As a community manager one of the questions members often ask me is how to get their user generated groups engaged and talking. It’s no easy trick. Group ownership on a social media site is like parenting: it takes commitment, passion, and time.
In my experience, the best group owners do everything they can to start off strong, make connections among their group members, and follow an ever evolving content plan. This post will talk about three planning aspects that can help organizations, businesses, and users create better groups.
#1. Super User Plan: Who Will Lead Us?
The number one thing that kills online groups is having solitary leadership that does all of the posting. It takes a village make a group and the original owner shouldn’t go at it alone. Before even starting the group, think about who your ideal super users will be.
- Are there employees or association members who you can approach to form a leadership committee for the group?
- What about colleagues who are passionate about the subject of your group?
- Perhaps there are others on the network you’ve met through different groups and started a relationship with – will they work?
The goal is to find 10 (yes 10) super users that you can recruit to get your group going. I say “10″ because chances are more than 70% of your leaders will turn out to be duds, but with 2-3 strong co-leaders you can really build something great.
Think about it: if you have 3 super users in a group (including yourself) if each of you can bring in 100 friends to the group, chances are 2% of them will be interested in what you are doing. If you can turn 3 into 9 super users well then you’ve got a party! Even if the super users are the only ones posting it makes it look like things are happening in the group. People like that. And they are more inclined to invite their friends to a group where stuff is happening.
Action Steps:
- Make a list of potential super users and reach out
- Help them optimize their profiles with details and connect them to each other
- Set a time to have a virtual or in-person meeting (if possible) to commit to group goals
#2. Content Plan for the Next 12 months
Getting your butt in gear with an anual plan, even if it contains broad strokes, can change your group. Content plans focus the whole direction of the mini-community. I can tell you when I have a month of draft posts written, my blogging is 10x better than when I don’t.
For organizations and companies starting groups on social media sites, this can be a very easy process. Use this list as a starting point:
Content Plan Checklist
- Big Events – usually organizations and associations have some big event every quarter. It might be a dinner, the release of a new product, industry research, a mentoring program, whatever. Use those as your big umbrellas to start blog posts and discussion threads. Also, think about offering incentive for participation in events. This can be a discount on the entry fee to a conference, free reports that you usually charge for, and even gift certificates from sponsors of the event. Use your imagination and keep the user in mind for whatever you off (do what will be of value to THEM more than yourself).
- Topics Related to Events – the next thing is to break down the big event into smaller topics. Even something like an awards dinner celebrating diversity in female business ownership can be broken up into topics for postings such as these:
- Why diversity is important
- How to run a diverse business
- The challenges of being a female business owner
- Great female entrepreneurs of color
- Planning the perfect awards dinner (see how easy it is!)
- Divide and Conquer – create an outline of these topic posts and divvy it up among your group. If you have your superusers of 3 or 7 or 10 ask each one to do 2 posts per month. Also, make sure they all comment on each others posts to get the conversation going – the original poster should respond to these comments as well.
#3. Outreach Plan
Many group owners overlook the outreach plan. They think sending a general notice to their connections is enough and then wonder why only a few people accepted. People are busy. Not every group resonates with them, especially if it is focused around an organization, business, or professional topic (amazing how silly groups like “I’m a 2nd Semester Senior and I Don’t Care Anymore” can draw 30,000+ users).
If you are an organization with a membership list or a business with client or customer leads, that is golden. It takes bloggers a long time to develop lists like those so this is one step you are ahead on. Follow these steps to make the most of your outreach efforts:
Outreach Plan Checklist
- It’s Who They Know – have your superusers go through the list and reach out to anyone they know, personally inviting them to join the group. This is also a chance for the super user to mentor the new user on site and group features, and encourage them to connect with other group members.
- General Outreach – next do a general outreach for your membership via email, inviting the rest of the list to join the group. If you are an organization or association, think about including a list of members who have already joined so others are encouraged to follow the lead.
- Regular Contact – after the group gets going, think about starting a newsletter that can be sent out to group members and others in your network or member list. You can bubble up information like who joined the group that month, great posts, and interviews or profiles of group members. The purpose of the newsletter is to demonstrate the great content and activity that is going on in your group. This can be helpful even in sites like Linkedin where digests are automatically created because the editorial nature of a newsletter allows group owners to really get personal and connect with members.
A Final Word: Be Consistent
As we said before, group ownership is not an easy thing, but it can be a great way of unifying interests among all types of offline groups. With a solid plan in place and clear direction, any group can be a more interesting and engaging place for members. The most important thing of any plan, however, is executing and being consistent.
It’s not enough to start strong, lag for a few months, try to revive after a year, and hope engagement will happen again. People have short attention spans and are already flooded with information. There is so much competing for their attention that if you do not keep and build on initial engagement efforts, getting them to come back and consider your group again can take a lot.
Following the steps above, having solid and flexible plans, and executing on them can go a long way to creating successful groups.
