do users really generate content? tips and tools for building engaged online communities

Convened by

National Conference on Volunteering and Service

Do Users Really Generate Content? Tips and Tools for

Building Engaged Online Communities

Today’s Agenda

• Who we are• Who are you?• What is UGC?• Building Relationships in a changing

(digital) world (Kate)• Curating and Highlighting UGC (Laura)• KaBOOM! Case Study (Jason)• Questions / Discussion

Who We Are

• Laura NorvigNational Service Resources & Training

• Kate OlsenNetwork for Good

• Jason KooperKaBoom!

Who Are You?

• What is your end goal for UGC?• What is the size of your org and your

staffing capacity for community engagement?

• What platforms do you currently use?

(Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, “White label” or custom, other)

• What do you want to learn today?

What is User Generated Content?• A Facebook “Like”?• A comment from an anonymous website visitor?• A Facebook comment?• A Facebook post?• A tweet from a member of your community?• A comment on your blog?• An external blog post that mentions your org/topic?• A YouTube video related to your cause?• A YouTube video created at your request?• A guest blog post written for your blog?• A shared document?

Typical example of UGC

Building relationships in a changing (digital) world

Kate OlsenDirector of Partnerships@Kate4Goodkate.olsen@networkforgood.org

How Our World Is Changing

Old: In marketers we trust. New: In each other we trust.

Percent of consumers who say they believe marketers’ claims*

* Forrester, 2009** Nielsen, 2009

6%Percent of consumers who say they trust recommendations from acquaintances**

90%

The Funnel has Flipped

Credit: Crystal Version, FlickrImage from: Optimize & Prophesize (http://www.optimizeandprophesize.com/)

Old: Marketers target everyone. New: MicroMARKETING

Drew Olanoff, Micromarketer

Old: Mass communication

New: ‘Masses of communicators’*

*From Greg Verdino, MicroMARKETING

Brian Solis of PR 2.0

It’s noisy out there!

The Conversation Prism by Brian Solis of PR 2.0

Old: Marketing Monologues

New: Conversation

Social Sampling Scores Big for Kleenex as a Million People Share Packs

Web 1.0:Launch and walk away

Old: Try to Command & Control

New: Engage, Participate

Malaria Griot Program

What This Means For Us

The new (digital) world order

WebsiteEmail Events

What do they care about?•Why me?•What for?•Why now?•Who says?

Have you mastered the basics?•Well-branded, easy-to-use website•Ability to process secure donations •Email campaign tool (federal anti-spam laws)•Website analytics tool (like Google Analytics)•Listening tool (monitor online conversations)•Great follow-up for online supporters•Smooth integration of online & offline efforts•Regular reporting on all of your efforts

What tools make sense?•Where do your supporters congregate?•Are you ready to hand over the megaphone?•Do you have a micro-content strategy?•What resources are available (staff, time etc…)

What else is out there?•Are new supporters finding you through P2P sites?•What’s your plan to keep them in your community?

What WeMustDo

Don’t Teeter on the Tip of the Social Web Iceberg!

Courtesy of Frank Rodríguezhttp://fjrodriguezg.tumblr.com/post/2101032155/social-media-iceberg-diagram

Join a Conversation

And Start a Relationship

Let your masses be your messageThis is about bonds, trust and authenticity. Not Wires.

FacesofMillions.com

• Let your supporters spread your message

• Fill your site and social media outposts with their content and conversation

• Highlight the great work they are doing furthering your mission

See how much easier that is!

Listen!

Source: a presentation by Charlene Li, author, Groundswell

•Page Impressions, Visits, Unique Visitors

•Time Spent, Pages per visitor

•Emails opened, click-throughs

•Videos viewed, audio plays

Engagement & Reach

•Number of Mentions, Posts, Comments

•Recommendations

•Mentions-per-user

•Send This To A Friend

•Inbound links

Word of Mouth

•Offline media mentions

•Online media mentions

Earned Media

•Higher search results

•Greater search results “share”

•3rd party results

•Customer/stakeholder feedback

•Product sampling

Research

Search Visibility

Source: Qui Diaz, Livingston Communications: www.livingstonbuzz.com

Set goals for your site & social media…

…monitor & adjust

Curating and Highlighting UGC

Laura NorvigOnline Community ManagerNational Service Resources and Training

Why Listen?• Find out who is talking

about your organization and cause

• Research topics and trends related to your niche

• Discover who is sharing your content

• Engage with your community

Listening Tools

• Google alerts• Tweetdeck / Twitter searches• Tags (blogs, Twitter, delicious)• Aggregated dashboards (like

Netvibes)• Many new social media listening tools

like SocialMention – http://tnw.co/50FreeTools

Netvibes – dashboard listening toolnetvibes.com/amysampleward

Curation: What is it?

• “Content curation is organizing, filtering and “making sense of” information on the web and sharing the very best with your network.”

–Beth Kanter• Curating User Generated Content is a

way to draw attention to the best of your UGC, and honor your community members’ contributions.

Curation: Why do it?

• Grow your audience• Become a leader• Build relationships• Build trust through the human touch

(i.e., hand curated content, not automatic RSS feeds)

Curation Tools

• Scoop.it• Storify• Pinterest

Curating UGC

Curating Non-UGC

Scoop.it behind the scenes – pulling from many sources

• .

Scoop.it behind the scenes – curation proces

Scoop.it page automatically created

Scoop.it on your own website

Storify

• Highlight tweets on a certain theme, from a tweet chat, or with links to your community’s pics/videos

• Flexible, easy platform allows you to intersperse words, tweets, links, pics, and videos.

