting them or there is a business need.  Roll out blogs, glossary or other outstanding modules.

15. Exercise Take a moment to list what will happen in each phase of your rollout. 15

16. Get the word out! 16

17. Plan Your Launch

18. 18 Coming Soon: A members-only forum for connecting, collaborating, and engaging with SWACHA employees and members. View our video to learn more!video Get the Word Out!

19. Exercise Brainstorm five tactics you could use to make your users aware the community is coming. 19

20. Contests  Messaging is key: a complete profile helps others find you  Simple incentives work!  Amex gift card  Recognition  Conference registration

21. Exercise Clients have successfully used contests such as “Everyone who uploads a file to X library this week will be entered in a drawing for a gift card.” Brainstorm three other activities you could turn into contests to get members engaging in the site. 21

22. Plant the seeds

23. How to get conversation going? Auto-subscribe all members to an open forum Don’t expect discussion to happen organically Develop seed questions Controversy is OK!!! Feature articles from journal, news stories, etc. Get subject matter experts out there Make sure questions are answered

24. Discussion Group Launch Strategy 1.Announce the community site via other vehicles first (i.e. your e-mail marketing provider) 2.Initial post from President/CEO/Board Chair 3.Immediate response to initial post by community manager so that question + response dynamic is established in the daily digest 4.Work with volunteers to develop 20 to 30 seed questions which will be “posted” by 10 to 15 different members over the first two weeks 24

25. Importance of Seed Questions For an organization that auto-subscribes 20,000 members: With 30 seed questions, you can expect 200 messages posted in the first month. Without any seed questions, you can expect 30 messages posted in the first month. Exception: When an org is migrating from a previously active email based community. 25

26. Seed Question How-To Gather questions from active volunteers, beta testers, or email a group of members. Impersonate members with their permission and post on their behalf to control the flow. Plan to post two messages per day for the first two weeks. Enlist volunteers to answer the questions if it doesn’t happen organically. 26

27. Seed Question Exercise What is the prevailing reason why you are a member of [your association]? 27 Dear Colleagues, Someone recently asked me what the primary reason is that I’m a member of ABC. For me, it’s the ability to have easy access to me industry peers (to network and collaborate). However, it did start me thinking about what the primary reasons are for others? What are your thoughts? What’s your number 1 reason you are a member of ABC? (or if you’re up for it, the top 3 reasons).

28. Seed Question Exercise What are the benefits of the ABC certification? 28 Hi Everyone, I’ve been in the association world for a few years now and am thinking of studying for my ABC. I’ve looked at all the requirements and it seems like a huge amount of effort. I’m not opposed to putting in the hours, but I’d like to hear from others on whether you see value in it? Is it likely to help my career and will it benefit my employer?

29. Don’t: Make the questions sterile Use the same salutation or sign off with each message Ask your members to post the questions Use all your more provocative questions all at once 29

30. Do: Personalize the question, add a story/reason for asking the question Provide context Ensure the author’s profile is complete Ensure there is a response to every question within two business days Impersonate to post the seed questions at the right time Ensure you have a pool of “champions” which you can reach out to, to respond to questions etc Thank the author of any organic post and ask them to update their profile 30

31. Driving Traffic

32. Traffic from Main Site

35. Develop Training Materials FAQs on community site Training videos Live webinars Demos at events One-on-one walk-throughs “Did you know” ads

36. “Did You Know?” Ads

37. Bi-directional Marketing 37

39. Engagement Strategies New Members – Introduce Yourself Introduce Yourself – Change your onboarding process to emphasize community 39

40. More Engagement Strategies LinkedIn Strategy – Migrate EngagementMigrate Engagement Embrace Non-Members Open the Conversation (or some of it) - SEO 40

41. Events

42. Conference Microsite  Keep community elements in the background

43. Conference Community  Open six weeks before event  Use for attendee communications  Post handouts to libraries  Encourage speakers to get involved  Extend learning/resource sharing

44.  Member community lounge or help desk  “Appy” hour  Informal one-on-one training  Giveaways  Professional photographer  Ribbons Onsite Conference Tactics

45. 45

50. Inspire competition, reward success

53. Other recognition tactics  Community moderator – official volunteer position  Give community champions a “sneak peak” at upcoming upgrades – keep them in the know  Contact members who receive MVM ribbons – use other volunteers to help  Recognize MVMs at conference awards ceremony – silly and serious

54. Measure! Pearson's Law: “That which is measured improves. That which is measured and reported improves exponentially."

55. How to Read Engagement Stats Agreed to terms: how many users have accepted that initial terms of use page Communities: the total number of communities. This includes all of the hidden ones, so it's not all that useful. Community members: a non-unique count of how many people are in communities (if I were in two, I'd be counted twice) Connections made: the number of contact requests that have been sent and accepted Content contributions: the number of discussion posts, blogs and library entries have been made (I believe this number is also determined by multiplying the raw number by engagement point value) 55

56. How to Read Engagement Stats Engagement score: aggregate of all engagement activities hat have happened within the site multiplied by their assigned point value (see Users and companies > engagement points) People with >2 friends: users who have two or more contacts in their contact list Profiles created: a misnomer since all members have a profile. It's actually a count of how many people have added a pic or bio to their profile Profiles with pictures: the number of profiles with profile photos added Total logins: how many total logins there have been to the site Unique logins: how many unique individuals have logged into the site. 56

58. Other measures  Renewal rates  Member satisfaction (overall + community- specific questions)  Non-community engagement

59. Your job is never done

60. Explore Other Community Uses Certification study groups Staff/chapter leader branding library (logos, guidelines, etc.) Mentoring Volunteerism (micro-volunteerism) Directories Intranet and/or www website

61. Client Examples American Staffing Association – Public-facing directories Alliance of Cambridge Advisors’ Braintrust – heavy use of tagging Medical Group Management Association – Online certification study groups CASE (Intranet)

62. Angelika Lipkin Senior Manager, Client Communications angelika@higherlogic.com 202.559.7734 Heather McNair Director of Client Success heather@higherlogic.com 202.350.3502