Get documents about "RightNow Community Engagement Tune-up Checklist
Document Sample
Community Engagement Tune-Up Checklist v0.7
Instructions (PLEASE READ)
Before attempting to work through this checklist you should already have read the RightNow
Guide to Community Engagement Best Practices document available on the RightNow
website: http://community.rightnow.com/customer/support/tuneup.php
An Example of a completed checklist can be accessed through the tabs at the bottom of this
spreadsheet. You may wish to review this Example Checklist first to see what a successfully
completed Checklist will look like.
Instructions: The current tab.
Example: A demonstration of a completed Best Practice Checklist.
Best Practices Checklist: The actual template you will be working through.
Provide Feedback: A link to a survey where you can provide comments on this
Tune-Up.
When you are ready to begin the actual evaluation of your deployment, switch to the Best
Practices Checklist tab to get started!
Community Engagement Tune-Up Checklist
List of Best Practices Status My Notes
MAKE IT EASY TO FIND
Prominently display a link to your community We have a link right on our .com
Green
on your website. homepage.
Allow visitors to view community content
Currently are doing both of these.
without logging in, but require them to login to Green
Looks like no change is needed.
contribute new content.
For some reason we don't seem to
When performing a Google or Bing search with
have our community content showing
keywords for your products/services,
Red up in the major search engines.
community posts should show up on the first
page of search engine results.
Will have to investigate….
PROPERLY ORGANIZE YOUR COMMUNITY
We have one welcome panel on the
Add welcome panels on key pages to help
Yellow main community page, but that's it.
people get started.
We should probably add some more.
Use one post type per hive, and use this post Learned this the hard way! Glad it
Green
type across similar hives. shows up here though.
Rename the system term “hive” with more
generic terminology that fits your community Red Still have it named "Hive".
(such as “areas”, “spaces”, or “resources”).
Consider removing any areas of your Got the link in column "F" to work.
community that have not had activity in a three- Yellow Looks like we have a couple of areas
to six-month period. that should get removed.
Display the Twitter stream (or other real-time
Currently we aren't doing this. Will
social media activity) of your community Red
investigate.
members.
Glad we did usability testing on our
Give users a clear call to action. Green site before we went live! Our
usability person says the same thing.
If you have long pages of content, add a
We don't have long posts, so this
custom footer that maps to top-level N/A
doesn't apply.
navigation.
SPECIFY THE POLICIES AND PROCEDURES FOR YOUR COMMUNITY
Include a public Legal Terms and Conditions
page which covers topics such as: spam, Did this as part of our community
Green
intellectual property, and sharing of personal launch.
information.
Include a public Community Participation
Did this as part of our community
Guidelines page which defines your Green
launch.
community culture.
CULTIVATE AND REWARD GOOD BEHAVIOR
If a problem occurs and it is your fault,
Our moderator does a pretty good
acknowledge the problem, apologize for it, and
Yellow job at this, but I should probably have
communicate how you are going to act to make
her use the AAA framework.
it better.
Professionally handle violations to your
community policies. Green Moderator does this well already.
Make sure your moderators are proactively
Green Doing well.
engaging members.
Go the extra mile to get keep top members Hadn't thought about sending
Yellow
involved in your community. Christmas cards before!
CONTINUOUSLY TRACK THE PERFORMANCE OF YOUR COMMUNITY
We do this regularly. We actually
have Google Analytics also installed
Benchmark your community against itself. Green
and this helps give us some better
insight.
Client Name: CLIENT NAME
Interface: INTERFACE URL
Scoring Definition Improve by….
There should be a top-level navigation
Add "Community" to the navigation
item on your website that points to your
on your main website.
community.
Green: A login is not required to view
content, but a login is required to
contribute. Change the privacy settings from
Yellow: All content is protected behind Community to Public on
a login. interesting and active hives.
Red: Anyone can contribute to the
community without logging in.
Find your top five most viewed
community posts. Then perform a web
1) Update the meta tags on key
search with keywords you think
community pages to make them
customers are likely to use in finding
descriptive for your content.
these posts.
2) Use Google Webmaster tools to
create a sitemap for indexing your
Note: This web search will not work if
community.
your community requires a login to
view.
Green: There are attractive and brief
welcome panels that add context on all On key pages, add a
pages in top-level navigation. WYSIWYG/HTML panel into the A1
Yellow: There are welcome panels, but column that explains to users (1)
they are text heavy or otherwise hard to where they are, (2) the value
visually scan. proposition and (3) some suggested
Red: Key pages don't provide the actions.
members with any welcome text.
