When you think about online communities you may think of message boards, blogs, Facebook, and other forms of social media – but if you really want to go from good to great, you should also think about ways to encourage your community to connect offline.
                Below are three examples of very different organizations (one political, one in the sports realm, and one in retail), which have each thought outside of the box in order to take their online communities to the next level.

Political: My.BarackObama.com

                When Barack Obama’s Presidential campaign launched its community site, they saw an overnight boom of 1,500 groups formed online. While this is quite remarkable in its own right, this was not when the magic happened.  Of those groups and the thousands that formed later on, many were silly, and only loosely connected people with a thin interest in common (like “Barack Fans in the Colbert Nation”, which united Obama supporters who were also fans of Stephen Colbert, or “Wine Lovers for Obama,” among many others.)
                The magic happened when the campaign encouraged those groups to set up offline in-person meetings.  So, while some of those groups remained as purely online interest groups, others across the country started setting up local meetings, using the tools provided on the website.  These tools were simple: the ability to post an event and invite people; the ability to search for users by ZIP code; the ability to use a listserv to email your group members; and the ability to post to your group’s blog page.  These three tools were enough to allow leaders to emerge from all across the country, and to take some ownership of the campaign in their own communities. They met each other in person, exchanged ideas, and started to recruit more people through carefully planned offline activities. These offline meetings were what turned those early Obama supporters into real communities – communities, which would be ready to do some serious heavy lifting for the campaign when the time came.  And the secret was giving people the online tools they needed to connect offline.
                It should be noted that part of the vibrancy of these groups came from the fact that they did not always march to the beat of the national drummer – in a remarkable show of trust, the Obama campaign gave them the latitude to take some real ownership, and campaign activities in Northern NY farm country were often very different than campaign activities in Chicago, which were in turn different from what was going on in Dallas. This may not have been exactly what the professional staff wanted, but they had the good sense to recognize that you can get a lot more out of people if you allow them real ownership.

Sports: www.syracusecrunch.com

                The Syracuse Crunch Hockey Club is the minor league affiliate for the Columbus Blue Jackets.  Their website includes news, multimedia, blogs and photos. Their “Crunch Alerts” keep fans up-to-date on all the latest news, trades and promotions.   Their Twitter feed (http://twitter.com/SyracuseCrunch) cross promotes information from the website and elsewhere, and their Facebook page has thousands of fans.  These are all a baseline, but what makes their online community building great, is the wonderful attention they pay to engaging and bringing these same people together offline as well.
                Recent examples include very publicly honoring the Jamesville-DeWitt Little League team for their 10U CAN-AM Tournament championship, holding a barbecue for their season ticket holders, and a contest just for their Twitter Followers.  (Incidentially, when some Facebook fans yelped that they were being ignored, someone from the Crunch organization replied right away, and a similar contest was set up for Facebook fans almost immediately.)  Fan forums are held every year, and the organization listens hard to what the fans have to say.
                Even though hockey season is only part of the year, community building season lasts all year round: in summer the Crunch host youth street hockey games open to kids between 5 and 15. A golf outing is held for media and sponsors, and throughout the year various player events, such as celebrity bartending, raise money for charities.
                By putting in the extra effort both online and offline, the Crunch have been able to build a strong local community of supporters, which is good for them, but which also adds value to the larger community around them. 

Retail: Harley Davidson: http://www.harley-davidson.com/wcm/Content/Pages/HOG/HOG.jsp?locale=en_US

                One might not think that a retail business would have the cultural power to form a network of local organizations all across the country, but that is just what Harley Davidson has been able to do.  And, the community pull is so strong that they are actually able to charge people for membership.  The slogan on the owners section of the website is “NO ONE UNDERSTANDS YOU LIKE FAMILY,” and the company culture strongly reinforces this idea in several ways.
                  On the national site, users can create an online profile, where they can plan rides and share them with the online community.  Members are encouraged to share their stories, encourage others, and join a local owners group. 
                Searching on the locator for the Rochester chapter reveals an upcoming “Biketoberfest” event, a Fall Foliage ride and a chapter meeting.  Searching on other cities reveals a patchwork collection of very active local websites with their own community events.
                By using a few online tools, like personalized accounts, the ability to post stories, or map a route, Harley Davidson has been able to cultivate an online community of owners.  But, only by taking it to the next level and actively encouraging people to ride together and form real offline associations and friendships, have they been able to create the strong-as-family sense of community, which adds so much value to their brand, and which adds tangibly to the enjoyment of their owners.

