**UPDATED**: In the time since publishing this article, we have launched our Events discussion style. Please do take the time to learn about this new feature, and consider taking a product coaching class on it! Holding regular events is a great way to foster consistent engagement on your community.
Looking to add some activities to your community calendar in 2020? Since many communities have a goal of increasing engagement this year, you’ll want to review these three initiatives to determine which might be the ideal activity for your users. Also, keep reading to learn more about some exciting new features coming to the platform to give you even MORE opportunities to boost engagement*!
Hold an Expert Event or AMA session
An Expert Event, or Ask Me Anything (AMA), session is when someone of importance participates in a question and answer session on your community. This could be your CEO, a super user, a client, or anyone who would entice your users to be a part of the session. The key is to promote the date and time of the session to your users as much as possible through the community, email, social media, and any other channels you use to get the word out. Some clients have even been inviting users to a video platform for a more personal experience. If you’re considering hosting your first AMA, you’ll get some great tips from the comments on this post!
Some clients excelling with this initiative are:
Set up a Contest or Scavenger Hunt
On the Khoros platform, there are two ways you can set up contests:
- Using our Contest discussion style. (If you’ve never created a Contest on Khoros before, this knowledge base is a great starting point.)
- Using another discussion style’s post to promote your Contest or Scavenger Hunt. (An example of this would be creating an article on your Blog discussion style to announce your contest.)
These initiatives are great if you’re looking for a quick spike in engagement, such as in a month where traffic might be light on the community. They aren’t necessarily the best initiative if you’re looking for something that will keep users loyal and engaged for a long period of time. If you are utilizing contests as a promotion tool, be sure to align the contest with other key activities within community to retain interest and attention.
Here are some client examples:
- Samsung Europe (uses the Contest discussion style)
- Cisco Meraki Scavenger Hunt
Challenge Your Users
Encourage your users to keep interacting in the community on a timely basis with weekly or monthly challenges. If you are trying to get users to adopt specific functionality on the Khoros platform, or to do something specific with your own product, then a regular challenge could be exactly what you need to push that adoption. When you make the announcement about the challenge, don’t forget to remind your users that their posts will contribute to their efforts to keep earning badges and progressing in your ranks!
Check out two clients that are seeing success from this initiative:
*A brief note from RahulHa, Director of Product Management for Khoros’ Community Solution: Coming this year on Khoros Communities is support for Events. This allows for publication of an Events calendar for the Community with each Event sporting a detailed page with all the event-specific details. Members can RSVP with classic Yes, No and Maybe responses.
Coming along with Events is support for Live Streaming. With Live Streaming, you will be able to now go live and leverage the benefits of video right from within the communities. Applications are endless; product launches, product Q&As, trainings, webinars, product demos, news announcements, conferences and presentations.
Work is underway on this new capability as well, and do let your Customer Success Manager know if you would like to get more details around any of these aspects. We would be more than happy to walk you through the detailed requirements and also work with you as we move into Beta and Early Access in the coming months.
If you’re looking for some strategic assistance in brainstorming these initiatives, talk to your Account Executive or Customer Success Manager on how Khoros can assist you through Success Services.
Reply to tell us which example you liked the most, and feel free to include links to any of these that you’ve created, participated in, or just admired!
