Community Ambassadors

Finding, Embracing and Engaging your Biggest Fans

Bea Dominguez Online Community Curator bea@techsoupglobal.org@trichetriche

Today’s Agenda

• TechSoup’s Forum Royalty – How forums helped inspire our own Ambassador Program

• Lessons Learned - Steps to Build and Manage and Ambassador Program

• Open Forum – Moderated Discussion and Q&A

TechSoup Forums

• TechSoup forums background

• How we first engaged an identified the first forum leaders and stars

• Where are we now? What the TechSoup forums look like today

Why Should You Build an Ambassador Program?

To create an active & passionate community of followers that can talk about your organization and can help activate other community members

Building and Managing an Ambassador Program

1. Make Time, Give it Time2. Know your Community: Identify Potential

Ambassadors 3. Start Small, Grow Big4. Communicate & Define Guidelines 5. Recognize your Ambassadors

Make Time, Give it Time

Turning active community members into loyal promoters and evangelists is a focused effort that will take time. Not only staff time during the planning and research stage, but also time to “get going”. An ambassador program takes time to build momentum and create results, so be willing to give it the time to reach its full potential.

Know Your Community:Identify Potential Ambassadors

Chances are you already have people who love your organization and brand. This inner circle of super fans are already active and connected. Who are they? What do they have in common? What do they need/want?

Start Small, Grow Big

You don’t have to have a million members in your ambassador program. In fact, it is better to have 10 truly passionate community ambassadors than 10,000 “meh” members.

However, always think about how you can best engage those “mehmbers” and move them up the ladder of engagement.

Talk the Talk: Communicate Effectively with Ambassadors

• Give your ambassadors the tools to communicate your message effectively and give them the freedom to make the message their own.

• Give guidelines, but don’t restrict.

Recognize your Ambassadors • Help them build their network: Connect them

with advocates and leaders, and create ways for them to connect with each other

• Create exclusive ambassador experiences & perks

• Encourage/further their learning • Recognize their leadership. Feature them on

spotlights and thank them often

Questions?