Beyond Cats & Kardashians - Building Meaningful Online Engagement

1. Beyond
Cats
&
Kardashians
How
to
Build
Meaningful
Online
Engagement

2. What’s
Popular
on
the
Internet?
• Kardashains
• Cats
• Buzzfeed
/
Huffpost

3. What
are
you
serving?
• Buffet
of
ice
cream,
you
are
serving
broccoli
• How
do
you
get
people
to
eat
healthy?

4. Hardest
thing
on
internet
• Gaining
audience
/
geIng
people
to
care
• Billion
dollar
skill
• #1
reason
civic
engagement
(or
any
consumer
internet
site)
dies
is
lack
of
audience

5. What is
Find
and
contribute
best
practices
Research
the
latest
trends
Solve
government
?
problems
Learn
about
the
latest
Connect
with
peers
solutions
MISSION: “Connect Government to Improve Government”

7. 2 Questions I Think About
• How to Grow GovLoop – Reach & Engage
– Reach More People (More Active Members)
– Increase Engagement (More Activity)
– Solve more problems every day

8. My
Last
Year
of
Research
Studied How Others Increased Audience &
Engagement
• For-profit communities (Dogster, ITToolbox, Sermo,
change.org)
• For-profit vendors (GroupOn, Hubspot, Priceline,)
• Non-profit campaigns (Causes, Charity: Water,
NeighborsForNeighbors)
• Political sector (Presidential and local elections)
• Government (Federal, State, Local)

9. What
I’ve
Learned
• It’s REALLY REALLY Hard
• There’s a talent/skill
• There’s a methodology and rigor
• Difference between Doing it and
Doing it Well
• Lots of optimization opportunities
• Hard to be consistent

10. Getting Started

11. What
are
your
goals?
• Who
is
your
target
audience
realisRcally?
• How
large
is
your
realisRc
target
audience?
• Where
is
your
audience
online?
• Where
are
they
offline?
Online
to
offline
• Who
are
the
experts/partners
in
space?
• What
media
outlets
cover
the
space?

12. What
is
realisRc?
• What
is
the
size
of
current
groups
on
topic?
• What
is
the
demand
for
informaRon
on
topic?
• What
have
past
similar
projects
yielded?
• What
does
success
look
like?
• 90-­‐9-­‐1
rule
• NASA
always
wins
–
some
issues
more
catchy

13. Key
mistakes
• UnderesRmate
resources
it
takes
to
community
manage
• Failure
to
simplify
the
ask
• Too
opRmisRc
of
people’s
desires

14. What’s
the
topic
/
pain
point?

15. Key Tips

16. Engagement
Funnel

17. Awareness

18. Is
their
Audience
You
Can
Leverage
ExisRng
email
lists
One-­‐Rme
use
of
email
lists
Big
accounts
in
social
media
to
use
PR
Campaigns
Other
associaRons
People
that
have
incenRve
to
parRcipate
(students,
pracRRoner
in
that
field,
etc)

19. OpRmize
for
Search
/
Pain
Point

20. Embed
elsewhere

21. Cross-­‐Promote
where
Audience
INDUSTRY
INDUSTRY:
GOVERNMENT:
McDonalds:
Amazon:
Your
agency:
“Do
you
want
“Customers
who
“You
may
also
be
fries
with
that?”
bought
this
item
interested
in
informaRon
also
bought…”
from
these
agencies…”

22. Tap
into
ExisRng
Community

23. Real
World
/
Simple

24. Leverage
Timely
Events

25. Build A Relationship

26. Sign
‘em
Up

27. Simple
Clear
Ask

28. Light-­‐Weight
Engagement

29. Great
Design
Magers

30. Show
Progress

31. How
are
you
On-­‐boarding
Users?

32. Give
IncenRve
to
Share

33. Have
a
Human
Voice
/
Feel

34. Framing
QuesRons
+
A/B
Tests

35. Keep Engaged/ Go Deeper

36. Segment
Audience
-­‐
Focus
on
Engaged

37. Unlock
Parts
of
site

38. Real
IncenRves

39. Time
Constrained
Large
Events

40. On-­‐going
vs
Once
a
Year

41. Hand
to
hand
combat
Write
members
Call
members
Comment
on
their
walls
Have
advisory
board
calls
Biggest
challenge
emails

42. Part
of
a
Movement
/
Swag

43. Celebrate
Success

44. Regular
Frequency
Across
MulRple
Channels
• Facebook
–
1
to
4X
a
day
• Twiger
–
3
to
10X
a
day
• Email
–
Range
from
daily,
weekly
**Key
is
consistency
–
actual
numbers
vary
by
agency
and
type
of
content**

45. Lessons
from
GovLoop
• Consistency
is
key
–
takes
Rme
• Search
key
• Levels
of
content
–
broccoli
to
candy
• Focus
on
what
people
want
–
knowledge
network,
guides,
webinars,
etc
• Needs
evolve
over
Rme
–
cohort
effects
• Promote
where
people
are
&
traffic
is
–
network
referral

46. What’s
popular
in
gov’t
sites?
• Crime
• Jobs
• EducaRon
• Weather/snow
• DMV,
licenses,
permits
• Transit
• Items
that
affects
people
individually

47. Civic
Sites
that
get
lots
of
traffic
• MySociety
&
Google
• Potholes
• DMV.org
• Greatschools

48. Ways
to
Engage
w/
GovLoop
Always looking for stories to highlight
Free guides & trainings
Ask questions, write a blog
Always willing to help w/ strategy, development, execution
Have students? Have GovLoop fellows

49. Reach out
Steve
Ressler
Founder,
GovLoop
steve@GovLoop.com
@GovLoop