In our article for this month's Forum, Unleashing the Ultimate Cool Factor: Social Media Ideas from SxSW, Lindy Dreyer and I wrote about one way to build an engaged audience before, during and after an event using a white label social network. Many associations are exploring building a social network or online community as a permanent "home" online for their members, and timing the launch of such a network to coincide with a big annual meeting or conference is a great way to get members involved and excited about it, as well as to show them the potential of such a space for adding a whole new layer of participation to their usual membership experience.
But we're almost getting ahead of ourselves here. There are many other crucial factors to consider when thinking strategically about building yourself an online community - white label versus free public space, how much should be open/how much behind the firewall, who your target audiences are and what they will use it for, etc. I'd like to talk about two factors specifically. If we constantly and consistently bear these in mind, we will build it in such a way that they will come.
First is the importance of the social object, the WHAT, the thing that people will connect around. For LinkedIn, it's jobs, for Flickr- photos, for Youtube - videos, for Dopplr - travel, for other sites it might be committee work, or a study group, basically any specific "thing" that people share or interact around. For more on the social object, read these posts by Hugh Macleod and Jyri Engstrom. (I also write about this a lot on my blog, here's a quick summary post). It is essential to understand that people being connected by virtue of being fellow members of your association is NOT enough to keep them using your online community. They may all sign up initally, but they need things to do and actions to take to keep them there. Figure out what your particular social objects are and make it clear to your users.
The second idea is to identify the motivation factors, the reasons WHY people might want to be in your online community. Joshua Porter, in his book Designing for the Social Web, identifies the following motivations for people using social software (my descriptions):
- Identity (people have an identity, a profile that they can manage)
- Uniqueness (people feel they have a unique and valuable contribution to offer within the social space)
- Reciprocity (they want to give back or feel rewarded)
- Reputation (they want to build their reputation and relationships)
- Sense of Efficacy (they want to do good work and have a positive effect)
- Control (they want to be able to manage how their own information is displayed or shared)
- Ownership (they feel ownership over content they submit to the group)
- Attachment to a group (they want to find like-minded people)
- Fun (it's fun to share and participate)
It's likely that your members will draw upon some combination of these, which may also differ by target slice of your membership. Don't try to be all things to all people, but figure out who your typical member might be who would be interested in participating in your online community, why they might want to take part and what they would be doing. Put yourself in that member's shoes. Do the same excercise for different types of members. Design your online community for them - not for you, the organization, but for Joe and Jane Member.
If you can identify and design for which motivations are the most important for your members, hand in hand with what social objects they will be using within the online community, then you will be well on the way to energizing your membership, building community and improving your value proposition.
Comments