This document discusses online community management at TechSoup, a nonprofit organization that provides technology resources and support. It summarizes TechSoup's global online presence and community platforms, including forums, events, and a presence on Second Life. It outlines the role of community managers in facilitating online discussions, connecting members, and highlighting top contributors. It also provides best practices for online community facilitation and engagement through tools like webinars, social media, and virtual meetups.

1. Online Community Management :
October 2010
Susan Tenby, Online Community Director: TechSoup
Online Community and Social Media Team
@suzboop on Twitter

2. TechSoup Global: The technology place for nonprofits.
TechSoup is a popular, comprehensive online content and community
destination for nonprofits that provides unbiased information and
technical know-how to ensure that nonprofits make the best possible
use of technology.
Aggregated
Knowledge

3. TechSoup Provides ICT Resources, Knowledge and
Community to Nonprofits and Libraries . . .

4. Where is TechSoup Global Today?Australia
Belgium
Botswana
Brazil
Bulgaria
Canada
Chile
Croatia
Egypt
France
Germany
Hong Kong
Hungary
India
Ireland
Italy
Japan
Kenya
Luxembourg
Macau
Mexico
Netherlands
New Zealand
Poland
Romania
Russia
Slovakia
Slovenia
South Africa
Spain
Sweden
Taiwan
United Kingdom
United States

5. TechSoup’s network of Partner NGOs is leveraging TechSoup
to establish localized versions of the product donation
platform in other countries like…
UK
Poland
Belgium
global
network

6. TechSoup Community
• 17 Forums
• Events Calendar
• Member Spotlight
• Community Blog
• Meetups
• Second Life
• Surveys
• Webinars
• Soup Recipes
• Managed by two Community Managers, a project
manager, two part time contractors and volunteer
hosts and star users
• http://www.flavors.me/techsoup

7. Community Map

8. Online Facilitation: Forms of Facilitation:
Real-time/Synchronous/live chat
Asynchronous
Online Social Networks
Webinars/live events
Comments on Image-based Communities

9. Community doesn’t just happen:
Just because you launch it, doesn’t mean they’ll
come
Social Media is the technology.
It doesn’t make a community!
Trust and interaction over time make
communities.

10. Role of the Community Manager
• Public Face, adding human trust element
• Metrics and sentiment, listening for the org
• Conversation facilitator
• Networker, connector
• Cheerleader/spotlighting stars
• Volunteer Manager
• Represent the community to the org
• Content Editor/curator
• Party Host

11. Why Facilitate Online
• Benefits of creating Community Online
• Cost and geo-location
• Starting and archiving of thoughtful conversations
• Giving your members a reason to think about you btw conferences
• Encouraging affiliate or sub-group membership
• Encouraging a members-only tone to community– rules and lexicon
• Great to get user input and to achieve greater transparency
• A way to procure relevant dynamic, current content
• Easy way to get volunteers, b/c low-impact time commitment

12. How to Facilitate Online
• Consider purpose of the community closely
• Write up and Stick to a Terms of Service
• Don’t feed the trolls
• Highlight your star members, give them permissions
• Welcome your newbies and direct them
• Profile personalization and multiple points of contact
• Have Frequent and Regular Events
• Have management meetings outside of community w/stars
• Highlighting popular discussions, cross reference content
• Cross-platform recruitment is good- not redundancy
• Make sure questions are promptly answered, from all virtual
locations
• Go outside your platform to connect multiple points of entry

13. Holding the space
• Own your authority
• Don’t be afraid to interrupt/publicly shame
• Allowing your users to be uncensored
• Sticking to the Standards and TOS
• Self-policing members
• Moderating & closing off-topic conversation
• Common understanding of moderation w/members
• Repetition of procedures and organization
• Redirect and focus as needed
• Cross reference appropriate outside resources
• With Video/web-streaming, make sure camera is focused
appropriately

14. Tools to get the job done:
TechSoup community’s menu…
• Webinars
• Forums
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Second Life
• LinkedIn
• YouTube
• Meetup
• Flickr
• Google Groups/Email lists
• Blog Comment monitoring

15. Why Webinars?
• Online or “virtual” seminar
• Combines audio and visual aspect
• Live broadcast - one to many/several to
many
• Allows you to reach people all over the
world, without the need for travel
• We expand the listener-base to Second Life
• Enhances Engagement, listening together

16. Keeping the Momentum Going: After-
life
• Archive and make easily accessible
• Follow-up email of participants
• Giving them alternate points of membership in community
• Clear calls to action , i.e. signing up
• Highlighting star participants
• Circling back with opt-in email addys, inviting to future
events
• Request feedback and suggestions for future events
• Report back on the actions you took based on that
feedback
• Stats/Metrics recap in follow up email
• Email helpful individuals and invite to plan future events
• Resurface event threads periodically
• Expanding the message beyond the room

17. Nonprofit Commons
in Second Life
• Through this community, we
provide free office space to
qualifying groups, hold meetings,
create a cooperative supportive
learning environment and foster
outreach, education, fundraising,
all in a virtual space.
• Our goal is to create a learning
community of practice for
nonprofits to explore and learn
about the virtual world, and to
investigate the many ways in
which nonprofits can utilize this
unique environment.

18. Community through images/tags

19. Video: The Nonprofit Commons in
Second Life
• Insert video here

20. Leadership and assistance through
virtual community organizing strategies
• In-world Meetings
• Wiki
• Website/community blog
• NPSL tag –multiple cross-platform entry points
• Management steering committee group –creating arsenal of support
• Directory of Nonprofits in Second Life –making them easily findable
• Branding as NPO experts and advisors- Rewarding the Rockstars

21. Impact
• 625+ Total Members of the TechSoup group
in Second Life
• Over 92 Countries represented among
NPC participants
• 3,453 unique avatars spent 4,254 hours in world
• 86 NPC Tenant Organizations
• 4843 unique visitors to the NPC Blog
• 174,208 visits to the TechSoup Forums
in the first quarter of Fiscal Year 2011
• 394 members of the Nonprofit Commons
Google Group

22. Every member wants to be a ROCKSTAR

23. Reward The Contributions
• If they tweet about you, RT to your network
• Get them on video
• Feature the video on your site
• Spotlight them in an interview
• Comment on their public profiles
• Friend them in other social networks
• Mention them in a recommended list
• #FF on twitter and friendly tweeter lists
• Ask them to present in online event/webinar
• Write them privately, encourage participation

24. Online vs Offline, engaging the
extended communities
• Live Meetups
– Meetup.com
– NetTuesday events
– Online Community Meetups
• Virtual Meetups
– Weekly NPSL
– Weekly Webinars
• Connecting the two via Twitter, Flickr, live stream
and chat

25. Contact info
• Susan Tenby
• Online Community Director, TechSoup Network
susan@techsoup.org
• SL avatar: Glitteractica Cookie
• Follow on twitter
• @suzboop @npsl @techsoup
http://www.techsoup.org/
http://www.netsquared.org
http://npsl.wikispaces.com/
http://www.nonprofitcommons.org
http://flavors.me/techsoup
Resources:
http://delicious.com/suzboop/OnlineCommunity
Find this presentation online @:
http://www.slideshare.net/suzboop