Manually merge your post types:
1) Move all posts of the least used
type into a private hive.
Are there several post types within a
2) In original hive, delete the retiring
single hive?
post type.
3) From private hive, update post
If this issue appears in multiple places
type on moved content to identically
in your community, mark as red.
match the desired post type in
original hive.
4) Transfer posts back into the
original hive
To rename the system term for
'hive', have a super admin perform
the following:
Green: 'Hive' has been renamed to a
1) Go to the Hive Settings page
more customer-centric term.
(Admin > Hives)
Red: 'Hive' has not been renamed.
2) Under the Hive Settings (HL)
panel, adjust the renaming options
to desired terminology.
Clean up the inactive areas:
1) Transfer all existing post content
Green: All areas of the community are
into the new desired location.
active.
2) Delete the now empty inactive
Yellow: One area is inactive.
hive.
Red: Two or more areas are inactive.
3) Remove/update any links to the
deleted hive within your community
navigation.
Add a 'Twitter List' widget to your
community:
Green: Community showcases social
media activity with in a panel (via 1) Create list of all Twitter account
Twitter list, Facebook widget, etc.) names for community members
Yellow: There are links anywhere in the who have shared their twitter
community showcasing how to connect address in their profile.
via real-time social media. 2) Go to Twitter and create a
Red: No info on real-time social media 'Twitter List'.
is included. 3) Copy and paste the HTML code
provided by Twitter into a new
panel.
Some suggested examples:
Green: Labels/headers in the
-Submit an Idea
community consistently use active
-Ask a Question
verbs.
-Search for an Answer
Yellow: Some labels/headers use
-Start a Discussion
active verbs.
-Vote on Feature Requests
Red: Labels/headers are passive.
Green: No footer is needed, or the
Add a Custom HTML footer into the
footer mirrors the top-level community
community (Admin Settings >
navigation.
Master Template)
Red: A footer is needed but missing.
Ideally, this document should be:
-Linked to from the community home
Get your legal and management
page.
teams to approve a Terms and
-Reviewed by a legal professional.
Conditions document for your
-Approved by management.
community. Include this document
in the registration process for your
Green: All three items met.
community.
Yellow: 1-2 items met.
Red: No items met.
Ideally, this document should:
-Be linked to from the community
Take a look at some other
home or about page.
communities and their guidelines,
-Be clear but personable and inviting.
then think carefully about what
-Display a point of contact or link to
culture you would like in your own
the discussion area for feedback or
community.
questions.
Publish these guidelines
Green: All three items met.
prominently.
Yellow: 1-2 items met.
Red: No items met.
Find an example of a past apology to a
member or customer.
Green: Your apology follows the AAA
Share the AAA framework with
framework.
employees who participate on the
Yellow: Your apology is honest but
community and show some
doesn't follow the framework.
examples of how it might be used.
Red: Your apology looks worse now
that you are reading it later, or you
realize that you didn't actually apologize.
:-)
We recommend that a violation
contain three important pieces of
Green: Violations are handled in a information.
consistent and encouraging manner.
• A thank you to the member for
Yellow: There is no moderation of
their participation.
offending content.
• An explanation of which
Red: Moderators engage in arguments
guideline they violated.
or act passive-aggressively towards
• A link to the community
offenders.
guidelines.
Some ideas for proactively
engaging members include:
Green: A moderator actively and
regularly reaches out to members. •Giving employees gentle nudges
Yellow: A moderator exists but does to respond to unanswered
not actively engage with members. questions.
Red: There is no moderator and there •Creating new posts asking for
are numerous examples of unanswered community expertise on a topic.
posts. •Sending private thankyou notes
for thoughtful contributions.
We can’t tell you what will work best
at your organization but here are
some ideas:
Green: Regular special efforts are
• Author an internal community
made to recognize and reward
newsletter about the community
community members
that calls out hot trends and gives
Yellow: Sporadic efforts are made.
positive attention to engaged
Red: No special efforts are made.
employees.
• Start a Featured User Program.
• Send Christmas cards to
valuable community members!
Compare the monthly % changes
on the following figures (via Admin
Green: Key community metrics are
> Analytics and Reporting):
regularly monitored.
Yellow: Key metrics are occasionally • Average active users per day.
monitored. • Average new posts per day.
Red: Key metrics are unknown or not • Average new comments per day.
monitored.
RightNow Guidance
Often you will need to work with your
marketing group to get this link added.
If this is not politically possible, consider
creating a landing page on your website
that specifically highlights your
community.
Many potential members will want to view
the community environment before they
are willing to pass a registration barrier.
