Last night’s event was brilliant but we don’t just do these events for a get together and booze up (ok, well sorta). We like to capture as much knowledge and advice as possible and share it outside of those who were in the room on the night. That sounds a little worthy, don’t get me wrong, we learn loads from every event too.
Below is a summary of the key highlights from the talks and each speaker has kindly allowed us to share their presentations with you as well. Enjoy and if you find useful please share via email, a tweet, Facebook, LinkedIn, Delicious or other social means.
Nico Henderijckx, Sony Europe
Nico’s talk blew the audience away sharing insider knowledge on how Sony works with their online community “super users” who effectively replace the roles of 2 – 3 employees each by voluntarily sharing their knowledge in forums. This understanding in the value of certain users led Sony to ignore community vitality (straight numbers & growth) and focus on engagement.
Every country maps super users; what they specialise in and how often they engage and in which subjects. They then offer a host of things to this group from local training in products, to monthly online sessions with European management, and bi-annual “holidays” inviting entire families of forum members to a different European city each time and having fun keeping corporate presentations to a minimum.
Nico’s Top 3 tips are:
- Don’t treat community users like a number. They are humans and individuals and need to be dealt with taking that in to consideration
- Trust your top community members with a lot of info, privileged and exclusive if necessary. Tell them what your goals are and how they can help so they are clear why you are talking to them and that you trust they can help
- Put your most important community members in front of Senior Management. Everyone benefits from the direct dialogue
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Charlotte Garfield, The ACCA
Charlotte did a great job of engaging us on what might be considered a slightly dull topic – what happens when you get a bunch of accountants together? ;-) She began with a really clear explanation about why The ACCA got involved with online community “for us it was more damaging not to get involved in online conversations“.
She then went on to talk about the interactive spaces they run and how they use them differently for example they have a content strategy for Facebook but by and large allow their LinkedIn users to get on with conversations in the group with limited interference.
Charlotte’s Top 3 tips:
- Mix the content up day by day for your community. Not everything is relevant to everyone, everywhere
- Some communities need you to drive content and conversations, others need you to take a back seat and listen without interfering
- Seed content in relevant ways. Online ads and direct mail campaigns worked for The ACCA to reach and grow their community
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Andy Bell, Mint Digital
After showing us some smelly robot boxes (slight diversion but amusing all the same) Andy pleasantly launched in to the ‘tits and arse’ part of the evening talking us through C4’s online community to accompany their show Sexperience.
Providing some useful tips on community layout, for example the Q&A section is the most valued part of the site so was designed to be prominent on the landing page, he also discussed how they chose to manage moderation for the community. There is after all a high level of sexual content submitted which isn’t inappropriate out of context but might need some tidying up or careful vetting first.
Andy’s Top 3 tips:
- Anonymous posting can work – particularly dependent on the audience (shy teens) and nature of the conversations (am I normal?)
- If you’re genuinely an educational site and not limited by commercial aims you can afford to be more risque and push the boundaries
- Know the purpose of the community. There must be a point to why you’re online and gathering together other people online
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Gordon Fletcher, The BMA
Like The ACCA Gordon started with showing us why The BMA felt they needed to get involved in online conversations – they were facing a lot of criticism. The role of getting involved and turning those conversations around fell to Media Relations as the only people in the organisation willing to take on the job. (Note: Saying that, their work has been so successful The BMA is now looking at a company wide Social Media strategy).
Their starting point was initially to engage more Drs with their events. Gordon made the valuable point that events are expensive, simple extending those events with a live cast and online chat integration almost immediately maximises their existing investment in conferences – and reaches more people.
Gordon’s Top 3 tips:
- Tip
- Growing community is great, mobilising is better. What do you want them to do once you’ve gathered them all together?
- Don’t forget old media can be interactive. For example email still works and some people still want to have conversations via that medium
View Prezi
Tayler Cresswell, Liberty842
Tayler is the community manager for the long running online community for the BBC’s The Archers. A radio soap The Archers community, like Sony’s, is extremely knowledgeable and see The Archers, the characters, and their storylines as their specialist subjects.
Tayler gave us a look at what happens during a major community event, like Nigel-gate the killing off of a major character, to show us how a vocal community who feels they “own” the brand can respond and as the official community “owner” how that feels and how you should react.
Tayler’s Top 3 tips:
- Stay calm in the face of controversy
- Your community are specialists, so you need to know your subject too
- Feedback to HQ/the mother ship regularly with insights/feedback/highlights from the community
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