What are some common challenges or pitfalls to avoid when engaging with your community?

I. After 35 years of community engagement work, believe strongly, that the “disagreements” ie diversity within a group add to its strength. The process, if facilitated by a skilled community development worker, will enable compromise and understanding that results in responsible ownership, greater community cohesion and sustainability.

If building community is a goal... Don't post and ghost!! Take the time to respond to every comment and DM. Actively engage the social media accounts of your partners, employees, and clients to strengthen their loyalty and advocacy. Also, be sure to engage the accounts of your ideal clients, partners, media allies, etc. In fact, consider making content with them using "content-based networking" strategies that give before asking. Content is not king. Relationships are. Content is just one powerful tool.

One major challenge is assuming a one-size-fits-all approach. It's crucial to recognize and respect the unique dynamics and needs of each community. Avoiding over-promising and under-delivering is also important to maintain trust and credibility.

Being clear about your community and engaging, lies deeper within than just engaging for the heck of it. You need a clear goal for your community & your community members need to know WHY they are part of the community (as in their purpose). The more defined this is, the easier it is to engage... The next step is then to strategize engagement tactics that fit to the audience and needs of your members.

Don't under-estimate how little those outside of your organisation understand (or maybe even care about?) your cause... Be clear AND be persuasive...

In my experience there is a lot to be gained by working with and through trusted individuals within the community you want to engage with. This can help avoid the relationship/power imbalance that often comes with statutory/health engagement where those doing the engagement aren't known to the community or don't have the same shared/common experiences to start from.

Here are a few fun ways to engage online communities while rewarding and incentivizing their participation: 1. Contests and giveaways: products, gift cards, or exclusive experiences, perhaps from relevant strategic partners in co-branded campaigns. 2. Gamification: Add game-like elements to non-game contexts, such as leaderboards and points. 3. Social media challenges: complete and share on social media for creative user-generated content marketing campaigns. 4. Exclusive events, online or in-person. We all want to feel included. Feeling special is even better! 5. Early access to new products or features.

Feedback goes both ways: if you're only collecting and not responding, customers will stop providing it. Deploy a simple survey of your community: * Why did you visit? * Did you find what you were seeking? * From 1 - 10, how would you rate your experience? * How can we improve your experience? Respond to your community members and implement win/win changes.

Pro activeky reach out beyond the 'usual suspects', what do those who don't usually engage with you think? It's harder to ascertain but much more valuable.

As the saying goes 'relationships move at the speed of trust.' And as others have said that trust often needs to be built through pre-existing relationships/partnerships within that community. Just because you want to work within that community doesn't mean they want to work with you. As such the feedback and dialogue between you and your target community can be either not exist or be a negative one

The rise of the "community manager" title across verticals is evidence of marketers tapping into the consumer's increased need for a sense of belonging in a post-pandemic world where volumes of data show a sharp global increase in loneliness since 2020. Spend time talking to the people who spend time engaging your brand! Depending upon the size of your community, it may be important for you to consider teasing apart the SMM and CM roles and responsibilities. A community manager's time may be better spent engaging the community more directly via social channels while a dedicated social media manager is creating and optimizing the digital content.

Recognition your team member will create a great teamwork. For example, when Argentina won the world cup in 2022 and Messi the best soccer player on this planet scored the goals in the final, the credit also goes to the rest of the players that fight very hard until the extra time to penalty shootout because it is a team sport, Messi alone on the field will not win the tournament. Same as the leader of the community, you have to recognize everyone on the team, more or less they have contributed to make the community successful. In order to do that, you have to be thoughtful and attentive to your team members.

Creating a Community Champions program is an excellent solution. Identify your top contributors then recognize and reward them for what they are already doing.

Many developers pour their time and knowledge into online communities. In my experience leading a massive community like C# Corner, recognizing these contributions is crucial. Public shout-outs, badges for participation, or highlighting exceptional work can go a long way. When developers feel valued, they're more likely to keep contributing and sharing their expertise, benefitting the entire community.

Communities serve a specific niche based on various commonalities, but that doesn't mean everyone in your community is the same. Are you actively requesting and prioritizing voices from underrepresented groups? Are the people making decisions on subjective choices also diverse?

