The two NPOs I work with are operating successful Social Network sites. We opened up the sites to individuals and groups interested in compliance/ethics (free sign up & usage).
Ref: http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS224863+04-Dec-2008+PRN20081204
My #1 non-standard approach:
Only 3 to 5% of users will post because the 95 to 97% are afraid of looking bad.
Encourage users by (almost) never saying, “Don’t”.
If someone makes a mistake, posts the wrong place, is off topic or belligerent. Do not tell them they are wrong, do not tell them to read the code of conduct and do not delete their posting. Assume they have relevant insights and help them get their thoughts communicated clearly. If you work with them to tweak their approach, you will have strong loyal contributor.
Sometimes people will post a dumb question: remember the 95 to 97% rule, which means probably 25 other people want to know the same thing.
Think about it: if they know everything, they would not need the social network or to belong to your association.
Sometimes people post advertisements. Most of the time these are good honest people, that do not understand the nuances of networking. Work with them, they are often experts that can add significant value to your network by answering questions and posting data, while still including a tag line on what they do. Once marketing is explained to them, they seem to get it and you get a strong loyal contributor.
Example: Good tag line = “Here is some relevant information and suggestions based on our companies combined compliance experience of 55 years working on these types of issues”
Example: Bad tag line = “Hire us and we can fix that for you”
My #2 non-standard approach:
Have a strong internal response policy: Never threaten.
It allows you to be worry free about letting users grow the network organically. Because you can deal with any problems that come up. People that do not have this strong backbone, start their sentences with don’t.
Deal nicely with the honest mistakes but have a big stick hidden away when needed. Never threaten to use it; it will discourage the 95 to 97% users. If you feel a need to threaten, it is time to use your big stick.
If there is something very inappropriate, delete it, do not talk about it, do not explain to other users and do not give the person a public forum to argue about it.
“Trolls” enjoy the chaos and they strive on disruption.
Example: Troll thinking = “throw a rock in a still pond, it caused ripples to distort the perfect reflection of the sky, 4 people immediately jumped in to get the rock out of the pond, big waves. Then 20 people jumped in to say how much they hated the perfect reflection being ruined. The waves are now chaotic and everyone is getting wet. The Troll thinks COOL; I will have to do that again”.
The standard Webmaster response is then to jump in the pool quicker and scream louder. I prefer silently take the rock away, block the troll and let the pool settle back down to a perfect reflection of the sky. Using this proactive approach, I have only had to remove 00.5% of all our postings.
My #3 non-standard approach:
Virtual round table
We allow other compliance/ethics organization, group, clients, school…to share in our social network. We can set up invitation only areas on our site for your organization, group, clients, school…
We do ask that your people also participate in our other groups so we can achieve our goal of using this virtual round table to improve the industry of compliance and ethics.
Ref: http://community.corporatecompliance.org
Ref: http://community.hcca-info.org
Yes, #3 is the marketing tag line of this posting.
Feel free to contact me directly if I can assist further!
Shawn Leonard
Webmaster, SEO & Privacy Officer
Shawn.Leonard@corporatecompliance.org