Tag Archives: community

Featured on HealthiNation

Posted on by
Reply

I haven’t been the best of bloggers… actually, I have been a VERY bad blogger. Last time I posted in here was nearly a month ago. But there’s a good reason for this. We’ve been VERY busy! We’ve been to New York, to Madrid and all over the place preparing for November, Diabetes Awareness Month.

With November, comes Big Blue Test, one of the most important diabetes awareness programs at the Diabetes Hands Foundation… I will tell you more about it in a few days, but for now, I wanted to share this preview video of the 4-episode series by HealthiNation about the work we do at Diabetes Hands Foundation. Hope you enjoy it!

Building Stronger Communities

Posted on by
Reply

In preparation for a few coming presentations I will be doing about patient communities and other related topics, I went back to this great presentation from NTC 2010 where I was part of an amazing panel of online community experts. Hope you find it useful.

Building Stronger Communities

5 Tips to Make your Community More Vibrant

Posted on by
1

Running an online community is not easy, is extremely fulfilling and can help your take your organization’s mission to the next level.

I first wrote this topic about a year ago, but these tips continue to be as relevant as ever!

  1. Know who the champions are in your community and acknowledge them visibly.
  2. Highlight member generated content more often than content you create.
  3. Refresh content often, but not TOO often: Google Analytics can help you figure out how often.
  4. Conduct contests and other initiatives regularly to engage members of the community.
  5. Always: listen to your community. Sometimes, ALL it takes is to listen to what they have to say.

A bonus tip: get the book “Managing Online Forums”!

What are some good examples of ways in which you made your community more vibrant?

Engaging the members in your community

Posted on by
Reply

Reading this fabulous post on the Creators network on Ning, it occurred to me it’d be a good idea to share in here some of our own experiences with regards to engagement and community members…

A very different view of things emerges when you start looking at your traffic data seeing Site Usage not just by ALL visitors but by Returning Visitors and compare.

  • Nearly 75% of the pageviews come from returning visitors on TuDiabetes.
  • They “consume” an average of nearly 8 pages per visit, compared to 5+ pages per visit for all visits (total).
  • They spend more than 9 minutes on the site on average (compared 5.5 minutes for all visits)

So what does this mean? It means that it’s not just VISITS, but RETURNING VISITORS that are the bloodwork of your online community.

How do you get visitors to come back to your community?

Online Communities for Nonprofits at NTC2010

Posted on by
Reply
Next week, at the Nonprofit Technology Conference 2010 in Atlanta, I will be a part of two sessions:

I will be leading the panel speaking on Building Stronger Online Communities Without Losing Your Sanity (April 10 at 10:30 am):

and I will be a part of the panel dealing with Niche Social Networks to Spread Your Message (April 9 at 1:30 pm):

Hope you find them useful.

How to switch from a Facebook Group to a Facebook Page

Posted on by
Reply

A long, long time ago… in a galaxy far away… Wait. Wait! Not so long ago and not so far away: Facebook used to only offer Groups as the means for organizations to get “community” going under their roof. I can’t put it any nicer: Facebook Groups SUCK!

So, I was very happy when Facebook introduced Facebook Pages (read this Mashable post for a detailed explanation about the differences between the two). The only problem is that Facebook does not support the transition from one to the other.

At the Diabetes Hands Foundation, we used to have two groups (one in English and one in Spanish). Today, we only have a Diabetes Hands Foundation page (which we invite you to join!)

This is how we did the switch to the Facebook Page:
1) For each group you want to transition, send a message to all members inviting them to join the new page. Make the message time-sensitive: “This group will be closing in X days. Before then, make sure to join our new Facebook Group.”
2) Repeat the message at X-1, X-2, etc. days until the day you close the Group.
3) Close the group.
4) Stop accepting new members and also de-list the group so that it can’t be found when people search groups on Facebook.
5) Repeat steps 1-4 for all other groups you want to consolidate into your Fan Page.

Yes, you will be loosing members in the process but having a Facebook page is SO much better. Groups are indeed an afterthought at Facebook these days. Pages give you a lot more tools to interact with and track members (as well as managing them).

Have you made the jump from Groups to Pages too? Why don’t you share your experience?

IF YOU FOUND THIS POST USEFUL, PLEASE CONSIDER MAKING A TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATION TO THE DIABETES HANDS FOUNDATION.