We love SFCMGR, and not just because our very own Lucy Bartlett is a co-organizer. It’s a wonderful group of people who come together once a month to discuss the ins and outs of online community. This month’s event was held at the San Francisco Prezi Office.  They provided four wonderful speakers, all who have different backgrounds within Prezi, but work toward the common goal of creating an online community of happy Prezilians.

Jana Hanavan, Prezi’s mood coordinator, opened up the series of presentations with some background on the organization, thus setting the stage for Ashley Whitlatch, the 8th U.S. employee who developed and launched Prezi’s successful college ambassador program. She informed the audience of 5 tips to build a community of college ambassadors. They are- focus on those who love you, help them set their own goals, provide feedback, listen to their ideas, and provide useful takeaways.

When looking for people who are passionate about your product, find those who already actively support you. Once they’ve become an ambassador, it’s important not to set stringent goals for them, but rather collaborate to decide what you’re working towards. After all, an ambassador knows their peers better than anyone else, that’s why they’ve been selected. The college ambassador program wouldn’t have been beneficial to anyone if it simply included passing out fliers. Prezi encourages ambassadors to create online groups and A/B test new products, both enriching the experience of its ambassadors as well as the community they’re present in.

Zsofi Goreczky was once upon a time what Prezi calls a Champion, someone incredibly active in the Prezi community answering other’s questions and sharing best practices.  A few months after becoming a Champion, Prezi asked her to officially join their team. She’s now the Operations Manager for Support. Zsofi explained the importance of the Championship program and other methods that encourage peer-to-peer support. Although acknowledging these key factors of building a supportive community, she also stressed the strong influence of support reps, promoting good answers, monitoring frequent questions to modify content pieces accordingly, and archiving out-dated issues. The combination of Prezi employees and Prezilians supporting the community has proven to be the most effective way to support their online community.

The last to take the stage was Prezi’s Social Media Coordinator,Susannah Shattuck who helps to manage Prezi’s global community across LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and beyond! When she first started at Prezi her main focus was to get as many “likes” and “followers” as possible but soon realized that didn’t result in engagement. Rather, a smaller, targeted audience creates higher interaction amongst followers. To best amplify your company’s voice and convert users into advocates, Susannah suggests meeting your audience where they are, listening to what they have to say, and empowering them to share their stories. If you are able to successfully follow these three tactics you will drive traffic to your website, which is critically important when trying to explain the ROI of social media.

We hope all that attended this month’s SFCMGR meeting learned as much as we did! It was wonderful to hear about community from three different departments of the Prezi team. We hope you’ll join us next month for another round of networking and insightful talks from industry leaders. Stay tuned!

Check out the great Prezi they made for SFCMGR!

Written by Hanna Fritzinger