Have you ever noticed that many of discussions in the Connect Communities get few or no replies? There are things you can do to get better engagement with the community by thinking about these few points;
Is your subject heading clear? – You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but before you’ve read it that’s all you have to work with! In the long list of Threads you will see that if the heading isn’t clear you simply move on to find one that matches what you’re interested in. This is your hook to get people interested, so use it wisely.
Start with the question – Once people are engaged by your subject line, they will determine if they will continue reading if the first sentence is clear or interesting. They will then likely skim read the first few words of each subsequent paragraph to determine if it’s worthy of their full attention. Start with your question or “call to action” (what you want your reader to do) so the reader knows how the how to get engaged from the start.
Keep your call to actions brief – People are happy to help give quick concise answers to questions on our forums but less so with vague unspecific questions which take more time and thought to word. If call to action is unclear your responder will never be sure if they are actually being helpful with their response and may not bother to respond at all.
Provide some background – While your question should be brief, responders are less likely to help if they don’t know if their answer will be useful to you. If you can provide some insight to why you’re asking your question later in your post it will help those interested find out what you need even if you’re unsure yourself.
Think about your target audience – Consider if you are targeting the right audience with your questions. If you’re looking for an experienced knowledge of a technical topic a more senior technical audience will get you a better result. If you looking for regionally specific answers go to a regional community.
I hope this has been useful to you. If it helps, think about how you read this article. You likely read the topic then (if interested) briefly reviewed the main headings before deciding if you wanted to read it in full. This takes a few seconds for the reader but determines if you engage with an article or not.
I don’t have any call to actions in this so I don’t expect any replies to this but I hope it helps you!
#Connect#networking