What is Digital Engagement?

A successful community looks very different than it did years ago. Whether you’re an aspiring influencer, an artist, an entrepreneur or you run a non-profit, today’s success is often made online – and almost always goes hand in hand with a thriving digital community.

Why Start a Digital Community?

Just like building a community in the real world, a digital community is just a group of people with a shared identity. But this group is different. In a digital community, members can easily join or leave the group, meaning they only stay with the ones they like. It’s not as simple as being born into a neighborhood, and forever being part of that group. 

Digital communities are created by people with a shared goal or interest, who take that commonality and make it the center of a whole online ecosystem. They interact, build friendships, debate, celebrate, support and even shop, all while keeping the common core in mind. These digital communities are vital to modern businesses and organizations and should be skillfully cultivated.

A Digital Community Can Mean More Revenue

A thriving digital community can drive sales, strengthen name recognition and get people involved with a cause – but those people are more than just customers or fans. When healthy, members act almost like ambassadors, carrying a message out into the world, and helping brands achieve goals and grow bigger. 

It involves capturing attention and earning respect and trust. Communities can do this by making self-expression feel safe and making it worth while for community members to get involved. That involvement should be something that signals passion –  making a purchase, signing up for a volunteer opportunity, or even just sharing a post with the group. Hopefully, it will create enough goodwill and loyalty to keep the community members engaged over and over. 

Ultimately, all modern brands and missions need a digital community, but if creating one sounds scary, don’t worry. It’s not nearly as daunting as it seems. It should be noted that the most effective examples are not always the ones with the most followers – they’re the ones whose members feel most comfortable engaging.

3 Steps to Building a Successful Digital Community

1. Know Your Role

First things first, and you need to get real about what you want from this digital community. Consider why you are starting it, the needs of the brand, and who you are serving. That last one is a biggie – you have to have an ideal member in mind and prepare your messaging for them. What do they like? What are they against? Only by knowing your users can you find something in common with them, which is your core community bond.

• Imagine your ideal member, and try to be as realistic as possible.
• Find something in common, and be prepared to highlight that.
• This will begin to generate a shared identity.

2. Give Ownership to Members

Here’s a secret: Just because you built the community, that doesn’t mean it’s yours. A true digital community belongs to the people, and people value a community most when they connect, engage, and feel encouraged to share. Whether in an open forum, live event, or even a digital community around learning through online courses. Always listen to the community members and consider their suggestions; this will give them a sense of ownership. And when you do start sharing content, be human, and be vulnerable in what you express (this isn’t the place for corporate business-speak).

• Listen to your community and give members a sense of ownership.
• Focus on solutions (not problems), and be human (not HR).
• Offer something of value.

3. Share the Wins

This may come as a surprise, but there is evidence that a digital community is at its most active when celebrating success, even if it’s a small win. According to a study by The Visual Capitalist shared by Rolling Stone’s Culture Council, even the world’s biggest influencers see peaks in interaction when they announce milestones like new albums, endorsements, or personal achievements – you can do this, too. Is a longtime team member getting married? Have you reached a sales goal or some other marker of progress? Share it with your community, because they just won, too. That’s the point of community to begin with. In the immortal words of Billy Dee Williams, “Success is nothing without someone you love to share it with.”

• Share your goals and achievements.
• Celebrate them like family.
• Ride the wave with follow-up posts.

Get Started With Cause Machine

Starting with a community engagement strategy is the secret to building a successful platform in the long term. Cause Machine helps customers build the plan of engaging a community well and then begin mapping out the technology to help support that strategy. We’re certain that you’ll find some great resources and powerful tools in Cause Machine to better engage your community. Learn how it can work for you here.

Facilitation can seem like the daunting task of leading people through a meeting, discussion, or process.  Truth is… it was (and sometimes still is) very intimidating for me as well.  Some people are naturally gifted as facilitators but what I’ve learned in this over decades of facilitating countless sessions is that the best facilitators have a toolbox they leverage to help guide a group to a determined goal.  I would like to unpack a number of these tools with you to help you better engage groups that you might lead.

The Golden Rule of Facilitation

Before we dig into some of these tools, I do need to stop and address one thing… your single most important goal as a facilitator.  Stop for a moment and think about this principle.

