How to Increase Fans, Followers, Subscribers: Lessons from GovLoop Handbook

Steve ResslerFounder, GovLoopfounder@govloop.com

2 Questions I Think About

• How to Grow GovLoop – Reach & Engage– Reach More People (More Active Members)– Increase Engagement (More Activity)– Solve more problems every day

My Last Year of Research

Studied How Others Increased Audience & Engagement

• For-profit communities (Dogster, ITToolbox, Sermo, change.org)• For-profit vendors (GroupOn, Hubspot, Priceline,)• Non-profit campaigns (Causes, Charity: Water, NeighborsForNeighbors)• Political sector (Presidential and local elections)• Government (Federal, State, Local)

What I’ve Learned

• It’s REALLY REALLY Hard• There’s a talent/skill• There’s a methodology and rigor• Difference between Doing it and Doing it Well• Lots of optimization opportunities • Hard to be consistent

Great communication key to driving real results for organizations

What are Your Goals?

What are the Goals of Your Agency Communication?

REACH and ENGAGE MORE CITIZENS to solve Problems

Government Engagement Funnel

• Reach large number of stakeholders • Build on-going relationships with them• Provide clear, timely, actionable information• Stakeholders take action with your information

THE ENGAGEMENT FORMULA

FIND OUT + SIGN-UP + LEARN + ACT

= RESULTS(get flu shot, fill out census, apply for job)

Results met now = bigger base = more results later

A Little Math – Flu Shot

500,000 Subscribers20% Open – 100,000 Read your message

5% of Opens Take Action – 5,000 Extra Flu Shots

Why it matters?

• Accelerate digital conversion to save money• Increase ROI of investment in all online content and services• Reduce call volume by communicating proactively• Increase fee revenue in agencies where it is relevant• Improve quality of grantees• Increase healthy behaviors (flu shots, hurricane evacuations)• Save costs by decreasing mailing and paper costs

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So How Do You Increase Audience and Engagement?

Here’s my 22 Tips

Part 1: Sign-Up Tips

Big Sign-Up Box

Email Overlay

Da Vinci Code

FB Page Embed

Follow Others to Be Followed

Facebook Ads to your Citizens

In-Person Promotion

Optimize FB Landing Page

Paper Sign-up sheets

Optimize Outside Home Page

Part 2: Content/Engagement Tricks

Regular Frequency

Facebook – 1 to 4X a day

Twitter – 3 to 10X a day

Email – As events happen, daily, weekly depending on context

Dessert to Broccoli

Pictures on FB

Use Special Events

Have Fun

Agency Cross-Promo

Use Multiple, Real People

Tell Stories

Cross-Promote

Ecards

Petition/Campaigns

Part 3: Call to Action

Just Ask

Make it Simple

Ask Multiple Times

Reference Links

How to Build Gov’t Facebook Page http://www.govloop.com/profiles/blogs/how-to-build-an-awesome

16 Excellent Gov’t FB Pages - http://www.govloop.com/profiles/blogs/16-exceptional-govt-facebook

Twitter - http://govengage.com/2011/03/28/how-to-build-a-govt-twitter-profile-and-drive-followers-and-engagement-2/

If having any challenges, reach out

Have a Team that works on:• Training (digital communication to social media)• Strategy (assessment and action plan)• Execution (help actually do the work)

Have helped:

• Increase sensitive collaboration between federal agencies

• Help mobile workers share tips and updates in real time

• Help an agency build an online community with the public

• Recruit citizens to help shovel neighbors in need

Steve ResslerSteve Ressler

Founder, GovLoopFounder@GovLoop.com@GovLoop

Reach out