Things get real

Launching and evolving the tools, and recruiting and retaining users

  • why you should think twice about organising a high profile launch
  • how to attract new users to your site
  • how to look after the users you already have
  • why only a small proportion of your users are likely to be active - and why that’s fine
  • how to improve your site now it’s being used 

The launch of a project is just one step in the process of engagement, not a big bang at which everything is unveiled and the marketing begins. There are a lot of advantages in building your support gradually, while testing and evolving your online systems as you go. You will probably be under pressure to provide good usage figures quickly though, so in the early stages you will probably need to try every technique available to you to get people looking at and joining in with your community. It’s about getting a good balance between attracting new audiences, and looking after the community you’ve already got.

For a quick primer, Alexandra Samuel and Rob Cottingham provide the elements of an engagement plan, and there are also some good ideas from Mark Hayward on how to create a social media & online marketing plan.