Great facilitation leads to commitment, never consensus

I still remember the day my mentor in all of this explained to me this principle.  I also can point to every successful facilitation to an alignment with this principle and the many failures of misalignment.  Basically, you just can’t lead a group of people to a consensus, and truthfully, you don’t need to.  That’s a myth and it’s going to consume your time and energy.  But if you lead a group to commitment, then you can keep driving the overall plan and everyone has had a voice in that puzzle.  

Tips and Tricks to Facilitation

• Set Expectations - give everyone the opportunity to pour out their personal expectations and what they hope to get from the session.  Come back to these expectations throughout your time together and check-in to see if the overall process is meeting their expectations.  Also, guide the expectations that aren’t in alignment with the overall session goals - explain to people how that’s a good expectation but not one you’ll tackle in this session.  And for expectations that didn’t feel fully met in the end, be sure to have a plan to follow up on those expectations after your time together.  

• Have a Structure - I’ve heard that meetings with six or fewer people don’t need much structure but the minute you’re over six people, you need a structural plan.  I certainly agree with this idea… the larger the group the more structure is needed.  So as you enter a meeting, or leading a facilitated session, have a structure for what you hope to accomplish: the flow, how each piece works, time frame, expectations, interactive components, etc.  Your structure will set you up for success.  And for example, something like an innovation will flow like this: Discovery, Brainstorming, Clustering, Sketching, Prototyping, and Presentations.  This is just one structure model - the point is that you have one predefined.  

• Set Rules of Engagement (ROE) - there are so many ways we could engage in a meeting, we just need to know what the rules of engagement are for each type of session.  People will go where you lead them… you just need to lead them.  You need to set ROE for what to contribute, what not to contribute, how to engage, what happens if you get off course, etc.  For example, in a brainstorming session, you would instruct people to write one idea per sticky note, write with a Sharpie, say their ideas out loud, explain it’s okay to have repeated and instruct them that criticism isn’t allowed.  Simple ROE like this sets everything up for better success.  

• Guide People - yeah, it’s simple, but people need guidance and they need you to lead them to the end goal.  The end goal isn’t what you’re going to produce… it’s what they produce and it’s following the process to help get you there.  But they need (and the process needs) a guide to lead people to that goal.  Facilitation could really be simplified into one word… guidance.  This is the privilege and responsibility you have as the facilitator.  

Well, there are many more, but there was a good start on some of those tips and tricks that make a world of difference in how you facilitate a session.  

Cause Machine Solutions

Here at Cause Machine, we help facilitate strategy and innovation sessions for many types of community engagement strategies - it’s part of what we do, believing that community engagement is a mix of strategy and technology.  We hope these articles will help you better build your community engagement plans.  Schedule a demo today!

There are countless types of innovations you could facilitate - each with their own strategy, design, timeframe, and more.  The important thing to know is that each type of problem you’re working to solve has a unique run of play for how that innovation should be facilitated.  My goal here is to unpack seven core types of innovations to consider.  It’s important that you help your client understand which innovation they are desiring before launching the event.

#1 Concept Sketch

Overview: A Concept Sketch Innovation is when there is a felt need and/or a basic idea with a very open minded or open-handed approach to how that might come to life.  

Goal: The outcome from this innovation would be a fresh idea, in concept format, for how to approach this problem.  
 

#2 Framework Design

Overview: A Framework Design Innovation is when there is a defined project/goal but there is a needed framework or picture needed to help simply capture the overall complexity. 

Goal: The outcome from this innovation would be sketches of this framework (picture, pathway, etc.)
 

#3 Vetting Concept

Overview: A Vetting Concept Innovation is when there is a plan in motion and a fairly good picture of the desired goal, but a desire to “vet” out the concept more and gain more collaborative buy-in.

Goal: The outcome from this innovation would be more details to the plan, a stronger prototype of the concept, and greater unity around the vision.
 

#4 Business Plan

Overview: A Business Plan Innovation is when there’s an agreed upon plan already existing, but there is lacking a more comprehensive business plan with specific details for execution  

Goal: The outcome from this innovation would be a multi-page business plan outlining specific Go to Market strategies.
 