Webmaster Tool Options:
Google Webmaster Tools -http://www.google.com/webmasters/
We find that ensuring community content
Bing Toolbox - http://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmasters/
is indexed by the major search engines
will greatly increase your customers'
Guide on How to Use Effective Meta Tags -
ability to find useful community content
http://www.seositecheckup.com/articles/5
(particularly with support communities).
In addition to a simple welcome message, Link to an example:
you may also wish to play around with http://communities.rightnow.com/posts/1a581d19fc
providing other helpful links, tips and
tricks, or other tidbits on these panels.
This issue can present a surprisingly big
maintenance headache if you are not
careful! Use post types as sparingly as
possible.
A good additional step is to rename the
default hive type (which defaults to Hive)
to a name that matches the new
terminology.
This can also be done on the Hives
Settings page (Admin > Hives).
Here is one trick you can use to view
inactive hives:
1) Go to your community’s hive list page
http://yourcommunityurl.com/hives/?sort
=active
2) click the Last >> link to view the 10
hives that have gone the longest without
activity.
Links:
We recommend you contact individual 1) How To Use Twitter Lists http://support.twitter.com/articles/76460-
members to ask their permission before how-to-use-twitter-lists
using their Twitter feed on your Twitter
List - we have found that these members 2) Wizard for making twitter list widgets -
are almost always happy to participate but http://twitter.com/goodies/widget_list
it is still polite to ask.
While it may not seem like the words in
your labels matter much, they do!
Also use graphic buttons and format your
text so that key actions visually pop out.
Work with your webmaster to design an
attractive footer. You will likely see
improvements to your community's time-
on-site and depth-of-visit statistics.
Sample Legal Terms and Conditions:
Consider adapting the Terms and
Conditions used on your corporate Common Ground:
website for use on your community. This http://commonground.edrnet.com/communities/edr/terms.html
can often be done with few to no changes.
Husqvarna:
http://answerarmy.com/pages/075cb3641d
Before finalizing guidelines, consider
asking community members to review and
Sample Community Guidelines:
make additions.
http://communities.rightnow.com/posts/ac01cfe37a
This will provide a sense of shared
Sample Social Web Employee Policy:
ownership of the culture and showcases
http://www.rightnow.com/privacy-social.php
that you strongly value the opinions of
your members.
Even when you can't immediately remedy
a customer issue, an effective apology
can diffuse the situation.
If you notice trends with violations (i.e.
people posting to the incorrect areas, or
posting duplicate questions that have
already been answered ) it may be a sign
that the community structure is confusing
and could benefit from usability testing.
The power of showing appreciation
cannot be overemphasized when it comes
to building community.
When users know their presence is
having a positive impact, they will remain
loyal and active.
Consider carrying the "go the extra mile "
mantra into all of your community
interactions. Before submitting a response
ask yourself "is there anything else I can
add to make this more valuable to my
users? "
We recommend using a third-party tool
like Google Analytics or Omniture to dive
deeper into community measurement.
These tools will allow for further trending
insight on items like time on site, search
traffic, visitor loyalty and bounce rate.
Green
Yellow
Red
N/A
Community Engagement Tune-Up Checklist Client Name:
Interface:
List of Best Practices Status Your Notes Scoring Definition
MAKE IT EASY TO FIND
There should be a top-level navigation
Prominently display a link to your community on
item on your website that points to your
your website.
community.
Green: A login is not required to view
content, but a login is required to
Allow visitors to view community content without contribute.
logging in, but require them to login to contribute Yellow: All content is protected behind
new content. a login.
Red: Anyone can contribute to the
community without logging in.
Find your top five most viewed
community posts. Then perform a web
search with keywords you think
When performing a Google or Bing search with
customers are likely to use in finding
keywords for your products/services, community
these posts.
posts should show up on the first page of search
engine results.
Note: This web search will not work if
your community requires a login to
view.
PROPERLY ORGANIZE YOUR COMMUNITY
Green: There are attractive and brief
welcome panels that add context on all
pages in top-level navigation.
Add welcome panels on key pages to help Yellow: There are welcome panels, but
people get started. they are text heavy or otherwise hard to
visually scan.
Red: Key pages don't provide the
members with any welcome text.
Are there several post types within a
single hive?
Use one post type per hive, and use this post
type across similar hives.
If this issue appears in multiple places
in your community, mark as red.
Rename the system term “hive” with more Green: 'Hive' has been renamed to a
generic terminology that fits your community more customer-centric term.
(such as “areas”, “spaces”, or “resources”). Red: 'Hive' has not been renamed.
Green: All areas of the community are
Consider removing any areas of your community
active.
that have not had activity in a three- to six-month
Yellow: One area is inactive.
period.
