Ideas for Engaging Community Content

Creating Effective Community Content

Some of your staff and members might be online community naturals – completely comfortable with accessing content, commenting, or posting in your online community. But that doesn’t guarantee everyone will jump write into the discussion. That’s why it’s important to create content designed to engage your members.

Especially early on in the life of an online community, the community manager is often the one who gets the conversations flowing. So if you’re new to creating content, or just looking for ideas to stimulate engagement in your online community, here are some strategies you can use and share with users to teach them how to create engaging discussions.

5 Ideas for Engaging Community Content

1. Ask Me Anything Sessions with Experts

WHAT IS IT?
Set up a regular event – on your content calendar – where users get the opportunity to discuss a topic and ask questions with one of their own experts – an Ask Me Anything or AMA.

You can work with the experts ahead of time by going over the topic in a pre-event meeting, creating a test community for practice, and giving them best practices, such as responding as fast as they can. When they’re prepared, they get excited and that spreads to the rest of the community. The first event may not be the best! Its purpose really is to help everyone know what to expect and how they work. Send out a post-event survey and get suggestions for improvements or topics.

WHY DO YOU NEED IT?
An AMA is a great way to create community-exclusive content, giving members a chance to ask questions of an expert and understand how other professionals or industry leaders solve problems. Plus, with an AMA, you generate a large amount of content at one time that you can repurpose and share across other channels.

HOW DO YOU DO IT?

ANY TIPS FOR SUCCESS?

• Make AMAs a special event; a good rule of thumb is to have one 1x per quarter.
• To pick a topic: Review community reports for “Threads with most replies” and “Most liked content” to identify topics that are already engaging community members.
• Have a community manager post the first seed question to encourage engagement.

2. Tip Tuesday

WHAT IS IT?
Help community members to become familiar with the community engagement software, so that as their comfort level increases, they get more value.

WHY DO YOU NEED IT?
You can highlight features/functions that are overlooked or new to your group. These become great reference points to onboard community members, and easily repurpose for welcome campaigns.

Since something as simple as confusion with the platform could be a barrier to participation, Tip Tuesdays are great ways to help community members who might be less tech-savvy get involved.

HOW DO YOU DO IT?

3. Seed Content

WHAT IS IT?
Content such as questions or resources, which a community manager posts on behalf of the community’s members. Seed content is your secret weapon: It’s user-created content that you can strategically post when your community launches. An empty community – one without questions or ideas – isn’t particularly welcoming. Seed content allows you to instantly engage users when your community opens.

Keeping a cache of “easy-to-answer seed questions” is an effective community engagement strategy. Plus if your best-laid plans go awry, you’ve got seed content to fall back to if necessary. Better yet, why not share your list with active members or MVPs and they can use it, too?

WHY DO YOU NEED IT?
Typically, only 1% of community members post content organically (among Higher Logic customers, this number is more like 23%). Having seed content to rely on helps to create organic member-to-member engagement in the community.

The seed content that works best has ample background context and has to do with a relevant topic that other users are also interested in. These seed questions should come from real users and be tailored to the interest of your users.

HOW DO YOU DO IT?

ANY TIPS FOR SUCCESS?

• Get questions straight from your community members to ensure seed content is natural and seems organic, rather than something you’ve just made up. This can make discussion deeper and more authentic.
• Use these drivers to help you brainstorm:
  • What are People Doing? What are you working on now? Do you have any upcoming events?
  • What are People Thinking? What books have you read? What have you learned recently?
  • What are People Feeling? What do you like/dislike about_________? What do you think about________?
  • What are People Fearing? What are you struggling with? What is your biggest challenge?

4. Member Spotlight

WHAT IS IT?
A thread (usually monthly) that features a member of the community based upon determined criteria.

WHY DO YOU NEED IT?
Members, customers, and employees continually cite the importance of learning from people like them. If you’re facing a work problem, or don’t understand how to upgrade a software, it’s more satisfying to hear how other people tackled the issue. The people that lend a hand in this situation also gain, since the featured member feels valued as an expert and improves their status.

Your community members, especially those who want to build their brand or professional network, will love being recognized, as well as learning about other members. This is a great way to put faces to names and make that personal connection.

HOW DO YOU DO IT?

ANY TIPS FOR SUCCESS?

• Try using these criteria to find members to spotlight:
  • Most Engaged Members
  • Top Discussion Contributors
  • Top Library Contributors
  • Community Champion or Ambassador
  • Industry Expert
  • Member Segments
• Repurpose the content from your spotlighted member: Use it in collateral and identify potential advocates.

5. Engage Your Inactives

WHAT IS IT?

A program to encourage your “lurkers,” or consumers and inactive users to take more overt
action but accomplished in a way that’s not too pushy. Understanding the make-up of your audience, and the consumer and inactive sub-segment is critical here, as is the timing and cadence of your outreach.

WHY DO YOU NEED IT?
We recommend that our customers who haven’t seen a community member on the site in
a while try contacting them using automation rules or re-engagement campaigns. We’ve seen success rates upwards of 30% – and these users stay re-engaged more often than not.

HOW DO YOU DO IT?

ANY TIPS FOR SUCCESS?

• Don’t expect to convert consumers into always-on advocates. The majority of
  your time is better served ensuring all members receive the help they need.
• Target specific consumers (automation rules are a great way to do this) get everyone to post a profile picture, or respond to a quick poll.
• Create smaller discussion groups or identify other ways to make interacting in the larger group less intimidating.
• Try to understand why consumers don’t participate. Is it because they don’t know how or what to do? Identify easy call-to-actions (CTAs) for them to accomplish (this is where Tip Tuesdays may come in handy).