Community engagement is a way for members of the community to show their involvement with brands. They can engage by asking questions, writing comments, or posting reactions online; or attending meetups and speaking at events offline. When it comes to measuring the success of engagement, each brand does things differently. Some measure this in terms of online communities and events, while others look at comments or reactions from members on posts as an example of how engaged they've been with that particular company's services/products.

Great engagement is all about building value and connections among members. Our job as community leaders is to continuously hone and innovate what we offer so the community is always bringing value to the overall customer experience. To guide our efforts, we reference these five principles of community engagement. [1]

5 Principles of Community Engagement

1. Understand your community- One of the most important things for any community manager is to understand who their members are and how they want to engage. Understanding this data will allow you to get clear on members' motivations, values, and needs; which in turn, helps keep everything intentional when crafting activities or offerings.

2. Put the focus on the people- When creating opportunities for engagement, ask yourself, “Does this center our community members, empower them, and/or help them build connections with one another?” If the answer is yes, then you’ve got a great idea for engagement.[1]

3. Make it easy to participate- Community engagement doesn't need to take up your entire day. You can make it easy for people in the community without sacrificing length or depth of conversation, by designing prompts that are tailored toward their interests as well as the established community culture.

4. You have to participate, too- Your presence and interactions will help model the culture you want from your members.

5. Be consistent and be thoughtful- Engagement is a process, not an event. Tracking your activities' results will help determine what works best for your community. From there, you can experiment from an informed place and figure out how best to cater to your community's specific needs.

References

1. 5 Principles of Community Engagement, commsor.com

Creators

• #citizensofone (See: Citizens of One)

Tags

• #confluence-lexicon (See: Confluence Glossary)

• #index (See: #index)