Red: Two or more areas are inactive.
Green: Community showcases social
media activity with in a panel (via
Twitter list, Facebook widget, etc.)
Display the Twitter stream (or other real-time
Yellow: There are links anywhere in the
social media activity) of your community
community showcasing how to connect
members.
via real-time social media.
Red: No info on real-time social media
is included.
Green: Labels/headers in the
community consistently use active
verbs.
Give users a clear call to action.
Yellow: Some labels/headers use
active verbs.
Red: Labels/headers are passive.
Green: No footer is needed, or the
If you have long pages of content, add a custom footer mirrors the top-level community
footer that maps to top-level navigation. navigation.
Red: A footer is needed but missing.
SPECIFY THE POLICIES AND PROCEDURES FOR YOUR COMMUNITY
Ideally, this document should be:
-Linked to from the community home
page.
Include a public Legal Terms and Conditions
-Reviewed by a legal professional.
page which covers topics such as: spam,
-Approved by management.
intellectual property, and sharing of personal
information.
Green: All three items met.
Yellow: 1-2 items met.
Red: No items met.
Ideally, this document should:
-Be linked to from the community
home or about page.
-Be clear but personable and inviting.
Include a public Community Participation -Display a point of contact or link to
Guidelines page which defines your community the discussion area for feedback or
culture. questions.
Green: All three items met.
Yellow: 1-2 items met.
Red: No items met.
CULTIVATE AND REWARD GOOD BEHAVIOR
Find an example of a past apology to a
member or customer.
Green: Your apology follows the AAA
If a problem occurs and it is your fault,
framework.
acknowledge the problem, apologize for it, and
Yellow: Your apology is honest but
communicate how you are going to act to make it
doesn't follow the framework.
better.
Red: Your apology looks worse now
that you are reading it later, or you
realize that you didn't actually apologize.
:-)
Green: Violations are handled in a
consistent and encouraging manner.
Professionally handle violations to your Yellow: There is no moderation of
community policies. offending content.
Red: Moderators engage in arguments
or act passive-aggressively towards
offenders.
Green: A moderator actively and
regularly reaches out to members.
Yellow: A moderator exists but does
Make sure your moderators are proactively
not actively engage with members.
engaging members.
Red: There is no moderator and there
are numerous examples of unanswered
posts.
Green: Regular special efforts are
made to recognize and reward
Go the extra mile to get keep top members
community members
involved in your community.
Yellow: Sporadic efforts are made.
Red: No special efforts are made.
CONTINUOUSLY TRACK THE PERFORMANCE OF YOUR COMMUNITY
Green: Key community metrics are
regularly monitored.
Yellow: Key metrics are occasionally
Benchmark your community against itself.
monitored.
Red: Key metrics are unknown or not
monitored.
CLIENT NAME
INTERFACE URL
Improve by…. RightNow Guidance
Add "Community" to the navigation Often you will need to work with your
on your main website. marketing group to get this link added.
If this is not politically possible, consider
creating a landing page on your website
that specifically highlights your
Change the privacy settings from
community.
Community to Public on
interesting and active hives.
Many potential members will want to view
the community environment before they
are willing to pass a registration barrier.
Webmaster Tool Options:
1) Update the meta tags on key Google Webmaster Tools -http://www.google.com/webmasters/
We find that ensuring community content
community pages to make them Bing Toolbox - http://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmasters/
is indexed by the major search engines
descriptive for your content.
will greatly increase your customers'
2) Use Google Webmaster tools to Guide on How to Use Effective Meta Tags -
ability to find useful community content
create a sitemap for indexing your http://www.seositecheckup.com/articles/5
(particularly with support communities).
community.
On key pages, add a
WYSIWYG/HTML panel into the A1 In addition to a simple welcome message, Link to an example:
column that explains to users (1) you may also wish to play around with http://communities.rightnow.com/posts/1a581d19fc
where they are, (2) the value providing other helpful links, tips and
proposition and (3) some suggested tricks, or other tidbits on these panels.
actions.
Manually merge your post types:
1) Move all posts of the least used
type into a private hive.
2) In original hive, delete the retiring This issue can present a surprisingly big
post type. maintenance headache if you are not
3) From private hive, update post careful! Use post types as sparingly as
type on moved content to identically possible.
match the desired post type in
original hive.
4) Transfer posts back into the
original hive
To rename the system term for
A good additional step is to rename the
'hive', have a super admin perform
default hive type (which defaults to Hive)
the following:
to a name that matches the new
1) Go to the Hive Settings page
terminology.