See bit.ly/RockStorify for great examples of using Storify

NPTech Tag CommunityCollecting UGC:Inclusive model

Collecting UGC:Exclusive model

KaBOOM! Case Study: The Park-a-Day Summer Challenge

By Jason Cooper, Quality Assurance Coordinator for KaBOOM!

(202) 464-6189 | jcooper@kaboom.org | @jrcooper

KaBOOM!Our Vision: A Great Place to Play Within Walking Distance of Every Child

Our mission is to create great playspaces through the participation and leadership of communities.

Why go online?We can’t do it alone.

“Did you just use the word ‘map’ as a verb?”

Yes, I did! Meet the Map of Play!

Map of Play: Park-a-Day Summer Challenge

• Over 100 people signed up for the challenge• Only 21 became official challengers• 81 new entries were created• 327 photos were added• 84 ratings• 180 posts were made to the Park-a-Day forum• Visits to the Park-a-Day Challenge section of our community stayed

143% longer• Most of the challengers received coverage from their local

community’s media outlets (TV and Print)• Tweets, ReTweets, Facebook likes– countless!

June 1st to September 1st

The Pitch – What we asked them to do1. Create a profile on kaboom.org2. Join us on one of our two “orientation” conference calls to meet

fellow challengers and learn from challenge vets.3. Go to a park or playground at least once a week.4. Add that park or playground to the Map of Play.

1. Add a description of the playground2. Rate the playground3. Add photos4. Fill in details about the equipment available

5. Join the Park-a-Day discussion group on kaboom.org.6. Participate in discussions at your leisure, including our weekly

prompts posted by KaBOOM! staff.7. Tweet about it! Blog about it! Facebook about it!8. Rinse, repeat.

The Pitch – What we will do for them

1. Coverage on the KaBOOM! Blog, Play Today.2. Coverage on KaBOOM! social networks, highlighting your blog,

Twitter handle, etc. 3. We’ll compile each challengers Top 5 playgrounds from the summer,

and pitch the story to local and national news outlets using KaBOOM! media contacts.

4. Challengers will gain an entirely new perspective on what goes into creating and maintaining quality parks and playgrounds.

5. Challengers will gain an entirely new perspective on how their kids can learn and develop, simply by playing.

6. KaBOOM! also promises you and your family will have FUN!

How it worked

• We put out the call on social media and our newsletter for new challengers and users responded by signing up for more information on a form for our CRM, Salsa.

• 2 orientation calls with KaBOOM!, fellow challengers, and challenge veterans

• The Map of Play and our iPhone app, Playgrounds!• KaBOOM! Community Forum– hello.kaboom.org• An “always available” policy for support. Challengers had our direct

contact information (in one case my personal phone number) to handle support requests or just to shoot the breeze.

• Play Today, and KaBOOM! social media, served as the gateway for the broader play community to learn and get involved with our challengers.

Tired of bullets? ME TOO!

When I started this project, I was looking to find out more about the playgrounds around us in Troy, in order to make a case that there were plenty of playgrounds elsewhere, but none downtown. This was to support our case for a downtown Troy playground. But that wasn't quite what I found.

There actually are a fair number of toddler playspaces downtown—the problem is that the nice ones are not open to the public.

-Alex from Troy, NY

-Michelle from Troy, NY

-Dana and Gordie, Calgary, Alberta

My kids have definitely started to use their imaginations a bit more at the playground. I notice them striking up conversations with other kids they don't know and starting games. Playing "store" and some version of Karate Kid/Power Rangers Samurai seem to be their favorites.

Instead of hanging from the monkey bars, they seem to be climbing on top of them, which makes me cringe. My reaction is to say...get down from there, that's not how you use them and you are going to fall, but it really isn't any different than climbing on the things designed for climbing.

My 9 year old was outside from 9 to 4 everyday. My 6 year old played lots of games outside, but also experienced one day that was heavier on classroom time. On our drive home, she said "Mommy, can we stop at a playground?" I was like "What? You just spent 7 hours at camp!" And she complained they'd been inside too much that day. I was amazed she knew herself well enough to know she needed to hang out outside. So we got home and she played outside in our homemade sandboxes for over an hour while I got dinner ready.

2012 Challenge– Begins July 2ndAll new app, Tag!, on iPhone and Android

Easier to use, uses GPS to locate where the picture is so it’s easier to get it on the map.

PRIZES!

Streamlined website: Summer Challenge will have it’s own forum within the Map of Play website.

Gamification!

Tips for making a campaign like this work• Find where your cause and your user meet.

• “High touch” campaign.

• Fly under the radar.

• Be the best customer service agent you can be.

• Don’t restrict.

• Learn to re-love your phone.

• Give solutions.

Questions and Answers

Discussion Topics

•What type of community are you cultivating?•Is it your job to run this thing? Is this your sole job? If not, how do you manage your time/fit it in?•What successes/failures have you had “getting” user generated content?•What did you learn today that you will take back to work and act on?

Further Resources

• Content and Community at Boston Universitybit.ly/ContentRole

• Think Tank Round-up: Curating Content - bit.ly/CurationRoundup

• How great nonprofits are rocking Storify - bit.ly/RockStorify

• Amy Sample Ward’s blogamysampleward.org/

• Tara Hunt’s The Whuffie Factor• Nancy Schwartz’s Getting Attention blog

gettingattention.org

Contact Us

• Kate Olsen• Kate.Olsen@networkforgood.org• @Kate4Good

• Jason Cooper• jcooper@kaboom.org• @jrcooper

• Laura Norvig• LauraN@ETR.org• @LNorvig

• Please fill out the session evaluation form

• Thank You!