Learning to swim: when advertisers take part in a community!

Introducing a client’s advertising campaign to an established community can be a nerve-wracking experience. Balancing expectations on either side is crucial to avoid any potential negative feedback and, at worst, messy confrontations. As with so many things, proper planning is key and this month the Community Team have been brainstorming the most important information to present to both client and community to help everything run as smoothly as possible and to ensure the campaign is beneficial to all involved.

To simply create a sponsored area or series of threads into an open forum is incredibly risky and something we always endeavour to avoid. Similarly, properly introducing clients to the site and community is something that should always happen as it helps establish a basic understanding of the expectations on either side and can prevent a world of confusion later on.

We have recently prepared a “cheat sheet” for new campaigns. In this we outline the basics, ranging from account creation to tone of voice and posting frequency. This works to both prepare clients for the systems they’ll be using and help them to understand the level of commitment a community-led campaign can require.

Once they’re happy with how everything works, it’s time to move on to the community itself. Inviting feedback and even providing privileged members with a “behind the scenes” peek at how things are running (as well as the goals and expectations that we have) is a great way to generate positive responses, increase engagement, gather valuable data to help measure a campaign’s success and even provide information to help shape its later stages and any on-going presence that clients may wish to keep up on the site once the campaign has ended.

Transparency is at the heart of any initiative that we attempt through our publications and one we feel is crucial to their success. Our community is our main asset and we rely on its support, feedback and approval to be able to judge the success of all campaigns and developments.

Henry is the Community Manager for www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk and www.accountingweb.co.uk.

If you are interested in obtaining a copy of our cheat sheet please email Henry at henry@siftmedia.co.uk.