A culture of engagement within your organization will help with buy-in, which can result in a more connected and engaged community. When participants can see the care your organization takes in engagements and the results of their efforts, they are more likely to be more engaged in the future.
Here are some ideas:
Use your engagement strategy to connect engagement activities to organizational objectives, strategic priorities, plans, and frameworks.
Talk to existing users about their experiences and create case studies from these and other similar organizations about the benefits of community engagement. This includes:
Distributing existing success stories internally
Creating external case studies about how community engagement resulted in successful outcomes for the organization and the community
Identify and compare the risks of online engagement and not engaging with the community. Once you have identified the risks, outline your negation measures, such as:
The strategies you can take to tailor engagement efforts to minimize risk
Briefing management, executives, and elected officials on the possibility of criticism of existing policy, practices, and services.
Focusing on risk management strategies and positive outcomes from consultation processes.
Involving communications, marketing, and media teams to ensure everyone is aware of messaging and branding.
Showcase the possibilities and opportunities of online engagement platforms, such as interactive tools and streamlined reporting.
Create groups from senior leadership and colleagues to lead engagement efforts and act as ambassadors at different organization levels. This can include:
Continually educate leadership groups and advocates about new projects and successful outcomes so they can educate their teams.
Consider the budget and resources you need to be successful – video production, venue hire, events, etc.
Encourage participation in your engagement activities if staff members are within your community.
Plan internal and external communications about the platform and implement engagement strategies, procedures, and protocols. Consider:
Establishing a community engagement framework and incorporating online engagement.
Deciding on protocols for when to use specific engagement tools – ideas boards for ideation and voting, quick polls to build engagement, forums for deeper discussion, places for location-based engagement, etc.
Allocating who will manage online components on a day-to-day basis and ensure everyone knows their role.
Establish governance and moderation processes for online tools – forums, Q&A, etc. – and include guidelines for response times and who can respond to contributors.
Creating a communications strategy to promote your online engagement activities.