Table of Contents 1. Group Launch Worksheet 2. How-To: Set Up a Group 3. How-To: Invite Your Colleagues To Join 4. Invite Your GovLoop Friends 5. How-To: Find Potential Participants Among Current GovLoop Members 6. How-To: Embed a Video in a Group Text Box 7. How-To: Embed a Video in a Comment Field 8. How-to: Embed a Google Calendar 9. How-To: Embed a Google Doc in a Group 10. How-to: Engage Your Group 11. Case Study: Acquisition 2.0 12 10 Quick Steps to Community Building 13. Additional Group Building Quick Tips 1
14. Contact Us/Resources Dear Current and Prospective GovLoop Group Leader, You rock. There’s just no other way to say it. A group on GovLoop is a giant step toward getting great things done – great connections, great conversations, great collaboration. GovLoop has hundreds of groups, all of them making a unique contribution toward the improvement of government. But it’s not as simple as “if you build it, they will come.” A group takes some time and attention – not just once it’s started, but before it’s even seen the light of day. That’s why we put together this guide for group coordinators like yourself – to supply you with the materials and resources to build an awesome group. Whether you’ve already got a group going and would like to some tips for taking it to the next level or have given thought to creating a group and don’t know where to start, this guide is helpful. -
Things to Think About Before Creating Your Group – Don’t get intimidated, but there are things that brainstorming will help before you dive into group awesomeness. Getting Started With Making Your Group – The nuts and bolts of group creation on GovLoop. Getting People In Your Group – In order to have a group, you’ve got to have multiple people, right? We know our members and how to get their attention. Read up and you will, too! Pimping Out Your Group – Make your group look cool and add in videos and anything else from the cloud. Engaging People – Get the conversations going and stir the pot. Using Your Group to Change the World (Case Study) – How to make a tangible project come from your group. Group Creator Tips – Read these quick tips for any group creators who like bullet points.
In short, this guide contains all of the elements you need to advance your group’s goals on GovLoop and all designed to keep your community vibrant and focused. Oh, and let us know what else you need – we’ll make updates and make sure you’re the first to know. We hope you enjoy the new and exciting ideas in this guide and find them helpful and easy to use! Sincerely, 2
Andrew Krzmarzick and Stephen Peteritas GovLoop Community Management Team
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Group Launch Worksheet OVERVIEW Why create a group? What do you want to get out it? Those are the two basic questions that we try to help you answer with this worksheet. Technically speaking, it’s easy to add a group. What requires a bit more thought and energy – and where this worksheet can help you to achieve success – is the establishment of goals, objectives and clear outcomes, identification of stakeholders, and advance consideration of dynamic content and discussions. If you take a few moments to fill out the form below before your launch your group, you’ll maximize GovLoop as a resource for collaboration.
GROUP INFORMATION Group Name: Give a short, descriptive title to your group. See Tip 1
Image: Is there a logo or image that you can use to brand your group? See Tip 2
Description: What is the purpose of the group and who is the target audience? Also, what are your specific goals, objectives and desired outcomes? See Tip 3
Group Address: This is the URL of the group, and will look like: http://www.govloop.com/group/yourname - you may want to keep it short and easy to remember. See Tip 5
Location: Is there a physical location where your team will gather? If so, you may want to include it here.
FEATURES Comments: Do you want members to communicate with one
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another about general issues (vs. topic-specific)? If so, what kind of conversations do you envision? We highly recommend allowing comments
Discussion Forum: Do you want members to 12communicate with one another about specific topics? If so, what kind of topics do you envision?
Text Box: Would you like to be able to embed videos, presentation slides, documents and other key items for review and comment? If so, please cite the types of content and attach any relevant URLs or documents to be uploaded to the site.
RSS Reader: Are there news, podcasts, video, blog or other feeds that should be included in the group to provide regular, updated information to members? If so, please share the relevant feed addresses.
PRIVACY Who can join this group?
Anyone: Moderated (Invite Only):
MESSAGES Do you want members to be able to send messages to the entire group?
Yes: No
PROMOTION GovLoop may assist with promotion of groups through its existing social media sites (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn) and association partnerships to encourage broader participation.
If you have any questions about or would like consultation in setting up a Group on GovLoop, please contact Andrew Krzmarzick, GovLoop Community Manager at Andrew@GovLoop.com or 202-352-1806.
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How-To: Set Up a Group Setting a group up is easy once you’ve knocked out the Group Launch Worksheet. The following is just a quick run through of the technical side of actually creating your group i.e what to click and when to click it. 1. From the main page, click on “Groups.”
2. From the Groups page, click on “Add a Group.”
3. Fill out all appropriate information (notice how it maps to the worksheet!) NOTE: Text boxes are the key to embedding videos, slides, photos and anything from the cloud. Basically you’ll want them!
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How-To: Invite Your Colleagues To Join
Ok so this is maybe the most important part of the process, inviting people to join your group. There are a number of ways to do it so we’ll start with the quickest and work down to the most targeted. Method 1 1. Hit “Invite” in one of two places from the main page.
2.
Choose one of three options for inviting: Import from a Yahoo!, Hotmail Gmail or AOL account. Enter email addresses manually.
Import from a data file, including contact information from Microsoft Outlook, Apple Address Book, or a .CSV file.