                So, what can your organization do to break out of the box?  Efforts do not have to be nearly as elaborate and labor intensive as the stellar examples above, but consider what sorts of nudges you could provide to your online community to get some of them to meet face-to-face.  Perhaps it would involve hosting a networking event.  Sometimes just planting the suggestion is sufficient – a simple form that allows members of your community to post their own event, along with the encouragement to do so, may produce surprising results.  The important thing is to think beyond the virtual world, and to understand that a true community is not totally directed from the top.  Once you let go and to extend enough trust to your community members to allow them to take some ownership, you might be amazed at what they can do.

I am always interviewing people.  Even when we don’t have a position I like to meet people that peak my interest or have been recommended to me.  I have been meeting and interviewing people for fifteen years and in the last year I have seen a very new twist on the process.

I receive many résumés each week.  Most of them are sent via our web site or emailed directly to me.  Though I still print out the ones I am interested in I usually peruse them digitally first.  The twist I am seeing in the process is the huge amounts of information that some candidates make accessible beyond the typical résumé with references.

More and more résumés I am seeing are loaded with supporting links and web addresses.  These links are to social media sites like LinkedIn, Twitter accounts, Facebook pages, personal web sites, MySpace, blogs and more.  Each of these social media “résumé extensions” is filled with more data, insight and personality about the potential employee than any employer could discover in an interview.  Those people that are carefully organized and strategic create an affective multimedia marketing campaign for themselves using these simple and free tools.

So now when I see a resume I’m interested in, I spend a few minutes reading that person’s blog, I might check out what they are interested in through their twitter and I might click over to LinkedIn and see what else is there to know about that person’s job history.  If the candidate is smart they will know I will do that and be completely prepared for my mini investigation. 

My niece was looking for her first job after graduation last spring and, because she is one smart woman, she gave her Facebook the once over cleaning, knowing that a potential employer would most likely check it out.  There are countless crazy stories about those people who didn’t “clean up Facebook” and we all know where those resumes ended up.

It is interesting to me to see the twist in the process of interviewing grow into orchestrating a full scale social media marketing plan that supports a candidate’s resume and referrals.  While I see more and more people using these tools to their advantage while job hunting, there are still plenty that rely on the limitations of a résumé and references.

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

Mashable is a great source for social media insight, this post has gotten some momentum since it was posted a couple weeks ago.

This post walks you through how simple it is and the tools that are out there to gather feedback that might be useful.  Remember that if this is just one way to get feedback, and your audience is prone to be biased since they are in your social network to begin with.  But with all that said, the more feedback the better.

Mashable.com: Getting Feedback Through Social Media

It’s Free
I have worked with a large number of nonprofit organizations and there is one thing that is consistent: budgets are tight, especially marketing budgets.  Social media is essentially free, except for the time commitment.  I am not one to take a “why not” attitude when it comes to marketing, but in this case there is only upside to getting involved.  Have volunteers help, spread out the tasks in the office, or focus your efforts so there is less work involved. However you decide to manage it, get started now.

You have a lot to say
I have never met a nonprofit organization that didn’t have some kind of image problem or some services that people didn’t know enough about.  Your organization has a lot more to say than you can get in the PR and advertising you do.  Social media allows for you to expand your message, give your organization some personality and speak to a supportive community.  Your social network may not be very big, but remember they are very powerful.  They want to hear from you, and they all have friends that want to hear from them.  Give them something to share.

You deal in helping people
Why might someone be interested enough to follow your twitter or become a fan on Facebook?  That’s a common question.  Keep in mind that your organization helps the community, helps people.  There is an audience for that.  People like to know there is help out there and what you are doing.  Also think about all the people your organization touches and their friends and family.  Social media allows you to stay connected to them and more importantly it allows them to stay connected to your organization.

For Education and Inspiration
Social media is a conversation.  It’s not advertising.  People are asking to hear from you, they are not forced to.  Since this is the case ask yourself: why are they asking to hear from me?  What do they want, expect?  They want to know more, lean more about what your organization is doing.  Use this opportunity to educate your network about what you do and how you do it.  Be careful not to be an advertisement but be enlightening instead.  Your social media efforts will also inspire people.  You do good work; share how it affects the community and the people you serve.  You can be inspiring simply through what your organization does.  Share that inspiration.  Chances are it will draw more people in to your social network. 

