8 Tips to Increase Community Engagement
While there’s no magic wand when it comes to user engagement, here’s some tips to make sure you’re on the right track:
1. Social Logins
If your organization uses SSO for easy account management, you should absolutely offer that as an option. However, by only offering SSO logins you may exclude valuable community members like alumni, parents, and community partners from contributing to your calendar. We recommend keeping at least one social login available alongside SSO to cultivate a well-rounded calendar community.
2. I’m Interested
On an individual level, users who’ve marked themselves as interested will automatically receive email reminders to attend and review events. On a social level, after users click I’m Interested, it’s reflected in the interested count on event details pages. This gives other users on your calendar the ability to gauge what’s popular and entice them to engage with these events as well. In addition, we use I’m Interested as part of the Trending algorithm. So by encouraging users to utilize the I’m Interested functionality, you will also be influencing the Trending list to be a true reflection of what’s popular amongst your community.
3. Inviting Photos
One of the easiest ways to keep users engaged is to have high-quality photos. Having unique photos is important because they not only reflect your brand’s personality, they make scanning and easily identifying content even easier for users. For example, if a user comes to the platform looking for yoga classes, it will be easier for them to recognize those events if they have yoga inspired photos assigned to them. In the same vein, you should also consider filling your Photo Library with a handful of quality images as well. This way, when users add events to the calendar, you can rest assured that they will have top-of-the-line photos to choose from.
4. Navigation That Makes Sense to Your Users
You should aim to create a list of Filters that are relevant and recognizable to your community so they know how to properly browse the calendar. Specifically, the Target Audience Filter family is an effective way to help users feel included and welcome at your events. To get your creative juices flowing here’s some examples from our customers:
- Students, Faculty & Staff, Alumni, Community Members
- Family Friendly, Teens, 21+, Seniors
- Trainees, Researchers, Professionals
5. Groups
Taking it a step further, giving various groups in your community personal real estate on your calendar signals that the platform is truly meant for them. In doing so, group leaders and members will be excited to add events that they’re hosting to the calendar. Not to mention, upcoming and recent events hosted by these groups live on their landing pages in Localist. This allows users to get the full scope of what each group has to offer, and in turn, fosters an active calendar community. Not into “groups”? No problem! Some other customers have used language like departments, associations, clubs, offices, etc. instead.
6. Widgets
With group leaders on board, they can make some additional magic happen by adding Widgets to their websites. Widgets not only act as an ambassador for your events, but ultimately save admins time by displaying content all in one place, auto updating, and matching the brand of any web page they’re added to.
7. Submission Guidelines and Event Turnaround Time
Submission Guidelines aren’t required, but adding them to the public submission form is a simple way to proactively empower your community. Additionally, making note of your approval turn-around time will let submitters know how long it will take for their events to be reviewed and approved. If you’re not currently accepting event submissions, we recommend reconsidering this approach as it saves admins time and curation efforts. Moreover, event submissions allow your audience to feel like contributing members of your community. What could be better than your calendar being populated with rich event content? An engaged and active audience, that’s for sure!
8. Contact Info
If a member of your community reaches a roadblock, but doesn’t know who to contact for troubleshooting, they may abandon the platform altogether. We highly recommend including contact info in the submission form and linking it all around the calendar so users can easily seek help or guidance. What’s more, you can use these conversations to inform how you run your platform, implement new ideas or feedback, and ultimately develop a collaborative community.