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Invite Your GovLoop Friends Method 2 1. Hit “Invite” on your group’s page. 2. Click on the Invite Friends option (the third one down).
Why invite friends? Friends already know who you are and are already on GovLoop. Because they know you not only are your friends likely to join the group but also are likely to engage within the group. You can even target specific friends just see the next step.
3. Select which of your friends you want to invite. If the group doesn’t apply to all of them simple uncheck the people you don’t want to send to.
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How-To: Find Potential Participants Among Current GovLoop Members
1. Click on “Members” from the main page.
2. Click on “Advanced Search.”
3.
Type your search terms into the relevant boxes
Are you looking for someone in a specific geographic area? Is there a particular title that is relevant (current or previous positions)? Or maybe you are looking for someone that is from
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How-To: Embed a Video in a Group Text Box
1. Within your group’s Text Box, click on “Add Text” or “Edit.”
2. Copy the embed code from YouTube or Vimeo or Blip.TV. BONUS: Did you know that you can customize the size of your video?
3. Make sure the html box is selected, paste the code in the text box and hit “Save.”
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How-To: Embed a Video in a Comment Field
1. Copy the embed code from YouTube or Vimeo or Blip.TV.
2. Again, make sure to select the html box, and then paste the code in the comment field.
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How-to: Embed a Google Calendar 1. Within your group’s Text Box, click on “Add Text” or “Edit.” 2. Go to your Calendar in Google and check the settings, you need to make sure your calendar is set as public.
3. Select a calendar in the Google settings and go to calendar details and copy the embed code.
4. Select “html,” paste the code in the text box 12
and hit “Save.”
How-To: Embed a Google Doc in a Group 1. Within your group’s Text Box, click on “Add Text” or “Edit”
2. Go to your Google Doc and click the “Share” drop down
3. Click “Publish to the Web” 4. In the pop-up box, hit “Start Publishing 5. Copy the “Embed code”: 6. Paste it in the group text box and hit “Save” 13
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How- to: Engage Your Group 1. Start an Introduce Yourself Forum and put yourself out there in it‌ get personal! 2. Greet Members and ask them about them. The more you find out the more you’ll have to stir the pot later. 3. Add an RSS Feed. Providing content for your group is tough get help by adding content that will start convos without the effort.
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Case Study: Acquisition 2.0 Why did they create To bring together shares ideas and experiences employing innovative acquisition practices, collaborative methods and the group? use of Web2.0 technologies to transform federal acquisition. Who is their target Anyone that’s interested in improving federal acquisition. audience?
How did they get it to grow?
Searched GovLoop for people with Acquisition backgrounds, used Twitter to promote the group and by word of mouth among the creator’s professional network.
What have been
Members of the group have organized an event to build on 15
some of the outcomes?
virtual relationships and meet one another face to face. We also launched a crowd-sourcing website called the Better Buy Project (http://www.betterbuyproject.org) that allows visitors to submit, vote and comment on ideas to streamline the federal acquisition process using social media.
Size of group really never mattered, though it has 400+ members just six months after creation. It’s really the quality of How are they conversation, the amount of information we share with each measuring success? other and, ultimately, being able to execute on our ideas on a real project.
How often do they The group creator receives regular updates to discussion forums and comments via email, then visits the site several times per monitor the group? week to comment or review the activity.
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Additional Group Building Quick Tips Quick Tip 11 Greet new members. Let people know that when they join they are noticed and cared about. Just a quick note, comment or gift can go a long way in getting people started. Quick Tip 12 When greeting make it personal. Ask them something that’s actually pertinent. People know when they are getting a list serve message versus a personalized one. Quick Tip 13 Don’t forget about people. Just because people have joined your group and are comment doesn’t mean you are allowed to forget how awesome they are. Try to celebrate each member regardless of how active or new they are… basically it’s like parenting. Quick Tip 14 Bring in conversation pieces. Easy questions like what’s your favorite, what are your top 5. They are easy to read and easy to answer. Every time you feel your group slowing down one of these can ramp it up. Quick Tip 15 Play a game. One of the most active groups on GovLoop is Travel. The reason the group is so successful is because members upload a photo from a vacation and have people guess as to where the vacation was. It’s super easy and will spark interest. Quick Tip 16 Use YouTube’s old embed code. Wonder why that video isn’t working? It’s because you need to use the old embed-code from YouTube (the one that starts with <object). It should be just a checked box on youtube when you are grabbing the code. Quick Tip 17 The more group admins the better. Being an awesome group leader isn’t easy so share the load. The more admins you have the better you can manage bandwidth for running the group and engaging members. Quick Tip 18 Use GovLoop content to cross-post. GovLoop has tons of great content that members of your group might miss that they’d be interested in. Just taking popular discussions or 18
blogs and reposting them or links to them in your group can stir the pot.
Contact Us Andrew Krzmarzick Director of Community Engagement Email: Andrew@gpvloop.com GovLoop: http://www.govloop.com/profile/AndrewKrzmarzick Twitter: @krazykriz Stephen Peteritas Online Producer Email: Stephen@govloop.com GovLoop: http://www.govloop.com/profile/StephenP Twitter: @Peteritas
Resources Group Creators Group http://www.govloop.com/group/govloopgroupcreators
Groups Directory http://data.govloop.com/Government/GovLoop-GroupsDirectory/748k-9ai4
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