I noticed while watching President Obama’s speech, a relatively new phenomenon was happening in my living room.  I was watching the speech with my laptop open and my Twitter account activated when it started.  All the news and media people and organizations that I follow on my Twitter account started commenting in real time to everything in the speech and happening on the screen.  It reminded me of the “special feature” commentary that you get on a DVD.  You know, when the actor and director comment as the movie is playing so you get an inside view of the movie.  Or maybe a better analogy is “VH1’s Pop Up Videos”…or am I the only one that remembers that?  Anyway…
I had followed some blogs in the past during major events like last fall’s election night coverage.  However, all I endeavored to follow at one time were maybe two or three columnists.  This latest Presidential speech I followed 30 commentaries, at least, on Twitter.  Some that I followed were funny and some were very serious, some were right of the isle and some left of the isle.  I had 2 mediums, Television and Internet, working together in perfect harmony to create whole new media experience for me.
But it doesn’t end there.  Fox TV just recently announced a new concept for their network TV shows: The Tweet-peat.  In prime time shows like “Fringe” and “Glee”, instead of simply airing a repeat episode, they re-air that episode while the stars of the show, as well as the director, tweet the audience watching it.  Tweet-peat!  They load up the TV viewer with inside information, mistakes made during scenes, plain and simple they create new content during a rerun of a show thus drawing new viewers in and satisfying repeat viewers.  The Tweet-peat! 
The convergence of all media forms is happening before our eyes.  Perhaps nothing is more suited for, or easier to embrace, than the convergence of Twitter and Television.

During the past few years, my work in the political realm has caused me to become a quasi-public figure.  Not what one would consider "famous," but publicly visible enough in a particular realm to know that there are certain things I should not do or say online.  If you do a Google search on my name and city (Syracuse), you will find enough information to realize that any bad behavior on my part would embarrass not just myself, but my company (LogicalSolutions.net), my Congressman (once upon a time I was his director of New Media), and even my President (I was the Central New York Coordinator for the Obama campaign and an elected delegate).

I mention this, not because others of you might have the same particular history (you probably don't), but because all of you nonetheless share the same situation, even if you are still young and in school, and even if you have never given a media interview.

With the recent explosion of social media, each of us needs to give some thought to the content of our online reputation, not just for the sake of those whom we represent now, but with an eye toward the people and groups we may aspire to represent some day.

I like to tell people that in order to gauge where your personal line should be on those items, you should think not of the immediate audience to whom you are speaking, but of the person whose respect you would most like to earn.  Then, think of how your online messages, photos and comments would appear to him or her.  In today’s world, he or she surely will have access to more of it than you might like to think.

Language
Are you using language online that you might be embarrassed about in front of that person or organization? 

Alcohol or Drugs 
Do you allow people to photograph you in situations in which you are, or appear to be impaired?  Many young people make this mistake, thinking that their friends are the only audience they need to care about.  Not true!  It is very hard to roll back years of circumstantial evidence that you might have a drug or alcohol problem. Employers and others are finding more ways every day to build a fuller picture of who you are.  Do you really want those beer-pong photos from college to be part of that picture?

Anger 
Do you express opinions online when angry that you might later wish you could take back?  Sleep on it first!  Ask yourself not, "is this justified with regard to the target of my unhappiness," but rather, "is this message, something I want associated with my name for a long time in the future?"  Your online messages often say more about you than they do about the object of your rant.

Build up the Positive
You may not be able to eliminate all the youthful indiscretions of your online past, (although it certainly does not hurt to politely ask someone to take down a particular photo), but you can begin to build a solid foundation for the future.  There is no time like the present to start putting out the kind of messages and information that you will still feel good about years in the future.  What are you passionate about, good at, altruistic about?  These are the elements of an online reputation that highlights what is best about you.  These are the kind of messages that you will never have to explain awkwardly to your children, employers, or anyone else important in your life.

Your reputation is one of your most valuable assets.  Protect it as if your future depends on it - it does!

If you have a business profile setup for your company on LinkedIn, there are some easy, and free ways to better utilize it.

1) Add Links in the Website Section
You can include up to three links to your website within your profile in the “Websites section”. Use this to add your homepage, and two other specific sections that are important and targeted, for example your blog page and news page. This way anyone viewing your profile will have easy access to your content.

2) Improve SEO.
When editing your profile, select “Edit Public Profile Settings”. From here, make sure it’s set to full view. Another easy tip when editing your profile is to utilize the custom URL option. Set it up so the naming matches your company. Google views LinkedIn as having a high PageRank, so having your links coming from LinkedIn effects your own ranking favorably.

