Community is a Connector

As an online community professional, you know the value of connecting members to each other and the resources that they need to be successful. Part of our responsibility is to make sure community member questions are answered and they feel welcome and engaged. This can be done through content, AMAs (ask me anything), or member calls. But what about connecting offline?Most associations have online events and/or chapters. Many of those online events or chapters struggle to get members in the door for any number of reasons (cost of registration, ability to attend, travel, etc.).

However, online communities are in a unique position within their association to provide a connection point to these offline events for members. All the e-mails in the world that market the benefits of an event will never replace meeting your members where they are to move them from online interaction to offline interaction and back again. And as a community manager, you should be standing in the gap to help people move between those spaces. Stuck on how to do that? Here are a few tactics I’ve picked up along the way.

Host preview content for a live event

I’m not just talking about a webinar that covers the subject matter (that comes later). Before the event takes place, you need something a little more interactive. Work with your events team and offer to host a few Q&A sessions in the community with the keynote or some of the session speakers to generate interest. Content is important to your community members, but so are connections. If they can see and hear from the people that could potentially help them solve a problem or move their business forward, it will likely make them more eager to attend a live event so that they can build relationships face to face.

Create anticipation (and a little FOMO)

There’s nothing worse than watching everyone else have all the fun. That’s also true with your community members. If you have highly active members in your community, invite them to attend your association’s live event and have them blog about it within the community the ENTIRE time.We do this a lot in the community that I manage. Our association holds 2 major live events a year and it’s not always easy to get people there. A couple of years ago we started bringing community members to our EMEA event, mainly to support social media coverage, but we also asked them to blog while on site. And our community LOVES IT. They get to see what attendees experience during the event – everything from sessions on disruptive technologies to evening networking receptions and happy hours. Our volunteers covered it all and the amount of engagement that took place around these posts was astonishing.Will this lead to people who missed out this year registering for next year’s event? That remains to be seen. But you can believe that this small adjustment to the way we connected members to the events will, at the very least, generate enough interest to keep it in the back of their minds for next year.

Be more human

If your association has local chapters, then your chapter development staff knows the struggle that some of those chapters encounter with getting members to meetings. Nobody ever wants to say that out loud but there – I’m saying it. These meetings are likely held in the evening, during a weekday as members are leaving work. This leaves them with having to decide between work/life balance and taking advantage of opportunities that will expand their network and skills. Online communities can help, but not in the way that some are accustomed to thinking.The answer is not to set up chapter pages within your community or even provide advertising opportunities. Communities are P2P – people to people. This is how chapter leaders can get the attention of their members. Help your chapter development staff understand the value of online community and how they can foster local connections. This helps them communicate it to their chapter leaders, so they can understand how their presence can benefit both their chapter and their own ongoing development.Invite them to join the community, interact with other members, peer-to-peer, and contribute content about a topic covered in a recent chapter dinner or professional development day. They can answer questions in the discussion thread and introduce themselves as they engage other members around a topic (Hi, I’m Marjorie, President of the HeyNow Philadelphia Chapter. We recently covered this topic in one of our chapter meetings and I found that AI can…). This introduces members to local value and, for some, validates the member dues that they pay to belong to a chapter that they may or may not be currently getting value from based on their level of engagement.

Continue the story

Your association had a great turnout for their annual conference. The Events team has shared that preliminary feedback is amazing and speaker/session feedback seems to be highly positive. Nothing can stop your organization now. Next step? Hit members with save the dates for next year to keep the momentum going.Wait. Stop. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.Yes, it’s important to keep the attention of everyone who attended the conference this year, as they are likely the same people that will attend next year and the year after that. But how do those who are new to the association or have never attended the annual conference know it’s worth the budget dollars? How can they convince their organizations to spend $1,500 on registration and a few days travel (and productivity) on the conference? Give them something tangible to connect to through the online community.Asa community manager, you are in a unique position to help create a story. Once the conference is over, make a recommendation to the event planning team to repurpose the event content in the community. Have conversations around talking with event speakers to see if they would be willing to hold a webinar on their topic. This is a great way for community members to take an hour out of their day, get in some quick learning that can be immediately applied to their work, and participate in content they missed if they did not attend the live event. And when their bosses ask where they learned how to write that amazing strategy, they will say “I saw a webinar on XYZ Association’s online community from their annual conference and they talked about it there.”

Online community managers are not just connectors of those in their online space. If you work for an association, you have a responsibility to not only connect members to each other, but to any of the information or resources your organization provides that will help make them more successful. Build strong relationships and act as an advocate, not only for your members, but for your organization. The benefits that come from carefully and strategically orchestrating those connections will only provide greater levels of connectivity and success in the long run.

How have you connected members to the organization through your online community? What has worked and what lessons have you learned along the way?

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Community by Association Talks the State of Community Management 2018 Research with Rachel Happe