[jschneier]

Launching a social media campaign on an online community can be intimidating. You know that social media is working on Facebook and Twitter, but can it work on your online forum? With a little bit of thought and some useful new tools you can be better prepared to understand what will work and what won’t.

The first step is to figure out who is on your site. Are your members mostly men or women? What age are they? Do you know their income bracket? You can pay for this service through Quantcast, conduct a poll on your site, or get some basic information for free through Google Analytics.

Once you know who is on your site it is time to understand how these types of users interact with the web. To understand what your customers are ready for, I recommend using Forrester’s Social Technographics® Profile tool available here.

Through this tool you can create a profile for what type of media your users will be willing to create. It is critical to conduct this research prior to launching any social media campaign.

Also it is important to realize that although many of your members participate actively on your site they may not want to have their identity revealed. When you are first trying out social media campaigns on your site we recommend creating situations where your members do not have to reveal who they are in real-life.

It is also important to make the prize worthy of the campaign. Find out what will motivate your users and award accordingly. For example, if you have determined that most of your members are men between the ages of 18-24 you probably won’t want to give them a subscription to Elle magazine.

Some examples of campaign ideas are:

1. Photo Contest
Most users know how to add photos to a forum web site. The first step would be to decide what the theme of the campaign is. Make sure that the campaign concept is specific so that people will know what to do.
"Take a picture of yourself dressed in all blue."

2. Blog Entries
Have your members submit a review of a product, a blog or a story. Your members are already used to writing online so this could be an excellent way to get people involved. Again, keep the subject clear so that users know what is expected of them.

3. Graphic Design
Designs are fun but before you begin a campaign like this you need to be sure that your users have some awareness of Photoshop or other photo-editing software. It would not be a good idea to run this campaign on a site that is not media centric or alternatively a very large forum community would be sure to have some designers on it.

4. Video Contest
Getting a video from your camera, phone or computer to Youtube seems like it should be easy but for many users it is not. Many users find video to be intimidating and aren’t willing to take the step. But, video campaigns can also be highly entertaining and can generate a lot of page views. The key here is to expect that you may only get a handful of entries.

[Flashgear]

You seem to have alot of ideas, but why can't you implement these on AF?

[jschneier]

Originally Posted by Flashgear

You seem to have alot of ideas, but why can't you implement these on AF?

Good question Flashgear. My participation at AF is primarily as a writer to add value to the content of the site. I would love to see some of these ideas implemented on AF as I have come in the past few months to care about its success....it would be great to get an idea of who are the core members that would be willing to work on some of these concepts.

[Rizzo]

There are a lot of views on your topics - try implementing some ideas, you might find people join in - especially if there were prizes involved.

[jschneier]

Great idea Rizzo! I will get my gears turning.