Online Engagement – Now More than Ever

Online engagement is a powerful tool to hear from our clients, colleagues, stakeholders and partners.Digital connection has become apart of all engagement and communication strategies.With positive results.

Now more than ever it is vital to staying connected with the people that are important to us.

Some Tips for Making Online Engagement Work:

1. Practice the technology – help your group be comfortable in what is possibly a new space. Consider a practice session ahead of time to troubleshoot any tech issues.
2. Be prepared – have an agenda and CLEAR purpose. Honour participants time and different learning styles.Define a process for how people will participate (i.e. raise hand, open forum, chat box).
3. Balance the information – use simple, clear language. Do not ask for too much time and use breaks if needed.
4. Incorporate visuals – make use of visual tools such as visual scribes, graphics, video as well as interactive visuals such as co-creating documents and online post-its.
5. Make space for connections – it is important to establish a human connection even from a physical distance. Incorporate ice breakers, use chat rooms, engage frequently and in a variety of ways (polling, drawing, journaling, storytelling, breakouts, fishbowls, quizzes, and open questions).
6. Honour people's current state – these are stressful times; people experience and respond to stress in different ways.
7. Keep the dialogue going – explore interest to keep the conversation going, or the interest in the next conversation topic.

Online engagement strategies should consider several core questions, such as why do we want to engage people, who do we want to hear from, when is the best and most appropriate time to reach out, and what is the best platform and the best tools to incorporate in our approach.