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There are tested methods on how to solve the chicken and egg problem in platform organizations (communities being a type of a platform). Based on bleeding edge research (Gassmann, O., 2021, The Platform Playbook) some concrete tested methods to overcome this challenge in the scale phase of a platform can be found in the presentation here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1dyaanIf5eLhn4YvI2NO1S3ydTQg_aaEhbJIY3rBa3FA/edit?usp=sharing
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Initial outreach good practices
Bootstrap the initial content to show value
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🇨🇭 Swiss Community: the initial team created ca. 2000 questions and answers internally to ensure the liveliness and the value for externally entering individuals to join the community.
Partner up
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Engage local media
Social media groups integration
get input from there: what questions are most burning within your community that we can cover. Would you be happy to join us? Promote - at specific time and join here
What would be of service to you if you would come to our community? Similar topics discussed here.
What would you need at work? What is the common ground? Offer information and discussions around the common ground.
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Local media - engage mass media - difference between outreach and engagement
Interviews
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Chicken and egg problem in CH
Work with peers and partner organizations
Get questions from daily life and publish these in the forum
Let EnableMe staff also post questions and answers that are asked via telephone, email or whatsapp.
Partnering up
: experts drive demand and quality answers
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Partner up with strategic organizations in the local country helps boost the outreach of the community and the demand through expert content.
A network of trade experts can bring high quality expert answers, as well as can drive demand for joining the community. They also serve as multipliers by sharing about the community within the own network.
Example
🇨🇭 Swiss Community: we have a partnership with the Swiss train company. If there is a question regarding mobility, we ask the
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Swiss train operators to answer the question directly in the community.
- Then I think these
These kinds of partnerships
are what we need to build to give value to the community that willdrive demand. Since we
dontdon't have a team that can be online and giving expert responses, utilizing partnerships that can plug in here would boost the community.
- we
We have about 100 experts that answer more complex questions. The way forward is to provide access to the community for specific partners. E.g. in Switzerland we are in discussion with a pharmacy that has home care teams that visit people at home. They realise they use a lot of time to answer questions... The pharmacy could use our community to communicate and solve problems online and make them public in order to reduce costs.
Engage local media
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To reach many new followers, the big bang media strategy is a strong one.
Selected and relevant local media is engaged to create a big bang.
However, there is a difference between outreach and engagement: through the media work initial insight and awareness about the community is gathered, but to join and engage a combination of the other strategies is needed.
Identify the community a leader, a person who can galvanize the community and build the capacity of that person (give a position to develop the community in advance)
Icon from the disability sector - DIY solution challenge
Social media groups integration
There are many social media groups per disability type, yet none that work and exchange across disabilities. The synergies of knowledge, however, across disabilities, are huge - especially around inclusion, mobility and other living themes.
A way forward is to collaborate with existing social media groups and seek ways to be complementary.
Social media groups focused on one disability type can be used as a way to gain input: what questions are most burning within your community that we can cover? Would you be happy to join us?
What would be of service to you if you would come to our community? Similar topics are discussed here.
What would you need at work? What is the common ground? Offer information and discussions around the common ground.
Two-fold approach
Identify from the community a leader, a person who can galvanize the community and build the capacity of that person (give a position to develop the community in advance)
Icon from the disability sector - DIY solution challenge
Forum good practices
There are good examples of practices on the forum which contribute to driving engagement.
Welcome section: drive the user journey from the start and create a welcome space for the new users to start their community experience from.
Orientation video and storyboard: Create
Orientation documentation:
Social media good practices
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