Social Networking Platform for Private Online Communities
State Senator Hannah Beth Jackson presents Co-Founders Mark Sylvester and Kymberlee Weil with prestigious award for their 805connect project
SANTA BARBARA, CALIF. (June 17, 2015) – introNetworks’ CEO and Co-Founder Mark Sylvester is pleased to announce that it has received the 2015 California Small Business of the Year award for their 805connect project. [Read more…]
Have you looked at your existing Community or the one you are considering and asked the question, “What is the INTENT of this effort?” Chances are you have, maybe you haven’t. We have some ideas of how you might think about the WHY of your effort and will try to convince you that if you are not thinking about how it contributes to creating value for your organization, then, maybe you should be rethinking your efforts.
Often people are distracted by the bright shiny new feature on a social platform. They lose track of what outcomes a community needs to bring them and instead they are only thinking about the ‘new thing’ that caught their attention. Capturing attention is important. More important is making sure that everything you do in efforts to better communicate and collaborate are intentional and driven by an informed plan.
When you have a purpose and intent, you will be successful.
We think about Community Intent with something that’s easy to remember, called the Four I’s – Interaction – Information – Insight – Initiative.
These concepts are interrelated and each one contributes to creating value for your organization. In fact, they are in a circle on purpose. As each step leads to the other and continues as long as you have a Community.
This Guest Post is from Emma Siemasko, Content Marketing Specialist @Grasshopper. You can follow Emma here on Twitter: @EmmaFayeS
Marketing and PR are important for any business. After all, would you buy a product or service you knew nothing about? Probably not.
But billboards, radio ads, and Google AdWords can chew up a balance sheet faster than a cheetah running towards an antelope.
What if I told you that there are people out there willing and able to promote your business for free– people who love your brand and already tell family and friends about how happy they are with your offerings? Wouldn’t you want to leverage that free publicity?
Um, yes.
According to a study by Bazaarvoice, personal recommendations carry far more weight than advertisements. In fact, 84% of millennials (ages 18-33) report that user-generated content has “some” or “a lot” of influence on their purchasing decisions.
It’s not just us young people, either. Seventy percent of baby boomers (a.k.a. my mom) reported the same thing.
Advertising as a standalone medium just doesn’t cut it anymore. People are reading reviews, checking out social media pages, and taking recommendations from family and friends before buying. I read roughly 30 online reviews before deciding which shampoo to buy.
This makes it all the more important to have a stable of real people who want to talk about your brand.
Creating an online community of brand ambassadors is as simple as identifying those happy customers and letting them do you a big favor: promote your company to the world through social media posts, blogs, and reviews.
Your ideal brand ambassador is someone with enough clout to reach a large audience who also happens to be continually impressed with your offerings. Some qualities to look for: [Read more…]
30 Years ago, the TED Conference was started as a place to share ideas about Technology, Entertainment and Design. This year is a celebration for all of us. For introNetworks, it’s the 11th anniversary of the beginning of our company. We created a network for the attendees at TED2003 and from there grew our business around the world. To say we are grateful to TED is an understatement. Looking back, I would say that our ‘Idea Worth Spreading’ has been, ‘one connection can change your life’. We have spent the past 11 years honing in on how to make sure we (and you) are talking to the right people, working with the right person, selecting the right people for teams and groups.
We understand that right is relevant to the task at hand. Today will be different than tomorrow in terms of what skills, or experiences you need to tap into. [Read more…]
How do you make your content compelling, so your community will engage with it and by extension, with you? Here’s a simple way to think about how to frame online conversations and make them relevant.
Clever marketers use snappy headlines to grab the attention of our inbox. They have learned how to influence our behavior, even though most Community Managers are not trained in human psychology and clever marketing strategies.
Considering that we all suffer from partial attention span disorder, it’s interesting that when something catches our eye and keeps our interest, we will continue to pay attention even if there are other things demanding that same level of attention.
So the question we ask ourselves when looking at low audience participation tends to focus on the content; How applicable is it, How interesting is it, How relevant is it, even, How graphically compelling is it? These are areas to consider when sorting out what you are going to post or start discussions about.
I was recently at a conference of writers, speakers and consultants one of the attendees spoke up during a Q & A and said, “It’s really easy to remember. You have a What? a So What? And a Now What?”
Which got me thinking.
I thought that there was a distinct parallel between this easy to remember tip and how you might use it to communicate the purpose of a private network that would be powerful and memorable.
Ironically, most private, purpose driven communities assume that their members know why the network exists. Bad assumption. When asked, they typically give the wrong answer.
I talked to David Nour, a friend who was at the same conference, so I asked him to define his What, So What and Now What as he runs an introNetwork community – his answer is below, I then suggested he write to his members. He did.