3) Update Your LinkedIn Status Message
When editing your profile, there is a status message labeled with “What are you working on”. This let’s you post a small update at any time. It’s basically the same thing you can do with Twitter or Facebook, but within LinkedIn. Similarly, when an update is made, your connections are notified of an update to your profile (how depends on their personal settings). It also shows to anyone viewing your profile. LinkedIn is a different crowd than Twitter or Facebook, so make the updates less frequently and more ‘meaningful’, something that can last a couple days. Maybe do 2-3 per week.

4) Take advantage of Groups.  LinkedIn has groups just like the other social networks, but more geared towards professionals. If you’re into sales, there are sales related Groups. I’m in some PM groups. There are industry groups for whatever your business is involved in. Join these and participate! LinkedIn groups sometimes require you to apply and be approved, don’t let that intimidate you, more than likely you will be accepted. Many groups have thousands of members.

Once you make the cut, start getting involved in conversations and posting news. This allows you to post some links to your own relevant content. Groups have their own news sections as well, so you can add links & descriptions.

5) Add the ‘Blog Link’ Application
When editing your profile, you can find this within the applications section. “Blog Link” automatically pulls in and displays the latest blogs and Twitter updates from you and from others in your network and posts them on your profile. Again, it’s a great way to share updates from your other online venues, and it’s free.
Don’t be blatantly posting only advertisements or random stuff. Keep it relevant to the group, and keep it meaningful, or else you may be removed.

http://www.twitter.com/terry_owen

I just started Twittering a few weeks ago.  I picked 3 subjects I have some passion for and I only Twit on those subjects.  Those subjects are Technology, Media and Attitude.  You can read my Twitter if you want a better explanation of what all that means.  The short of it is that if I see a good story, a web site, news alert, read a good book, or if I am otherwise exposed to something on those three subjects I may choose to Twitter it out there for others.
What I have found amazing are the people I wanted to follow that I have jettisoned off my Tweetdeck in just my first few weeks. 
Maybe I am not getting this Twitter thing right.  If I am following someone I am hoping to get some information or entertainment for my efforts, even just a smile.  I REALLY don’t care if you are glad the sun is out; I want to know if you learned anything today.  I don’t care if you ordered the grouper for dinner; I want to know if you found something interesting in your day’s travels. 
Another thing that got people canned from my Tw-orld is the volume.  Keep it to a few Twitters a day.  Any more than that and you become the guy that stays at the party too long.
Like I said, maybe I don’t get it and I’m the crazy one. 
It just seems like Twitter should bring interesting and compelling things to me from people and organizations I enjoy and respect. 
But instead, sometimes it brings me narcissistic pontificating in great volumes…and I don’t have time for that.

As the age of Social Media and Networking continues to evolve and grow, it is important to consider ways that your organization can evolve your Website utilizing these Marketing strategies. 

There are many implementation tactics that you can pick or choose from to establish a strategy that works for you.  One tactic that should be considered for any strategy is enabling your visitors to share content on other Websites. 

As you can see at the bottom of this entry, we are providing you with the ability to share this article on a host of other Websites.  This is a simple and effective viral marketing tactic that allows your visitors to promote your own blog entries, news articles, product information, or events. 

Not only can users share content on other Websites, they can send emails, instant messages, and text messages to friends that they feel could benefit from the information that you are providing. 

This approach provides great value for little implementation cost as it only takes a few hours to add to your site.  From there, all you need to do is continue to provide information on your site that is insightful and engaging to your visitors to encourage them to share it and help you achieve your Marketing goals.

Our job here at LogicalSolutions.net is to be an expert on the Internet and the websites that inhabit it. This being said, it only makes sense that we as a company know where to get our information from in order to stay current with the state of the Internet as well as the trends that are occurring and soon to be ‘the norm’. We feel that if we help to educate our clients on these topics as well as share how to obtain this knowledge, we are paying tribute to the old saying “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”.  This being said, we would like to share some helpful websites that we recommend checking on a daily basis:

Techcrunch.com – Follows the latest news in startups & funding. Also tracks social networking trends, an ever important and growing part of the Internet.

Slashdot.org – Focuses on technology news that could be considered ‘mainstream’. How is technology being used by governments around the world, NASA, and in Science? Any time a new law is passed by a state or federal government in relation to technology, Slashdot will also keep you informed.

Engadget.com – Previews and Reviews of new hardware coming to the market. Any time a new mobile device, camera, or completely original and groundbreaking electronic component is in the works, Engadget has the scoop.
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