introNetworks

Social Networking Platform for Private Online Communities

Smart Tags make for Smart Connections

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SmartTagsHow tags help make smarter connections

We are all familiar by now with tags and how they are used to help us sort and search out information. We use them to help us find hotels, places to eat, movies to watch or have Netflix recommend films to us. We use tags to help us find better connections, yet there are two fundamental flaws to tags and how they are used. The first flaw is that people actually have to add them to their data. This has been a challenge since the first Content Management Systems were designed. People don’t want to take the extra step, or they are not sure how to tag, or what to name the tag. Problem, problem, problem. The second flaw is that tags are usually on or off. You are either an Action/Adventure movie fan or you are not. There is no value attached to a tag. It’s utility is to aid you in search only. We thought about these two problems when we designed our Visual Matching Engine.

How do we get people to tag themselves, quickly, efficiently and in an engaging manner?

Without smart tags, our matching strategy just wouldn’t work the way we had envisioned it. Getting people to tag themselves turns out to be easy if you give them an interesting, interactive, hands-on way. Make it fun. We have tried various versions of this over time and have found a very easy way to do this. In fact, we turned this into a component that can be easily added to the profile process. Now it’s the best part of creating a profile. People love it.

How do we give tags weight or importance so that they can be ranked to provide better insight?

Giving tags weights was relatively easy technically and the visualization we implemented for users helped them see the rankings at a glance. By interactively moving the most important tags to the top and without having to give an explicit ranking we gave them control which really helped. The flexibility of placement really made a huge difference in engagement. Tags used in this manner are at the core of the introNetworks system. The Visual Matching Engine uses this weighted tag information for search, for pin positioning, for ranking results and even uses it when displaying information that you are likely to be interested in. We constantly find interesting new applications of the technology.

The tag information really is the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of our smart connections concept. The ‘why’ is so that we can deliver better insight through visualization. That’s the thing we find most interesting.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this concept and how you have used tags and how you think this approach could be used in other applications. Please leave a comment below. If you are interested in the subject of Tags, there’s a great section on Knowledge Tags on Wikipedia (see here). ps. the tags shown in the image above are an example taken from a TEDx event. Every community we built has a custom set, custom titles and words designed specifically for them.

New introNetworks Release Includes Mobile Access

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Mobile-iphoneAccess your Smart Connections from anywhere.

If you are a current introNetworks client, you can now login to your site from an iOs device – iPhone or iPad, Android, or Windows Phone 8. You will have access to the two main visualizations, the Pin View and List View, as well as being able to Search for other members based on name, title, organization or doing a more complex tag search, using multiple tags. Background: We leveraged the work we have been doing in HTML5 and Javascript for our Visual Matching Engine. We decided that this was a great new thing to add to our desktop users that find themselves traveling and not able to access the Community. We also integrated  contact capabilities directly into the mobile device. If your site has elected to display email and phone numbers, then these will show up as icons. Pressing one initiates a phone call or an email using the mail system on your device. For our eventNet clients, this makes it very easy for onsite attendees to contact one another without having to find a laptop or computer cafe. For talentNet and memberNet clients, this enables on-the-go access to your peers and colleagues. Video showing the Non-Profit Resource Network using this new mobile capability

20 Tips To Make Your Online Community More Engaging

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20tips

Want more engagement? Be more engaging.

We are frequently asked how to make the online experience more compelling, more engaging. Here are 20 proven techniques that will work. Not all are applicable to all types of Communities. You will get a sense for what will work and what won’t with your given audience. Pick two or three to start with and experiment. Then add a few more. Please leave us a comment below to tell us which ones you picked.

1. Be a Leader

  • Cultivate pride and identity in each member so they see that they are a part of something bigger than themselves. You set the tone for the Community.
  • Step in and encourage users to interact with each other.

2. Make it easy to participate

  • Use multiple entry points. (email, newsletters, intranet, posters)
  • Make the Community a regular part of your normal communications.