I agree that we need mechanisms to ensure that barriers to participation are reduced, even with such mechanisms I cannot change the demographic make up of the community I work in.

It is absolutely that you encourage and harness diversity within a community. What is important though is that we see diversity in its broadest sense. As an example just because you want to work with young people within your community, doesn't mean you exclude other age groups from engagement and consultation.

In today's tech landscape, diversity is key. As the RD for C# Corner India and Asia Pacific, I'm committed to fostering an inclusive environment that welcomes developers from all backgrounds. Actively reach out to underrepresented groups, and create opportunities for everyone to participate and share their unique perspectives. This leads to a richer and more innovative community.

We need to create an environment where admitting that you are/were wrong or don't know something is OK. Everyone makes mistakes but owning them and seeking change/improvement can help establish trust within the community.

The Community Manager is the lead builder of trust. * Participating in conversations * Tracking down solutions * Bringing SMEs into the community to engage with members. Customers continue utilizing a community they believe helps them learn and makes their life easier.

The best way to build trust with your community is to be a member of the community yourself. You don't necessarily need to be a subject matter expert, but you do need to be highly visible, communicative, and a leader by example. Listen more than you speak, ask hard questions, and follow up with transparency.

This article highlights the key issues, but those working with communities must ensure that not only do they feedback to community on the results of the engagement but also ensure that each community is not let down by being abandoned by “professionals” once the funding/initiative has ended. Often some of our most disadvantaged are often visited time & time again … is it any wonder people get disillusioned

There's an assumption in these paragraphs that creates an unhelpful separation between the worker and the community - like the professional is always coming from outside and remaining there, managing the community with paperwork as if it's some kind of tamagotchi. This paragraph particularly could apply to an employer/employee relationship: how to impress the boss. Community ownership includes of workers: when a community says "they're ours", the worker has been an equal part of the physical efforts, or they led by example, AND the worker did the paperwork.

Whilst serving disadvantaged members of your community, ensure there is a robust plan in place to keep them at the heart of all thinking, planning, delivery and decision-making. Allocate time/effort and prioritise your purpose or organisational mission from the get-go. It will pave the way to success by building relationships with marginalised people from your community. By unharnessing your ‘Active Listening’ skill (one of many skills), you will be able to measure the impact you are making straight away as you see more service users/beneficiaries being eager to either open up or be part of your programme/initiative. #TheYouthandCommunityGuy #CommunityEngagement #YouthWork

Just what exactly is your community? Community engagement is all too often "driven from the top", invariably by official bodies, whether elected or unelected, and not driven by the very people who make up a community.They could then "tick a box" we've done it. There must be a common, shared interest; even if there is no actual agreement on how to achieve this. Neighbourhood Watch in the UK when first introduced rarely gained any traction as the 'watch' implied observing and not doing much more. It worked in my big city only in cul-de-sacs, which formed their own community that knew each other. Elsewhere it needed willing volunteers to be organizers and the support of respected local people, such as a local school head.

In online communities, like crypto, being unnoticed poses a significant challenge. Surprisingly, up to 90% of members can be lurkers, constituting silent majorities who engage passively. Encouraging these silent participants to contribute is vital for community health. To address this, I've successfully utilized contests and giveaways in crypto communities. These incentives foster participation, inject fresh perspectives, and convert lurkers into active members and advocates. If you're looking for more strategies to boost engagement, check out my Crypto Community Engagement Playbook featured on my LinkedIn page!

Communities evolve, and strategies effective today might lose relevance tomorrow. While consistency builds trust, flexibility allows for responsiveness to changing community needs. Prioritize open dialogue to encourage community members to voice concerns, ideas, and dissenting opinions. This not only prevents issues from festering but also cultivates a sense of co-ownership. Communities are a living dialogue — fluid, responsive, and evolving with the community it serves.

Never assume the wants and needs of your community. Building a community is all about engaging and adapting. Have meetings with your community members, listen to what they're passionate about, interested in, driven by, etc., and create your community engagement plan around those insights.