Are you looking to gain visibility for your Groupsite? Maybe you want to attract additional members. Or, simply want to let others know what you're doing.
There are many ways to do this, but today we'll talk about five:
- Group Blog
- Offline Channels
- Email Signatures
- Groupsites Directory
Here we go:
1. Facebook
There are now over 222 million people who have created a Facebook page. Chances are, some of them may want to know about or join your Groupsite.
One way to get them to come to you, is for you to go to them.
Lindsey Dryer and Maddie Grant (of Social Fish) do a really cool thing with their Young Association Professionals group (www.yapstar.org - which is a Groupsite).
They have created a Facebook page -- and on it they do an easy thing to increase their Groupsite visibility.
The secret is a free Facebook App called "Simply RSS." Simply RSS allows you to feed content into your Facebook page. Yapstar has used this to feed their recent activity from their Groupsite directly into their Facebook page. Take a look here.
2. Group Blog
Your Group Blog is the "voice of your group." Even if your Groupsite is private, you can choose to make your Group Blog publicly accessible. You can even combine this idea with the tip above (Facebook) like Mariam Cook of Everywoman.com has done in the UK.
Everywoman.com (who uses a Groupsite as their main networking community) set up a Fan Page on Facebook. They then used the RSS feed of their Group Blog (from their Groupsite) and fed it to their Facebook page (using the Simply RSS App). As a result, all of their Group Blog content appears on their Facebook page:
You can also use feed (using RSS) or link to your Group Blog from any web page. This is a great way to let people who are not members of your Groupsite know what is going on with your group. This also works on Linkedin.
3. Offline Channels
The American Bankers Association has many ways to communicate, share and network with their members. One way is through their Groupsites. They also have offline publications, newsletters, conferences and much more.
Recently, they have added a new feature to one of their Groupsites called "Question of the Month." They put this feature on the sidebar of their Groupsite's SUMMARY page using a free-form text module.
This month's question is "Where are you most likely to be found on your day off?"
They went on to say:
"You communicate with them all the time, but how much do you actually know about your fellow ABA Marketing Network members? Submit your answer to the "Question of the Month" and see what everyone else says. Answers to the question will be featured each month in the ABA Bank Marketing magazine in the "Marketing Edge" section."
Bam! They have effectively found a way to create awareness of their Groupsite activity within their offline publication which will likely attract publication readers back to the Groupsite while helping existing group members learn more about each other. How cool is that?
4. Email Signatures
This tip was mentioned in a previous post -- but is worth mentioning again. From Kathleen Rakestraw of the American School Counselor Association, whose Groupsite has quickly grown to over 3,000 very active members: Use an email-signature to promote your Groupsite.
In Kathleen's case, all staff members changed their e-mail signature line to promote the ASCA SCENE Groupsite (http://schoolcounselor.collectivex.com). And, they put it in red text to really get noticed.
You can even take this further, inviting Groupsite members to add the email signature to their personal communications.
5. Groupsites.com Directory
We also recommend that, if you want your group to be found, you list it in our Groupsites directory at www.groupsites.com. This can be done under the MANAGER tab, then select "General Settings" from the Group Settings page.
On the General Settings page you will see the following (where you can add a description along with keywords to help others find your Groupsite):
(For those private groups that do not wish to be listed, please make sure the "Exclude Groupsite from Directory" box is checked. This is the default for all private groups.)
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These 5 ideas are certainly not the only way to gain Groupsite visibility. (We've also seen groups create business cards for their members with the Groupsite web address on them, for instance). But, they are a good start!
Let us know what you think.