3. Welcome and Encourage Newbies

  • Ensure that new members are welcomed and feel acclimated to the new community. One to one contact from the Community Manager is a fantastic way of building good foundations. Thank your members for performing actions, suggest content they might like or point them towards new activities in order to build long-term engagement.
  • Create a Welcome Wagon group that reaches out to new members, including a tutorial movie (Jing) on how to get the most out of their interactions.
  • Make sure that the purpose of the Community is clearly articulated for every new member.
  • Be very clear about how members can engage and encourage them to start posting and making connections early in the process.
  • Post a tutorial on how a complete profile helps them get the most out of the Community.
  • Have an Ambassador in charge of highlighting or interviewing new members weekly, then posting highlights in the Dashboard Digest.

4. Create a “water cooler” environment in new communities

  • Make your online community a place where people can go to engage in light-hearted conversation with their peers in a non-threatening way. This is an important way for members to establish a comfort level with each other before broaching more sensitive topics. Idle chit chat is an important part of a community and it will take some creative influence to help executives understand that it is a crucial facet of the business case.

5. Interact with your Community

  • Interacting lets members know that someone is listening. Make comments in Forums and frequent interactions with Group creators.

6. Post inspiring content

  • You created the Community with a business objective in mind and have effectively communicated that purpose to the membership. Your choice in content posts should echo and support those objectives so that the Community reflects it’s purpose and has continuity with your brand identity.
  • Set a goal to publish or upload at least 2 new pieces of content a week.

7. Ask questions that matter to the community

  • Asking questions using actionable language is recognized as a good way of generating discussion. However, this only works if the questions you ask are relevant to your audience. Take the time to understand what your audience reacts to and then plan around this.
  • Make the questions structured, i.e. Do you agree or disagree?
  • Make sure you follow up and acknowledge them when they answer the question.

8. Identify and nurture your power users

  • Getting together with them as equals and co-conspirators helps bring more volunteers into the fold, because you give them a vested interest in the success of the Community.
  • Solicit the Top Posters to moderate a monthly ‘Great Debate’ on a specific topic that they are expert in. (Use Manage to find this information out.)
  • Interview the Community Experts. (Use Advanced Search to find them.) Having them actively involved will build engagement and encourage other experts to ask to be interviewed when they see the recognition it gains.

9. Showcase and cross promote UGC (User generated content)

  • Be clear on the purpose and desired response to posted content and conversations – it will help members know what is appropriate and feel comfortable contributing. Clarity of purpose will also help you track and measure results effectively.
  • Remind people that they can subscribe to a Forum thread so they don’t have to check back in when new posts are made.
  • One of the best ways to pull people into a conversation is to let them know that they have an audience. Encourage peers to respond to new content that is posted, particularly if a newer member of the community posts it. Responding as the community manager is OK but it is not as satisfying as a peer response and it can inadvertently halt the discussion because it is viewed as the opinion of an authority figure.
  • Curating and showcasing community content energizes and motivates users and can help get new content contributors.
  • Feature a Member a Month based on interesting content they’ve posted.
  • Post Top Commenters/Posters in the Dashboard Digest or Company Newsletter or other regular communications.

10. Encourage posting of images showing the Organization in Action

  • Create a Resource area for photos from around the Organization.
  • Monitor most active and give rewards to groups that are most active.

11. Be timely about reviewing UGC 

  • Make sure you review and comment if needed on Forums and Resources.

12. Reward contributors

  • Create a metric that combines posts, group membership, logins, aggregated time spent online into a score and give a monthly prize.
  • Run a contest with a random drawing from all posters to a specific Discussion with a great prize. (something from Apple?) When tied to one of the content strategies above, this works at stimulating meaningful interaction.

13. Encourage Robust Profiles

  • Regularly review the Most Aligned and Least Aligned reports. (Via Manage)
  • Contact Least Aligned monthly to urge them to be more involved.

