On November 23, I facilitated an HC Link peer-sharing webinar on online community engagement. I had the misfortune to lose my internet connection half a dozen times during the session, which is always exciting when one is facilitating — a huge thank-you to the participants for your patience! And to Andrea Bodkin, HC Link’s Coordinator, who stepped in as technical backup.
We left the definition of “online community engagement” open. Whether it’s a community that wants to engage online, or an online community that wants to increase engagement, a community is the people involved and not the technology, so it’s quite possible to talk about both at once.
We discussed creating a Terms of Reference for an online community — the difficulty of drafting such a thing before discussing it with potential community members, yet the need for management accountability. The need for flexibility in the document was raised, so that the group can grow and change over time and feel ownership of the community.
Next, people suggested ways to pique people’s interest in the community. Relevance was key here: connect people to content and expertise, help them with their work and goals. One participant was running a community that had recently added a feature that allowed users to tag others in discussions if their opinions or expertise would be helpful — at which point they are emailed a notification, and their response (or lack thereof) is, of course, visible, providing some mild peer pressure to participate.
Participants felt regular updates helped a community both feel and stay active. A monthly newsletter via email, with links back to the community highlighting what’s new / hot topics / upcoming events was one great idea, as were occasional face-to-face meetings (if possible).
Thinking about the technology itself, people generally suggested thinking first about what functions the community truly needs and where people are already. Can you start with a plain old email list? Or Facebook? Often, you can. It’s easier for people to engage if it doesn’t involve learning an entirely new tool.
The issue of moderation was raised. Moderation can be fantastically time-consuming and a source of contention, in my experience, so I suggested avoiding it if at all possible. Others pointed out that group culture, if developed carefully over time, often works well to counter or discourage inappropriate posts. Sometimes supporting people behind the scenes to post and model a desired behaviour — social support of a good post, or respectful criticism — can work well to get things going.
We finished by encouraging people to join HC Link’s discussion list, Community-Links (http://lists.hclinkontario.ca/listinfo.cgi/community-links-hclinkontario.ca), and to get in touch if they had questions that weren’t answered in the peer-sharing session.
Thanks to all the participants!
Here are some of the resources that were shared in the session: