Member Communication

[Brooke]

Hi! What does everyone use to communicate with members that is easy and not too expensive. Kind of like Slack or Workplace. Thanks!

[Angel Kwiatkowski]

I wish I lived in a world where everyone was on 1 platform but alas! 

Events: our private facebook group and then a calendar invite to those not on FB and listed on whiteboard in space

Important stuff: email to entire membership via Cobot

Day to day chatter: slack and FB group

Unsung hero: in person conversations!

Angel

[me...@socialhouselw.com]

In person conversation is always the best. However we use Slack, and a private Facebook group. Some of my members even message me through Instagram or text me. It all depends on how comfortable and what personal level you are on with them. 

[Alex Hillman]

My rule of thumb for staying in touch with members is three parts

1- meet them where they are (like Megan said - and I love the instagram example)

2 - don't be afraid of repeating yourself. when you get into the community business, you basically become a professional broken record.

3 - I'll always prefer channels that allow members to interact with each other, over one-way channels...but they work best together.

Most of our internal communication happens over a mix of tools that overlap and compliment each other. 

- Slack (the free version has worked great for us - here's a deep dive podcast on how we use it). Slack requires a lot of attention from members, so even when it's active it only represents ~10-20% of our total community. 

- We use an email-powered forum called GroupBuzz that I've helped launch and share with other coworking spaces. This is where the majority of our community conversation takes place, in that far more people actively read than pay attention to Slack. We auto cross-post new GroupBuzz messages into Slack, and we often turn slack convos into new GroupBuzz posts for wider discussion. Tummling online is real work. 

- ConvertKit for internal weekly announcements. This is a handy roundup of stuff someone might've missed in the other channels during the prior week, and what's coming up soon. Here's an example.

And that's just the online stuff. We have TVs that show reminders/announcements when they're not in use for presentations & other entertainment. We have sandwich boards that get updated with reminders about big stuff coming up and placed in high traffic areas. 

One of the best suggestions I heard recently was to put reminders in the bathroom where people will see it. Brilliant, will be trying this!

Basically...if it's not clear, this is one of the hardest parts of the job to do well. And I always remind myself (and my team) that doing it consistently is a lot more important than doing it perfectly!

-Alex

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The #1 mistake in community building is doing it by yourself.

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[Dave Milliken]

Brooke, I hate to pile on, but Angel, Alex and I have similar recommendations. This topic was discussed extensively at GCUC and the consensus was you need multiple channels to reach members where they want to be reached. So plan on using Slack, Facebook, community forums and more. Have your community managers ask people whether they are aware of messages, and how they learned about it, so you can continuously improve. 

Great question. Good luck. 

On Monday, May 15, 2017 at 8:30:52 AM UTC-6, Brooke wrote:

[Bernie J Mitchell]

Posters in the bathroom - right in front of where people are doing their business!!! 

We also have small Meet Up groups in our place everyday and we remind people there.

I took an online course about slack to make better use of it. 

I felt I was using 10% of it! 

Just because everyone says "I use slack" does not mean they are using it it's full potential.

Sorry guys - While I agree with "meet them where they are" - facebook and LinkedIn are hell hole time sucks and should be avoided at all costs!!!! 

When the OuiShare gang moved from Facebook to Slack and telegram a few years ago we all got our lives back! 

We tried Group Buzz but our community was too small and not up for it.

We'll give Group Buzz another go later in the year - my message here is don't expect an app to give you comunuty!! 

Last of all - go and say hello to members and get them on your weekly email newsletter - make sure that newsletter does not suck! 

We do a weekly email based around the topics of our meet ups - writing, project planning, blogging, art and OuiShare.

BTW all the above suggestions have come from this Google group over the last few years - thanks x😍

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