14. Contextualize the data from the backend reports section of the Community

  • Take a look at the Word Selection reports and consider creating Groups or Forum posts that take advantage of this information.
  • If you had a group of words: I Need Help With, and I Can Help With, you could easily find the experts who could provide help and solicit their support in a Discussion campaign.
  • If you see that Movies are a top interest, create a Movie Lovers Group or a general discussion thread that anyone could contribute to (so they didn’t have to join the group to see what is going on).
  • Instead of just reporting on statistics you find in Manage, try to draw conclusions that help your users.
  • If you find that 18% of your users say they are Entrepreneurial, use that information to find a way to tap into that resource. See if you can harness that energy in Team Building or New Product Development. Be creative with the information you glean from the network.

15. Use the Marketplace for Promotion

  • Create at least ten graphically rich house ads to announce events, special classes or programs. Change them out often to avoid staleness.
  • Be aware of the branding and visual nature of these ads and make them engaging.

16. Get more out of Groups

  • Create a ‘Getting Started with Groups’ post that highlights best practices.
  • Create logical categories for Groups that support your business objectives.
  • Talk with Group managers, be cordial and lay out guidelines.
  • Regularly check to guard the quality of the Groups that are created. Help them when you see there’s only one person in the group, them.

17. Create an Ambassador Group that meets regularly

  • Having a group of interested people who can provide ideas, help promote engagement, and do things like serve as a Guest Editor, and soliciting stories can be a valuable resource to the Community Manager.

18. Create RSS feeds in Online Resources that are applicable to your Community

19. Use the Dashboard Digest weekly email feature strategically

  • Pick a day and time that works best for it to be well received by your members.
  • Feature Community updates, current conversations to pay attention too, Top Users, Interesting Stories, etc.
  • Make sure that it’s easy to contact the Community Manager with ideas to improve the Community.

20. Create an area for Continuing Education and Ideas related to Community

  • Use this as an avenue to improve the organizations’ use of the Community while maximizing their ability to Connect, Communicate and Collaborate. Solicit stories, examples, links and ideas that help everyone.
    • How to make great connections
    • How to write compelling communications
    • How to collaborate effectively

21. BONUS Solicit anecdotes about Connections or Collaborations

  • Look for stories that are a direct result of use of the Community and highlight them on a regular basis in your Communications.
There are a lot of ideas here. We suggest that you pick a few and implement them and measure the impact. Set a schedule and do a little bit each day so you are not feeling overwhelmed with tasks related to managing the Community. Create a calendar of events at least three months out so you can easily measure your activities and see progress. Note: Concepts assembled from direct experience with introNetworks’ clients over ten years, the Community Manager Roundtable, Leah Bettancourt (Mashable), Angela Conner (18 Rules of Community Engagement), Dan Harris (Fresh Networks), Ian Jukes (21st Century Fluency Project), Online Communities: what works and what doesn’t – Bart De Waele.

Data Driven Decisions

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Data Graphic from the introNetwork System We are used to looking at charts and graphs and deriving meaning from them. I would suggest that we should be thinking about how these charts and graphs can be used to help us in making smarter decisions and not just eye-candy. When we build a Community, we are helping users make smarter connections with each other because the connections are data-driven. The tags selected in their profile are matched to others that result in a ‘smart’ connection for them to make. So this is obviously of great value to the individual user and happens without them having to really do anything except build a robust profile. However, when we are helping a client with the initial site design, we always ask the question;
What do you want to know about your audience that you do not know today? Once you know the answer, what are you going to do about it to improve your organization?
We call this Actionable Business Intelligence. Which means they don’t ask a question in the Profile  that they don’t already have a plan for what they will do with the answer. This is data driven decision making. Makes sense, right? This is one of the most challenging aspects of the design phase. People don’t know what they don’t know and they don’t know how to ask the right question. It’s a conundrum to be sure. That’s why we are glad we have kept hundreds of these types of questions from sites previously built to help clients during the brainstorming of a new community design. We love this quote and repeat it often
If you want better answers, ask better questions – Tony Robbins
We apply this by suggesting to clients, If you want to make better decisions, ask better questions and let the answers drive your decisions. Here are three examples of how you might make data driven decisions:
  • You are designing an educational program and want to make sure you apply your limited time and resources to creating the most needed courses. If you had asked a question such as: Areas I need help. Then you could easily look at the answers to the question and quickly find the top five items you should focus on, rather than guessing.
  • You are putting together a task force to investigate an industry challenge. If you have asked the question: Biggest challenge facing our industry today, you may find that 79 people had said: Government Regulations. You could then invite the  79 people to seed your group instantly.
  • You are wanting to best understand the motivation for people joining your community. By asking the question: What do you expect from this Community (see image above from the NEON site), you would have the range of answers and be able to enlist others based on this knowledge.
It’s not hard. But it does take some future thinking on your part. It also removes the anecdotal aspect from the decision, by being data driven, you have more certainty that you are working with the right people, which will help you be more successful. Would love to hear your point of view on this, please feel free to leave a comment below.

