Integrating an online community engagement strategy

When I wrote my first online community engagement strategy for Telstra's Wireplay service in 1997, one of the factors I considered was how to 'complete the loop' - integrate inbound and outbound online channels to reach, engage and promote interaction across the widest possible audience.

In those days we used mass media, product sponsorship and events as the drivers to build audience reach and awareness and online forums, IRC chat, newsgroups and email to interact online and generate repeat traffic.

It was an effective combination - although limited by 2009 standards.

Today there are more online channels alternatives when building an integrated marketing or engagement strategy, however the principle remains the same,

• Use media (inc online) channels to drive initial traffic to the site
  
• Make the on site barriers to engagement and interaction as low as possible, provide rewards for activity and a variety of ways to engage/interact to suit different comfort and skills levels
  
• Promote return traffic through alerts and email news
• Build audience by providing reasons for visitors to refer your site to others
• Increase your reach by providing options to integrate your content into other sites

However I'm disappointed to see that many Australian organisations are struggling to get beyond the first, second or third steps above.

Sometimes their strategy was to spend their month on building and launching an online engagement site, then hope people like it enough to spread the word themselves - the build it and they will come approach.

Sometimes organisations treat the delivery of a website as the end of the project - rather than the start.

And sometimes the value of word-of-mouth promotion and an outreach strategy is not recognised - some organisations still believe that the mass media is the most powerful traffic driver.

Fortunately for those of you struggling to enlighten organisations who believe any of the above, IAS B2B has published an integrated channel strategy diagram which provides an excellent illustration of how to effectively design an online community engagement approach.

I've included an image below, and you can download the integrated online strategy diagram PDF here (103kb).

At first glance the diagram can appear a little daunting - which is possibly why Marc Keating has made an accompanying video to explain it in depth.

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The most difficult leap for Government is not from 1.0 to 2.0, but from consultation to collaboration

With all the hubbub about Gov 2.0 at present it's often forgotten that a lot of what is being attempted is simply taking what is already done in other mediums and doing it online.

For example, online engagement and consultation is an evolutionary rather than revolutionary step. Where governments used to host robust town hall meetings, they are now conducting these discussions online.

In most cases this lowers the consultation risk for governments,

• every audience question or comment can be moderated before it is public,
• there is no physical proximity and therefore less risk to the health of political representatives, 
• discussions can take place over time (and with no time limit), allowing greater participation and reducing impositions on the time of everyone involved,
• they cost less - no venue or travel expenses, no security contingents or vetting,
  
• there are less errors or gaffes as aides and advisors can vet the representative's words for factual and political errors before they are published, and 
• the political representative's words will not be distorted as easily through word of mouth. Anyone can go to the online consultation and review what they actually said.
  

Looking at the  open data aspects of Gov 2.0, again this is an evolutionary rather than revolutionary step. Government has made some data available for years - albeit not always in machine-readable format. Data that is collected but does not become publicly available is still generally captured and stored by departments and can be subject to our current freedom of information laws.

Gov 2.0 ups the ante, changing the definition of what should be made public and requires processes and systems to be revised, however it doesn't require entirely new behaviours and approaches - data is collected, stored and reported now, in the future only the access and formats will change.

The real challenge for governments in Gov 2.0 is moving to a collaborative or participatory model. This is a fundamental shift in the power arrangement - the government is no longer central to the relationship, it is simply working with partners to achieve agreed goals.

In a collaborative environment the government doesn't control the terms of the discussion (as in a consultation), control the message (in a promotion) or set the parameters on what and how data will be released from internal silos. Instead the government is merely one of the players at the table - and often not the most influential.

Overseas we've seen some examples of this collaboration in action, generally initiated by the public and then seeing their governments forced to participate based on the number of people in the community involved.

One example is Fix my street, a UK-based community-developed service allowing people to report local infrastructure issues that their council is responsible for maintaining, such as potholes, street lights, pavements and blocked drains. Looking at the site, there have been over 50,000 issues reported, with over 1,200 fixed in the last month - by councils forced to pay attention to their community's needs.

It's hard to find lots of other examples as yet - and it's even difficult to think of the potential shapes of collaborative initiatives - possibly because our paradigm is still too narrow, the internet as yet too young.


I'm not yet sure whether or to what extent the principle of collaboration will take hold in governments. There needs to be further changes in government policy and processes, society, education systems, legal systems and the concept of ownership for effective collaboration between a constituency and its government to become streamlined and fully effective.

However, in my opinion, collaboration is the space where both citizens and government can see the greatest benefits from Gov 2.0 as it engages the community as an equal stakeholder in the development and management of public goods.

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Finalists of Apps for America 2 announced

The Sunlight Foundation has announced the three finalists for the Apps for America 2 competition.

These finalists represent the best online social innovation sites developed by Americans to make the US government more transparent.

I'm hoping that we'll soon see a similar competition held here in Australia.

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28 reasons why organisations avoid social media - (try it as bingo)

Jeff Bullas has written a fantastic post, 28 Reasons Why The CEO Is Afraid Of Social Media, which lists many of the reasons given by organisations when resisting getting involved with online social media.

While he's followed up with another great post addressing many of these concerns, 9 Ways To Convince The CEO To Use Social Media and Enter The 21st Century, I thought his first post was so good that it deserved to be turned into a Social Media Bingo game.

Below you'll find Jeff's 28 reasons arranged on a single page, ready to be downloaded and used as Social Media Bingo.

If your organisation is still avoiding engagement with social media, see how many of Jeff's reasons apply - and let me know how many you managed to cross off!

Social Media Bingo

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Are you supporting Australian gov 2.0 initiatives?

There are a lot of people interested in Gov 2.0 and social media these days - it's no surprise given the level of commitment indicated by political leaders in Australia and the dollars beginning to become available in the area.

However few of them appear to be actively contributing to the Gov 2.0 discussion in Australia.

Considering the number of people signed up to the Gov2 Australia list and attending Gov 2.0 events, by my estimation less than ten percentage of people are contributing over 80% of the discussion.

Now this isn't necessarily a major issue. Many people are new to the area and listening and learning, or are simply shy. What does concern me is whether this quiet majority are supporting the various Gov 2.0 initiatives being rolled out by Departments.

The Gov 2.0 area in Australian is still an infant and the scrutiny on Gov 2.0 initiatives is intense, so any indication that they do not work - such as through low participation or destructive, rather than constructive criticism, can easily set back any Department's attempts to move into a new and, frankly, scary space.

So if you're one of the quiet majority, please consider taking a small step to support the rest of the Gov 2.0 community - post a comment at a government blog, provide feedback on an online consultation or follow and retweet a government twitterer.

Most importantly, look for opportunities within your own agency to promote the initiatives of other departments to your staff and audiences.

If you're not sure which initiatives to support, here's a few to choose from,

• the Gov 2.0 Taskforce,
• DOHA's yourHealth health reform consultation,
• ABS's Betaworks website redevelopment project, or
• the Prime Minister's blog

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