How to scroll through this blog in an effective way

Hi there, welcome! You are about to discover a blog full of inspiration, advice and tips for (non-profit) organizations seeking to engage the young generation with their brand using an online community. In this post I will quickly tell you how you can scroll through this blog in an effective way so that you or your organization will benefit the most from it!

Seven pieces of advice #7: Treat your online community like a garden

I would recommend (non-profit) organizations to treat their possible online community like a garden. Ian Dickson, an inspiring community expert, gave me the following advice about this aspect:

“You can’t create Community. You can create Content, and you can outreach to people to empower them through that content and then you might end up with a community. Community is like a garden – seeds (technology) you can buy and planting (content) you can do too, but to turn that into a garden takes long term hands on effort”.

Seven pieces of advice #6: A call for action

Let’s face it. The chance is big that (non-profit) organizations find community building important, but not urgent (yet). But I think they should realize that they are in a competitive industry and that the “donating behaviour” of the young generation is changing.

Seven pieces of advice #5: Be online, live offline

I believe non-profit organizations will reach the full benefit of their online community efforts if they host offline activities for their target group as well. In other words: integrate your online communities with offline activities.

Seven pieces of advice #4: Avoid “me too” marketing

I would advise (non-profit) organizations to learn from existing community examples (for example the ones I discussed in other blog posts), but avoid copying their community concepts or models. Organizations should find their own unique way of building a community aimed at serving their intention.

Seven pieces of advice #3: Start small, grow bigger

Based on the findings of my research, I can recommend (non-profit) organizations to start with small, simple engagement tools using existing social media platforms (Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter etc.). It is a great way to “test the waters” and to see whether your target group is willing to show small acts of engagement. See the figure in this post for a visualization of what I mean.

Seven pieces of advice #2: Dig a little deeper

I recommend (non-profit) organisations to dig a little deeper; to pre-start by doing more research on the following elements:

• What is your current brand image among this target group? What comes first to their mind when they hear about your brand?
• How would they see themselves engage in an online community initiated by your organisation?
• What development issues do they care about?
• Where do they mostly spend their time online?

Seven pieces of advice #1: It is all about the online experience

In this and the upcoming posts I will give some recommendations on concrete next steps that non-profit organizations could take in order to set up an online community targeted for the relatively young (18-30 years old) generation. Also, I will give some suggestions for further research.

Remember that guy on the street I gave €50 euros to and tell him to donate it to the charity organization of his choice? (see page “about this blog”) This guy, representing the young generation, is bombarded with constant images and messages of charity organizations asking for support.

Two concepts central to thinking about Community ROI: Incremental value and conversion rate

In my previous post, I discussed ways to measure engagement in your online community. I quoted consultant and community manager Joseph Cothrel, who introduced two concepts that are central to thinking about community ROI: incremental value and conversion rate.

In this post I will explain these two concepts in more detail.

How to measure engagement in your Online Community

In my previous two posts I talked about the difficulty of calculating the ROI of your online community. I showed you the ROI Engagement Pyramid that I designed to visualize the levels of interaction that people can show during online community efforts.  How engaged people are show up in their actions: the more engaged they are, the more they will interact. I explained that the more engaged a person is and starts to act, the easier it is to identify ROI metrics. In other words,  the higher the levels in the pyramid, the easier it is to identify clear metrics to measure your ROI.

The question remains:  How do you measure engagement in your online community?