(Admin > Hives)
2) Under the Hive Settings (HL)
This can also be done on the Hives
panel, adjust the renaming options
Settings page (Admin > Hives).
to desired terminology.
Clean up the inactive areas: Here is one trick you can use to view
inactive hives:
1) Transfer all existing post content 1) Go to your community’s hive list page
into the new desired location. http://yourcommunityurl.com/hives/?sort
2) Delete the now empty inactive =active
hive. 2) click the Last >> link to view the 10
3) Remove/update any links to the hives that have gone the longest without
deleted hive within your community activity.
navigation.
Add a 'Twitter List' widget to your
community:
Links:
1) Create list of all Twitter account We recommend you contact individual 1) How To Use Twitter Lists http://support.twitter.com/articles/76460-
names for community members members to ask their permission before how-to-use-twitter-lists
who have shared their twitter using their Twitter feed on your Twitter
address in their profile. List - we have found that these members 2) Wizard for making twitter list widgets -
2) Go to Twitter and create a are almost always happy to participate but http://twitter.com/goodies/widget_list
'Twitter List'. it is still polite to ask.
3) Copy and paste the HTML code
provided by Twitter into a new
panel.
Some suggested examples:
-Submit an Idea While it may not seem like the words in
-Ask a Question your labels matter much, they do!
-Search for an Answer
-Start a Discussion Also use graphic buttons and format your
-Vote on Feature Requests text so that key actions visually pop out.
Work with your webmaster to design an
Add a Custom HTML footer into the
attractive footer. You will likely see
community (Admin Settings >
improvements to your community's time-
Master Template)
on-site and depth-of-visit statistics.
Get your legal and management Sample Legal Terms and Conditions:
teams to approve a Terms and Consider adapting the Terms and
Conditions document for your Conditions used on your corporate Common Ground:
community. Include this document website for use on your community. This http://commonground.edrnet.com/communities/edr/terms.html
in the registration process for your can often be done with few to no changes.
community. Husqvarna:
http://answerarmy.com/pages/075cb3641d
Take a look at some other Before finalizing guidelines, consider
communities and their guidelines, asking community members to review and
Sample Community Guidelines:
then think carefully about what make additions.
http://communities.rightnow.com/posts/ac01cfe37a
culture you would like in your own
community. This will provide a sense of shared
Sample Social Web Employee Policy:
ownership of the culture and showcases
http://www.rightnow.com/privacy-social.php
Publish these guidelines that you strongly value the opinions of
prominently. your members.
Share the AAA framework with
Even when you can't immediately remedy
employees who participate on the
a customer issue, an effective apology
community and show some
can diffuse the situation.
examples of how it might be used.
We recommend that a violation
contain three important pieces of
information.
If you notice trends with violations (i.e.
• A thank you to the member for people posting to the incorrect areas, or
their participation. posting duplicate questions that have
• An explanation of which already been answered ) it may be a sign
guideline they violated. that the community structure is confusing
• A link to the community and could benefit from usability testing.
guidelines.
Some ideas for proactively
engaging members include:
The power of showing appreciation
•Giving employees gentle nudges cannot be overemphasized when it comes
to respond to unanswered to building community.
questions.
•Creating new posts asking for When users know their presence is
community expertise on a topic. having a positive impact, they will remain
•Sending private thankyou notes loyal and active.
for thoughtful contributions.
We can’t tell you what will work best
at your organization but here are
some ideas:
Consider carrying the "go the extra mile "
mantra into all of your community
• Author an internal community
interactions. Before submitting a response
newsletter about the community
ask yourself "is there anything else I can
that calls out hot trends and gives
add to make this more valuable to my
positive attention to engaged
users? "
employees.
• Start a Featured User Program.
• Send Christmas cards to
valuable community members!
Compare the monthly % changes
on the following figures (via Admin
We recommend using a third-party tool
> Analytics and Reporting):
like Google Analytics or Omniture to dive
deeper into community measurement.
• Average active users per day.
• Average new posts per day.
These tools will allow for further trending
• Average new comments per day.
insight on items like time on site, search
traffic, visitor loyalty and bounce rate.
Green
Yellow
Red
N/A
Please provide feedback to us on this package!
Were these Tune-Up documents useful to your business? Or did they miss the mark?
We would love to hear your thoughts - would you be willing to take a short survey (2-3 minutes) to tell
us what you think?
Please visit this URL start the survey:
se provide feedback to us on this package!
seful to your business? Or did they miss the mark?
hts - would you be willing to take a short survey (2-3 minutes) to tell
http://tiny.cc/tune-up-survey
