Online communities in the heritage sector webinar

Online Communities in the Heritage Sector
Liz Cable
liz@reachfurther.com 0798 5514331

©Reach Further 2012
www.reachfurther.com

A (VERY) BRIEF HISTORY OF
ONLINE COMMUNITIES

A brief history . . .
1968 PLATO created
1972 PLATO has 10,000+ users
1978 BBS - Bulletin Board Service invented
1979 USENET - 9,500 different News Groups
1991 WWW project announced on Usenet
1997 First blogs appear & SixDegrees.com
1998 Open Diary “blog comments”
2004 Facebook launches
2011 Pinterest launches
2012 HLF recruiting first Online Community Manager

Community or Network?


A SENSE OF BELONGING

What clubs, societies and communities have you been
a member of?


• Foot ball Fan Club
• A PTA
• Brownies / Cubs
• Brownie / Cub Leader
• Golf Club
• Womens Institute

What are the motivations for joining a community? ©Reach Further 2012

3 Sustainability Factors:

1. Finance (so Resources)
2. Membership (so Marketing)
3. Content (so Community)

• You must plan for sustainability across all
three areas, or your community won’t survive.
• Design your community to become self-
sustaining. . .

Monetisation*

DECIDE:
Are you selling content to your audience?
Are you selling your audience to content providers?

Each approach could demand fundamentally
different community functionality – or sustain BOTH
by using our Cohesion model. . .

*horrid, but needed to sustain your community


The Cohesion Model
Public content Member content Personal content
Expert authored Community authored Self authored
RESOURCES SELECTED FOR THE INTERNAL LEVEL

Case Studies PREFENCES & PERSONALISATION Collaboration Record keeping
External News Confidentiality File Store

SHARING & PROFILE
Internal News Co-operation Blog
Learning Resources Discussion Profile
Expert Content Content creation Privacy
Affiliations Polls & Surveys RSS feeds
Competitions Supportive spaces Alerts & Notifications
E-Commerce Learning spaces Tools & Widgets
Sponsorship
Advertising

CONTENT SELECTED FOR THE EXPERT LEVEL

External Environment Internal Environment Personal Environment

What Community platform?

• Our model is both non-platform specific, and
multi-platform.
• Once you have created a community, the
members will make their own arrangements
elsewhere e.g. the pub.
• Don’t get hung up on owning or (heaven-forbid)
creating the platform.
• Do get hung up on owning your content, your
funding and your membership (SUSTAINABILITY)

TYPES OF COMMUNITY (as defined by their members)


BROWSERS

• Not part of our community yet
• Reading, but not commenting or participating
• May have several touch-points before
engaging
• They could however be observing and
commentating on our community on their
own channels.


COMMUNITY of INTEREST

• Have indicated interest
• Acting as themselves or representatives of their
organisation
• No agenda or deliverable from their participation
• Interested in the subject matter and in
sharing/signposting knowledge
• Little interaction between community members
• Ideally little management required
• Community could exist on Twitter, Facebook and
other open Social Channels ©Reach Further 2012

COMMUNITY of PRACTICE

• People with a stated commitment or need.
• More likely to be acting in a professional capacity
• They have common issues, but work individually
towards different deliverables
• Membership may have a cost
• Access to other Members is in itself a benefit of
Membership
• Interested in curating knowledge
• Community Management needed
• May be a private community, or a group on LinkedIN or
other public platform.


COMMUNITY of EXCELLENCE

• Sometimes called a Community of Purpose
– dependent on outcomes
• People working together to create a shared outcome.
• Acting in a professional capacity as an expert in the field.
• Committed to a shared goal
• Deliverables include Creating Knowledge (that can be
shared in the Community of Practice and the Community
of Interest)
• Management of a Collaborative Project needed

Your COMMUNITY

• You could provide for any or all of these types of
community.
• You may want to create the more committed
communities behind a “membership wall” within your
wider community.
• Members will travel between communities and
community types.


Gilly Salmon – FIVE STEPS


Beginning your Communities
12 Steps to Success


1. Listen before you leap

1. Own community
2. Own channels
3. Other channels

2. Automate the TASK
not the CONVERSATION

“Light is the task where many share the toil”
Homer


3. Divide and Conquer:
Who is responsible for what?
• Audience
• Tasks
• Content
Who is going to be our expert on . . . ?
Create groups/teams with purpose

“We shall neither fall nor falter, we shall not weaken
or tire . . . give us the tools and we will finish the job”
Winston Churchill ©Reach Further 2012

4. Create a WORKFLOW


5. BE the change you want to SEE

Use Online Community
yourself to:
• Find
• Share
• Collate
• Curate
• Ask
Become expert in
online community

6. Be authentic


7. Do the job you need to get
done, and give the community work
to do.
(Fake it till you make it)

8. ASK before you ANSWER
Release and realise the expertise of your community

9. Be Generous
• Credit
• Applaud
• Thank
• Award


10. PLAN

But realise, it will only ever Plan B
be plan B


11. Be Prepared
Expect the expected: plan content “ready to go” when
Expect the unexpected: response & escalation matrix

12. Be Positive

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard
battle”
Plato

WHAT NEXT?

We can help you engage your audience in useful
online communities across any platform.

liz@reachfurther.com
0113 2781800 / 0798 5514331 ©Reach Further 2012

Online communities in the heritage sector webinar

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