Here’s how to earn your CEU hour. Test Time CERTIFICATION MADE POSSIBLE
Once you finish reading this CMP Series article, read the following material—which, in keeping with the theme of online com- munities, is made up entirely of blog posts. To earn one hour of CEU credit, visitwww.pcma.org/convenecmpto answer questions about the information contained within this CMP Series article and the blog posts:
How Associations, Companies, User Groups, and Nonprofits Use Online Communities After Events: http://bit.ly/p3PM61 Three Online Community-Launch Tips Proven to Increase Engagement: http://bit.ly/mXDKcd
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is in a unique position as there is a clear purpose, designated topic/discussion areas of interest, and also a loosely or tightly formed network. You want to leverage, extend, and strengthen that existing network. As always, offer value to members—whether it be through collating relevant news, posting blog posts from speakers or attendees, answering industry-specific questions, etc. You don’t need to be experts on the topic; instead, demonstrate that you are experts in bringing people together and facilitating networking, rela- tionships, and knowledge sharing. This is a skill that com- munity managers share!
Be inclusive. Ask people what they’d like addressed at the
event, who they’d like to have as speakers, get them involved in shaping the event. Let them develop a sense of loyalty and ownership of the event where possible.
How do you generate engagement? Get people to participate? RM:Well, what is community sharing? Is it people sharing their opinions? Their work? Their emotions? Sharing can be very different things to different types of communities. A community of motorcycle fanatics sharing their pictures with
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trust are very important when promoting events (or anything), so having established reputations was key to the credibility of the event. Venessa and I have freely and openly given advice, suggestions, and ideas around community manage- ment, and run the group in our spare time, so we also had some nice goodwill working in our favor. The event is also very cheap and I feel people are very willing to support it knowing we have a genuine passion about building a supportive and collaborative industry event. We’ve also used Twitter to promote swarm, and build brand
around the event. If we had more time, we’d dedicate more resources to using this channel to promote our attendees and speakers. This is an event we’re putting on in our “spare time,” so no doubt there’ll be a lot of learnings!
How are you creating an online community to entice great presenters? The opportunity for respected practitioners to speak to a room full of community managers is pretty compelling in itself, so we’ve been lucky to draw two fantastic international speakers,
[one of whom is Richard Millington]. Both these speakers are aware that I blog regularly on community management and know that we’ll be able to attract relevant participants.
How are you structuring the event in terms of educa- tion, speakers, interaction? We’ve tried to cover a range of topics—and with some of the breakout sessions, we’ve selected a few key individuals to participate. It’s a good way of getting high-profile people involved and supportive of the event, too. Some of these key identities probably won’t pay to attend as they’re at the top of their field, but you can’t have everyone speak!
How many attendees do you anticipate? Will any of the event be available to virtual audiences? We’re anticipating around 80 attendees, so a fairly small but tight first event. We’ve not made this event [available] to virtual attendees, but it’s certainly something we’ll consider in future. As the industry is nascent we feel it’s beneficial to the long-term growth to try to get as many together IRL (in real life!) as possible.