Different user-groups participate for different reasons, and it’s helpful to send them specific messages. It makes sense to:
send a message to users who’ve just joined the community, giving them advice on how to participate;
send a message to people who’ve submitted their first idea, giving them advice on how to make it successful and informing them of the voting process;
and a send message to idea-submitters, asking them to bring in their friends.
If you ask participants how they want to contribute when they join , you’ll have a better grasp of who you can ask for what. For example, if someone only wants to “learn about the challenge topic”, it’s no use hassling them to submit an idea – they’ll simply get frustrated and disengage.
Some of the points above can be configured in automatic emails on your platform, if functionality allows. If you’re not using a specific crowdsourcing platform, you could ask participants to fill in a pre-challenge survey using a free survey tools such as Wufoo, Survey Monkey or Typeform, and then create a mailing list on Mailchimp. Once your participants are on the list, you can segment them according to their interests and motivation for joining the challenge (their responses from the pre-challenge survey).
Outreach
If this is your first challenge, try to make sure people know as much as possible about the challenge, including potential participants. For internal communities, this can be achieved quite easily via email (unfortunately, most people don't read intranet messages); for open communities, this can be more difficult because you have no way of knowing which channels will best well for them. Try to inform an existing community a few weeks in advance, and then actively promote the challenge once it’s open for submissions.
It’s a good idea to post a “register interest” link on your website so that you can collect email addresses from potential participants; this way, there’s an immediate call to action when you send out social-media updates and emails about the challenge. If you have the capacity, meetings, coffees and calls with potential participants will get the strongest response.
If you’re looking to build a big crowd and run an open challenge, you’ll need to reach out to other existing networks or communities, which are relevant to your challenge, so that you can be featured in their newsletters and social-media feeds.
If you have an existing network to approach, however small, they will be the biggest help – you can help them spread the word by giving them an outreach pack that includes a template of various communication for them to use. These might include:
suggested tweets and Facebook posts, including relevant hashtags that you’ll be using throughout the challenge;
an image to represent the challenge (which contains the challenge title and dates);
a paragraph description of the challenge topic and remit;
a sample blog about the challenge for partners to cross-post on their website;
and a small description about the challenge partners (if relevant).
Groups to connect with
Social enterprise networks
Some global examples with local chapters include Impact Hub, Global Social Enterprise Network, Ashoka and Makesense. You’ll also want to add local social-enterprise networks, that operate in a similar way to the global networks mentioned. Include co-working spaces, in your outreach list as they often have a big reach due to their membership. Additionally, university-enterprise programmes, networks and business centres will have good candidates who may be interested, along with programmes that relate to your challenge (eg, the engineering department). You may also want to reach out to local grassroots networks.
Local media
If your challenge winners need to be in a specific country or city, you may want to reach out to the local press, as you’re likely to have a faster adoption from them than you would with national newspapers. Also, don’t forget that the nationals often pick up interesting stories from local papers, so you might find your challenge appearing in both!
Global or other teams
If your organisation has another office in a different part of the world, you should be reaching out to them so that they can amplify your campaign in their own region. You should also ask these teams to participate in the challenge.
NOTE: Add questions in the challenge sign-up form that help you segment participants by their motivations, skills and interests. Ask participants why they signed up to the challenge in the first place (eg, to submit an idea, to learn more about the topic, and so on).
