Community Building - how to profit from your connections and relationships

Community Building - how to profit from your connections and relationships

How to profit from your connections and relationships

Guide to self-managed Community Building

USEFUL FOR BUSINESSES, COMMUNITY GROUPS AND SCHOOLS

Download the extended downloadable PDF version here.

When you promote content about your organisation, interests and activities – for example, news items, events, useful information and ideas for sharing – the goal, over time, is to engage as many of the right people as possible with your organisation.

It is one of the most powerful, yet simple, things an organisation can do to inform and build positive relationships with your community.

Consider just a few benefits:

• An organisation that communicates openly and often with its community is better connected, supported and enjoys a stronger reputation. 

• Well informed stakeholders help mitigate the risks from unhelpful misinformation and speculation

• Where two-way communications are encouraged, valuable two-way feedback is available and the organisation itself is better informed.

All this translates into a more profitable working environment where it’s possible to do things smarter and more efficiently.

These guidelines are for those who elect to self-manage, but if outsourcing is your preference, please contact Flightdec at mail@flightdec.com

Start with the right thinking

Organisations communicate in various ways but are often unsure why they’re doing it.

So, begin by sorting your thinking in a systematic way with the five basic elements of communications.

1. Send the right messages – how do we generate good copy, images, headlines, music, etc that will capture attention, give people something rewarding?

2. To the right people – who is important in our segmented audiences?

3. At the right times – when is the best time to communicate and how often?

4. Using the right methods – what communications or media channels are best and most efficient?

5. Using appropriate resources – how much time, effort and money is appropriate?

Then, start planning with what you want to achieve and create a set of SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time-bound). That will give your activity direction and keep you motivated as you work towards your goals.

How to make community building super-charged

Many websites are static and unloved, while social media and emails are awash with dynamic content. Yes, social media is easy and instant while a website takes a bit more time. But the instant option is not always the best option.

Your website should be the most important element in your communications and community-building thinking, so put it at the centre of your activity.  

naturalhazards.co.nz

Make your website the authority on everything your organisation is doing, not just the static information that hardly ever needs changing. That means your news items, events, blogs and articles should be posted to your website as your first priority. Think of regular posting like 'fresh bait' that draws people back again and again.

By making the website the trusted place to find the correct information, your various communications act like spokes around the website hub. You manage the processes more efficiently, avoid fragmented communications and drive lots more people to your website.

A simple action plan

Following is a simple process that you can implement easily. It places the website at the centre and uses social media, email and other forms of communication to build wide-spread engagement.

Start with a monthly plan

The plan example (below) assumes an average of two posts per week to the website (aiming for say Monday and Wednesday). You might start with less activity, then increase the frequency, over time. The website posts might be a combination of news items, blog posts, events and occasional media releases and articles.

Note: to share the load, you might identify say four people in your organisation who can write a fortnightly blog post or news item – that provides at least eight posts per month.

Tactical activity

Occasionally you might wish to overlay one-off activity onto your monthly plan, for example, promotion of a special event.

In this case the idea is to start with an event post into the website, with all the required information about the event, but you then make additional posts (e.g. news and blogs) – with links back to the event post – to multiply the activity and reach more people.

Overlaid onto your monthly plan, this tactical plan is obviously incorporated into your regular social media, email and other communications activity.

7 guiding principles for your community-building effort

1. If the organisation truly believes in the benefits of community building, moving from a ‘nice-to-do’ status to ‘essential-to-do’ status requires agreement and full commitment at all levels of the organisation.

2. Make a commitment to keeping` on track by putting your plan in writing, then briefly documenting and reporting to others in the organisation on a regular basis.

3. Think of community building as a marathon, rather than a sprint. The real rewards come over time, so don’t be impatient if the results are not immediate.

4. Consistency of effort is important. Create your action plan and commit at least one person, and a chunk of regular time, to your website, social media, email and any other communications.

5. Start your activity with what you believe will work and then learn, experiment and make changes as you go.

6. Focus on rewarding the reader with good quality and attractive content. That means thinking about making content digestible, e.g. videos and graphics; and making every post interesting and useful for a reader.

7. Communications is a two-way street. Encourage dialogue, reverse discussion and plenty of community input.
   
   

Keep track and improve as you go

How do you know your activity is working? What impact is it having on those you wish to engage? What can you learn to improve your messages, your post timings and the audiences you are targeting?

Use your SMART goals to set a few big parameters for tracking progress.

The following is among a range of analytics monitors you can freely employ.

• Google Analytics
• Social media metrics
• Share analytics, e.g. using AddThis.com
• Email analytics, e.g. using Mail Chimp.com
• Monitoring interactions and comment on posts and social media
• Conversations (or research) with stakeholders.

It’s a good discipline to set up a page or two that reports on your performance measures, say on a monthly basis. For example, how many emails were sent over a period, to how many contacts, which prompted how many responses? And how did your external communications impact on traffic to the website and what were the main pages people went to.

Please contact Flightdec with any questions at  mail@flightdec.com