Member engagement is one of the key responsibilities of social media and community managers but it is one of the hardest responsibilities to understand and improve.  There is no playbook that has the ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ ways to encourage engagement and what works for some communities is completely wrong for others. In this respect having an understanding of user experience and the psychology of engagement is incredibly useful.  I particularly like BJ Fogg’s model with three primary vectors:

• Motivation
• Ability
• Trigger

While simplified in description, understanding and affecting motivation, increasing member ability to participate, and creating effective triggers are not always easy to understand or execute but it is a really helpful model for focusing what may yield the best results.  All of these aspects can be improved through community management and the user experience within a community but obviously manual, personal interactions can be adapted more quickly and adjusted for individuals.  Until community management understands what works in a consistent way in a particular community, it is unwise and expensive to build those attributes into the user experience of a community site. Member engagement too is impacted to a great degree by not just what is engaging to the member but by what best encourages the outcome for which the organization desires. It will take time to understand and adjust in order to optimize that balance.

While BJ Fogg offers an academic perspective, the community managers who are members of The Community Roundtable had their own set of best practices and lessons learned, among them:

• Ensuring that new members are welcomed and feel acclimated to the new community is essential.
• In new communities, creating a “water cooler” environment where people can go to engage in light-hearted conversation with their peers in a non-threatening way is an important way for members to establish a comfort level with each other before broaching more sensitive topics.
• Idle chit chat is a important part of a community and it will take some creative influence to help executives understand that it is a crucial facet of the business case.
• Be clear on the purpose and desired response to posted content and conversations – it will help members know what is appropriate and feel comfortable contributing. Clarity of purpose will also help you track and measure results effectively.
• One of the best ways to pull people into a conversation is to let them know that they have an audience. Encourage peers to respond to new content that is posted, particularly if it is posted by a newer member of the community. Responding as the community manager is OK but it is not as satisfying as a peer response and it can inadvertently halt the discussion because it is viewed as the opinion of an authority figure.
• Multi-modal content is very successful at driving engagement. Build in text, image, audio, and video content that can be viewed in different ways. Consider using music alongside content or online events – it can have the same bonding and energizing effect as when it is used offline.
• Lurkers have value. Even if not interacting, lurkers are consuming content which is a way of participating and being present. Lurkers may also respond to content in a different channel which is generally difficult to track.  Additionally members have a wide variety of thresholds to participation – some people need to lurk longer than others.

Do you have a ‘never fail’ technique for encouraging member participation?  We know others would like to hear it so please share!

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The Community Roundtable  is committed to advancing the business of community. We offer a monthly subscription report, a membership based peer network, a community management training program and advisory services for corporations and individuals.