New look and feel for introNetworks.com

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introNetworks - smart connections - Private Online Communities We want to thank Chris Foley and the team at FoleyPod, including his lovely and talented wife Pausha, for guiding us through the process of relaunching introNetworks.com. We build Communities for a living and know how hard it is to craft something that fits like a glove for a group of people. FoleyPod helped us understand how to make a website fit our company like a glove. From design, color, look and feel to user experience and how to conceptualize what we wanted the site to do. This is all part of the effort that every business needs to go through on a regular basis. Reflect on your online presence and make sure it is aligned with your business objectives and reflects who you are as a company. Simon Sinek says:
People don’t buy what you do, they buy ‘why’ you do it
We took a lot of effort in making sure that the new site reflects our why and that you understand it from first glance. The other great thing about the site is that it is a living thing. It’s not done. It may never be done. However, now, it’s time to walk away and let it breathe.

CASE STUDY: NPRN – The Non-Profit Resource Network

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Non Profit Resource Center

There are over 350 non-profits in Santa Barbara County with hundreds of Executive Directors, Board Members, Staff and Volunteers yet there was no private, secure way to make connections between each other easily. The Hutton Parker Foundation wanted to create an online resource to replace the physical building that was used to provide help to local non-profits. In addition, they wanted to focus on capacity building and helping all aspects of the non-profit community. Board members are frequently civilians and don’t know what’s expected of them. Staffers need to find peers in other organizations to be able to solve problems quickly. Executive Directors need a place where they can ask questions and find help with specific challenges. Volunteers use the site to build profiles of what they are interested in, so that the organizations can search for specific people to place on working groups and committees. introNetworks worked closely with a strategic team to tune the Visual Matching Engine to meet the exact requirements of this unique community. The four dimensions that the Community is matched on are: Passions/Focus (Things like Youth, Family Care, The Arts) My Interests (Concepts like Big idea, Fitness, Learning….) , How I can Help (Specifics such as Team Player, Critical Thinking, Idea Generation), and I need Help With (Areas of Focus include: Grant Writing. Building a Board, Marketing Strategy and other concerns). With NPRN the non-profits are able to:
  • Learn about non-profit news & opportunities
  • Community Calendar, by Group and Organization in one view
  • Connect with fellow staff, executives & board members and volunteers
  • Find valuable resources & information
  • Share knowledge to raise the level of competency across all organizations
  • Discover the people, the passion & purpose of the local nonprofit community
This Community has the advantage of a dedicated outside Community Awareness and Marketing firm that specializes in non-profits. LOAcom produces a weekly newsletter, encourages and stimulates engaging conversations and works closely with the foundation to call attention to trending topics, areas of interest and places when the foundation can help the community. There is a complete back-end reporting capability of the Community that is used on a regular basis to assess the needs (I Need Help With) and where the experts are (I Can Help With) as the Foundation and others in the Community are planning educational outreach programs, seminars and workshops. LOAcom created a landing page for NPRN so that community members could easily find the site and tell their friends and colleagues about it.
The Non-Profit Resource Network Overview Guide

The Non-Profit Resource Network Overview Guide

The local online newspaper, Noozhawk, covered the launch of the site here and one of the funding partners, the Santa Barbara Foundation featured it in this story.

Videos Created for the NPRN Users

Getting Started with NPRN

Navigating inside the Community

Creating an awesome profile

Forums, Groups and Resources

Using Your Google+ ID To Login