Presentation covering the importance of your online community. Includes tips for how to define, establish and maintain your community online.

1. WHERE IS
EVERYONE?
Jen Riehle, NC State University

2. Who am I?
Jen Riehle
Technology Outreach Specialist
NC State University
Raleigh, NC

3. What am I
doing here?
Community. Who are they? How do you find them? How do you get them to follow you and
keep following you?

4. Def: Community
noun, plural: -ties
1. a social group of any size whose members reside
in a specific locality, share government, and often
have a common cultural or historical heritage;
2. a social, religious, occupational, or other group
sharing common characteristics or interests or
perceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the
larger society within which it exists.

5. Def: Community
noun, plural: -ties
1. a social group of any size whose members reside
in a specific locality, share government, and often
have a common cultural or historical heritage;
2. a social, religious, occupational, or other group
sharing common characteristics or interests or
perceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the
larger society within which it exists.
Key ways to find and engage your community - mutual interests and goals

6. Who is in the
community?
According to 2011 Pew Internet Project Report: pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Social-
Networking-Sites.aspx

7. 2005:
8% of adults had EVER used
a social networking site
pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Social-Networking-Sites.aspx

8. 2011:
65% of adults online use
social networking sites
pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Social-Networking-Sites.aspx
% of users stable across races, education levels, income levels
Some old stats hold true: still more younger users than older but you’d be surprised...

9. 51% of adults aged 50-64
use social networking sites pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Social-Networking-Sites.aspx
33% of those over 65; up 150% in 2 years

10. What about your community?
Governing bodies
National and international organizations
relating to your work
Local (city, state) organizations and media
outlets
Volunteers
Anyone who’s following you
Who should you be engaging with? Where should you look for followers?
Look at some of those “anyone’s”. What’s bring them to you? Go engage them.

11. How Communities
Work

12. Community Interactions
3 kinds...
production
promotion
support

13. Production
Successful communities share in the production of content, ideas, attitudes and goals.
Look for other groups you would consider part of the community- groups you work with, have things in common with and have similar goals, those who exist above you or
below you in the organizational structure of your community
Writer - big producers of content and people are ALWAYS publishing on the web

14. Promotion
Share the ideas and information from your community. Communicate the goals, advice, and resources of others in your community. Share opinions and influence
attitudes

15. Support
crowdsourcing
- provides quality solutions w/ real world focus
- drives participant involvement
- provides positive PR
EX: Lonerider beer name contest
Tools: (Google Moderator an example)
How do we successfully participate in production, promotion and support online?

16. Choosing Your
Tools

17. Make some goals
increase brand awareness
collaborate with stakeholders; gain
insight
optimize website; better search results
and more traffic
establish yourself as a thought leader;
educate stakeholders
increase donations

18. Make some goals
increase brand awareness
collaborate with stakeholders; gain
insight
optimize website; better search results
and more traffic
establish yourself as a thought leader;
educate stakeholders
increase donations
Then pick one or two that REALLY matter to you the most

19. Use your goals to
determine your tools

20. Goal:
Higher traffic
Recruit publicly
LinkedIn is the new Yellow
Pages
LI has grown by 60% in the last year (windmillnetworking.com/2011/08/08)
Post you job hunts online and make sure your organization is well-represented on LI. And so
are you.

21. Goal:
Brand loyalty
Repurpose your content
AllState on YouTube
Dell makes presentations available on a variety of topics on Slideshare. People can use these
for help or repurpose them - makes Dell a go-to source for help and advice.

22. Goal:
Thought-leader
Share your knowledge via
podcasts
WineLibrary.tv
winelibrary has just hit 1000 video podcasts
Started in 2006 to educate people on all aspects of wine he now has a book, a company that
distributes wine samplers and has appeared on tv, radio and in dozens of newspapers and
magazines

23. Goal:
Increased
Awareness
Become a subject-matter
expert
Dell on Slideshare
Spend lots of time and money on those ads? Make them available online! People wander
around and find them - if they enjoy them they may share them.

24. Choosing the Tools
Listen
Learn
Launch
LISTEN to your audience. Find out what they use and what they want to use.
LEARN about how best to take advantage of these tools; know what your investments will be
(time, money, content)
LAUNCH. Be ready to hit the ground running

25. Choosing the Tools
Listen
Learn
Launch
LISTEN to your audience. Find out what they use and what they want to use.

26. Choosing the Tools
Listen
Learn
Launch
LEARN about how best to take advantage of these tools; know what your investments will be
(time, money, content)

27. Choosing the Tools
Listen
Learn
Launch
LAUNCH. Be ready to hit the ground running- content plan; write things ahead of time as
mush as possible; long list of topics, etc.

28. Engaging Your
Community

29. Grand gestures
are memorable
Morton’s Steakhouse; July, writer Peter Shankman landing in Newark had a steak waiting
Barbie and Ken shippers online- Matel launched campaign using Facebook, Twitter and
Foursquare for Ken wooing Barbie back

30. Get away
from the
computer
Go out and meet people face-to-face. They’re much more likely to participate and engage
with you online if they’ve met you in person.

31. Use Community Resources
Coordinate local groups. Find or recruit people interested in your area and get them involved.
Get bloggers to write about you and share your messages - then repurpose that content!

32. Feed the birds
Provide useful information. Doesn’t hurt to go back to the basics from time-to-time. Why are
you here? What knowledge do you have to share?
What’s the latest news in your area of interest and how is it affecting your followers? -
Raleigh Food Trucks

33. Set clear goals
Call to action should be clear. Make it easy and fun to contribute (when possible)

34. Engage your followers
Be sure to recognize comments and answer questions. Reward contributions. Use graphics
and videos to draw the eye and stories to engage people.

35. There’s no
place like
home...
Drive your users back to a HOME BASE. Information, donations, everything should run
through one point so you can do intense analytics on what sites are driving your users to
your information.
Should be updated regularly- when you do a SM campaign that should be reflected
somewhere at HOME.

36. Measuring Your
Success

37. Check on Goals
Using tools to monitor success:
Google analytics
URL shorteners that track usage (bit.ly, goo.gl)
Facebook pages monitor usage
Many new tools for monitoring social media
usage
Many metrics are the same metrics we’ve always had for marketing purposes - now framed differently
Tools: Omniture, ViralHeat (built with SAS analytics), Argyle Social

38. Success
You may have all kinds of data but what does “success” mean? Did you meet your goals?
Measure success with correlation's, not always hard data
1. positive interactions and feedback;
2. building of new relationships;
3. in cost savings (fewer HD calls);
4. in increased donations

39. Failure
Not meeting your goals:
Why not? Did you pick the wrong goal?
Have you given it enough time?
Not following through with the requirements of the tool?
Very common that we let the work we need to do get away from us. How do we get OUT of
social media?

40. Remember...
The goal isn’t to be good at social
media.
The goal is to be good at
communication because of social
media.

41. What to do next...
Just because you haven’t posted in while
doesn’t mean you should quit
Does mean you should re-evaluate and fix things.

42. Bailing
Inform your followers of
your plans
Point people to alternate
resources
Keep your accounts
Continue to follow your
online community
People are following you for a reason; given them other help
Keep your accounts alive so no one else can grab them - might need them later or might
confuse followers
Continue to communicate and participate; monitor what’s being said about you

43. Steps for Community
Success
1. Find the community
2. Find out what the community wants and
provide it
3. Support and contribute
4. Monitor
5. Repeat

44. Good Luck!

45. Photo Credit
STÉFAN

46. Thank you!
Jen Riehle, NC State University
jen_riehle@ncsu.edu
@ncsumarit