#5 Resource Design

Overview: A Resource Design Innovation is when there is a need to design (or potentially redesign) a resource - focusing on the resource design, purpose, and delivery.   

Goal: The outcome from this innovation would be the prototyping of fresh resources with some content creation and strategy.
 

#6 Process Design

Overview: A Process Design Innovation is when there is a new process (or a process to re-vision) and a need to collaboratively streamline and make a process.  

Goal: The outcome from this innovation would be a process design map with detailed steps, dependencies, and outcomes.
 

#7 Rethink

Overview: A Rethink Innovation is when there is a pre-existing program that could use some fresh thought and fresh ideas.     

Goal: The outcome from this innovation would be a new concept plan for how to approach this in a more current context.

As you can see, there are many types of innovations you could facilitate.  More than likely, just seeing the list sparked a few ideas for innovations you might consider.

Cause Machine Solutions

Here at Cause Machine, we help organizations solve complex community engagement problems/questions.  We use these disciplines of innovation ourselves in our own development process and have helped lead many organizations through their own process of innovation discovery.  Leveraging the Cause Machine platform for engaging your community helps you be confident that the foundations of this platform are built on time-tested best practices of great processes like innovation and design thinking.  Schedule a demo today!

Creating a culture of innovation is no easy task.  Truthfully, creating a culture of anything isn’t an easy task!  But some things are more critical than others for what they mean to your culture.  As we’ve unpacked before… innovation is far more a process than a skillset.  This is important, especially if your goal is to create a culture of innovation because you can scale a process (but it’s difficult to scale skillset with limited human resources).  

Before we talk specifically about innovation culture, it’s probably best to start with understanding and having some agreed upon idea about organizational culture in general.  Let’s give this some definition or at least some talking points.

• Co-Owned - people in your organization feel ownership and it’s not centralized with a person or a team

• Repetative - the action or manifestation of that cultural idea is being repeating and lived out in various forms in your organization

• Catalyst - there are core catalytic events and moments for bringing/driving this culture to life

• Stewardship - there are dedicated people to “own” this cultural mandate and help see if become part of the overall organization

So then we dive into innovation culture and what makes that unique.  Innovation culture is when an organization embraces a standard process approach to help solve organzational problems.  It’s what happens when there’s a discipline to allow an objective process to help flush out better ways to solve a problem (than one person carrying that weight on themself).  Let’s give this some more talking points as well.

• Branding - give your process, space, and team a name - something that makes this unique to your organization

• Dedicated Space - creation of a dedicated space to lead and facilitate innovation sessions

• Defined Process - refining the innovation (or design thinking) processes to clarify your organization’s version and vernacular

• Campaigns - starting with strong campaigns to get others on board, initiating early innovation sessions, and educating people

• Facilitators - building a team of trained facilitators from across the organization

Lastly, it’s important to give people the opportunity to engage and leading them to how to make that step of engagement.  While there are many ways to engage, here are three recommendations.  

• Participate - give people the opportunity to sign up and be a team member of an upcoming innovation 

• Submit - give team leaders the ability to submit innovation concepts for their team to have an innovation facilitated

• Facilitate - request to be trained as a facilitator to learn the skillset and be on your roster of facilitators

In short, creating a culture of innovation is a discipline of activity and steadiness over time to see your process well leveraged for the betterment of organization.  Add to our list here and get started creating your own culture of innovation!

Cause Machine Solutions

Here at Cause Machine, we help organizations solve complex community engagement problems/questions.  We use these disciplines of innovation ourselves in our own development process and have helped lead many organizations throught their own process of innovation discovery.  Leveraging the Cause Machine platform for engaging your community helps you be confident that the foundations of this platform are built on time-tested best practices of great processes like innovation and design thinking.  Schedule a demo today!

For any university, college, or school system, alumni networks are important. A network of alums doesn’t just help meet fundraising goals, but members can even act as public ambassadors, mentor students and offer post-graduation job opportunities, support athletic departments, and even help increase new student enrollment. 

But the key to all that is good alumni engagement, and not everyone does it well. Today we’ll explore some alumni engagement best practices to make your network as strong as it can be.

