Effectively capture + score member engagement in your social community.
Editor’s note: This is the third installment in a four-part series looking at member engagement at associations and the importance of implementing a social networking platform equipped with the right tools to ensure early adoption and consistent engagement.
Previously, we discussed the best way to recognize and leverage the knowledge of ambassadors within your association to help onboard new members and more directly engage existing members. But, how do you acknowledge the contributions made by your core member base, even if they are relatively small?
The success and growth of your online social community hinges on these smaller offerings by everyday members. They broaden the perspective around individual discussions, new ideas and, ultimately, the value of being a member of your organization in the first place.
Many associations leverage their member engagement strategy with their social community. These communities track and score member engagement based on transactional activity, such as paying for dues, registering for an event or simply logging in to the website.
The challenge with this approach is that none of these actions relate to involvement with or contributions to the features that define a social community—namely creating a post, sharing content or being involved in discussions.
Empower your members with praise
Members must be motivated to interact with one another and rewarded accordingly. Thought leaders aren’t born out of how many times they click on a button to renew their dues or log in to the social community. Instead, they emerge as leaders from their collaboration with other members and from their own active levels of engagement.
Let’s face it, people like to be recognized for their efforts (and not just renewing their dues!). One of the most powerful things your organization can do is to individually recognize each member for his or her efforts. For a new member, it’s as simple as a personal welcome to the association, or identify members who have consistently given their time to the social community. For their extra efforts, put them on a pedestal.
The little secret about recognition is that once someone else gets it, others want it. It’s a win-win for your association: you recognize members, they feel good and try to replicate that recognized behavior. Meanwhile, you’ve set the playing field for competition among other members seeking that same recognition from their peers and organization leaders. It becomes a self-sufficient system with the right tools.
Get more with the right social tools
With the introduction of SocialLink comes new tools that empower your members and you to get the most out of your online social community. For instance, using the Engagement Level indicator, an individual member always knows his or her level of contribution and are encouraged to do so consistently through a rolling 30-day point total calculation. Members can also observe which of them are most actively interacting with key social platform features and even other members using the Leading Contributor tile. This tile provides insight into how a member ranks in comparison to the top 25 contributors within their network.
For administrators, it’s easy to observe trends in this data using the SocialLink Dashboard. With it, they can identify who consistently creates content and fosters discussion. To take it a step further, the Quick Announcement tool gives you the power to recognize your top members, donors or volunteers with a customized message and an effortless way to provide a custom call to action link.
How member engagement is scored is now redefined with SocialLink, with YM doing the heavy lifting for you, your members and your association’s social community. Transactional activities just cannot provide you with the same accurate insight into driving your member engagement strategy.
It’s time to schedule a demo today to capture higher engagement and develop a stronger connection with your members.