How Important is Alumni Engagement?

According to a 2020 report by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, alumni giving at U.S. colleges totaled more than $11 billion in 2019. That’s a lot of money, but it’s not spread out evenly.

Only 8 percent of U.S. alumni give to their alma mater on average, according to that same survey of 1,451 ranked colleges. Meanwhile, the top schools in the study were seeing giving rates of 44 percent and higher. Once again, the difference is a strategic approach to alumni engagement.

Donor Search notes that a full 93 percent of alumni associations “offer no direct benefits to their members.” Let’s make sure you don’t fall into that category.

6 Alumni Engagement Best Practices

1. Know Your Audience

As with any community nurturing operation, the first step is to know who you are talking to. Your alumni network is mostly likely diverse, so create a few categories and different messaging for each category of alums. Make sure to keep your member database (CRM) up to date, too – there’s no point in reaching out to people who have dropped off the rolls.

• Update your database constantly.
• Make sure you have a system for getting 'new' alums involved.
• Segment your target members into categories.

2. Tailor Content to Your Alums

Now that you have some categories set up, it’s important to create messaging that speaks to each one directly. If you’re talking to fans of the school’s sports programs, keep that in mind. Graduates from an Education program? People with a Finance degree? Take a different approach with each different group of people. Not everyone will want to engage with the school. But lifelong fans are ready to jump in and support/engage how they can. 

• Find out what content (videos, news, articles, podcasts, etc.) your alums will find valuable (test if you're not sure).
• Create a distinct customer journey alumni will work through, then insert relative 'asks' along the way.

3. Don’t Just Ask for Money

Fundraising is a big part of why the network exists, but when it comes to alumni engagement best practices, you can’t just solicit donations and nothing else. Members will start to delete or ignore the content reflexively. Instead, send them news on new programs and sports updates, offer perks from local partner businesses, and anything that will make them feel like they're still part of the community. Free guides, offers, and perks are always good choices. 

• Add in non-fundraising communication.
• Include local news, program updates, and sports results are all good ideas. 
• Offer alumni discounts from partner businesses.

4. Mix Things Up

People get bored easily, and if you’re only reaching out via one mode of communication, it will get old fast. Plan out a healthy mix of email campaigns, articles, video content, podcasts, snail mail, and even texting. Also, use video and social media to reconnect with old alums – especially alumni-generated content, which sees a high rate of engagement. Alumni photos from the big game? Student snaps of their favorite part of campus? That’s all great.

• Utilize different modes of communication.
• Vary between email, newsletters, alternate platforms, etc.
• Highlight user-generated content whenever possible.

5. Keep It Steady

High on the list of alumni engagement best practices is regular communication. Plan out ways to be consistent in reaching out, even as you mix up the mode of contact and message. It shows you are engaged and that effort will be appreciated. It will also keep your school fresh in the alumni’s memory.

• Set up an editorial calendar to track content production and publishing. 
• Look to start monthly email nurture campaigns, quarterly newsletters, regular events, and reunions.

6. Deliver a Sense of Ownership

Finally, the most engaging alumni networks have one thing in common: They make their members feel a sense of ownership in the institution. They probably already feel a sense of pride in the school, so you just have to take that one step further. Creativity is welcome here, but it could be done with something as simple as a survey. Take the results, listen to the members, and keep them in mind when making changes, planning events, or expanding. Then report back through your network.

• Remind alums that they (and their honest opinion) are valued.
• Create surveys and act on feedback.
• Build your site on a reliable membership platform that offers features to help engage alums.

To Succeed, You Need a Strategic Plan to Manage Alumni 

As we’ve seen, engagement is the most important factor in a high-functioning alumni network, and the returns on your hard work can be game-changing. These alumni engagement best practices aren’t complicated, and most of them aren’t even hard to do, but they will help you give the most to your members and get the most for your institution.

Get Started With Cause Machine

Starting with a community engagement strategy is the secret to building a successful platform in the long term. Cause Machine helps customers build the plan of engaging a community well and then begin mapping out the technology to help support that strategy. We’re certain that you’ll find some great resources and powerful tools in Cause Machine to better engage your community. Learn how it can work for you here.