This is a guest post by Jordan Menzel, COO of CrowdHall. This tool is awesomely cool – check it out.
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When you have some exciting news, you tweet it. When you want to mobilize your base for a specific action, you create a page for it. Have a policy change to communicate to your audience? Blog it.
Whether you are an organization with thousands of donors, a company with countless consumers and hundreds of employees, or perhaps a politician with a public full of constituents, there are an increasing number of exciting tools to communicate your message to your target audience. But what does your audience do when they want to reach you with a question, idea, concern, or suggestion? Do you have the tools to organize, prioritize, and efficiently respond to your audience in a way that makes them all feel heard?
If you don’t know the answer and are like organizations all across the web who have tried to dig through hundreds of posts or tweets, you are part of a growing community that is beginning to understand the need to be efficiently inclusive and responsive to the audiences cultivated. And like that community, you may already realize that you will miss opportunities if you don’t find the answer. Whether it’s a disengaged donor, an unheard employee, a frustrated fan, or an unmotivated consumer, it will cost you time, money, and reputation if you fail to listen to your stakeholders.
At CrowdHall, we are excited about the strategies that companies and organizations are employing to engage audiences in a bottom-up fashion. Whether it’s Starbucks using customers to improve drink options, Pepsi letting the democratic process define entirely new products, or President Obama’s recent foray into a Reddit AMA the trend of tapping into your audience for guidance is already upon us. But not every person or organization is a large corporation with the budget to boot. So building a custom experience to learn from an audience or host a Q&A is simply not an option. That’s why we are passionate about what we do.
CrowdHall lets anyone with an audience easily set-up and host an online, crowd-moderated town hall. You can create a free, public town hall, share it with your audience on Facebook, Twitter, or via email, and let your audience begin to ask questions or voice ideas while voting on the best content. You are left with a crowd-sourced and prioritized list of what is on their minds and can now pick the top issues and provide a text, link, or video response whenever you want, once a day, once a week, or perhaps during a real-time event.
Want to let your CEO have a Q&A with employees or stakeholders? Set up and host a private town hall in minutes. Want to let your donors weigh in on a new initiative and provide feedback? Open a public town hall for that purpose, set the agenda, and let the donors dictate the results. Want to host a Q&A with one of your brand or organizational ambassadors? Allow your stakeholders access by letting them vote on the most important questions and get notified when a response is given.
Have the personal impact that only a town hall can provide, but do it in an innovative and social way so that all the content can be categorized, searched for, and shared. This lets you reach an audience in a way they are comfortable with at a time that is convenient by sharing results, answers, top ideas on Facebook or Twitter. You can even embed the entire experience on an existing website.
Whether its an social town hall experience, a custom app like Pepsi’s, or more actively attempting to leverage Facebook and Twitter to listen to your audience, if you aren’t trying to hear from your people, you are missing the next chapter in online social engagement. But don’t worry, this chapter is just now being written. As the New Year kicks off, start the year strong by discovering ways to open up to your audience and develop the tools to do so in a way that is both engaging, innovative, and manageable. If you don’t, your competition will, and people will notice.
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Jordan Menzel is the COO and Co-Founder of CrowdHall. The platform has hosted the town halls of people and organizations that span government, entertainment, and organizations. Previous town hall hosts include USAID, Columbia University, SparkPeople.com, Self Magazine, Teach for America etc…. Check out www.crowdhall.com/opengov to learn more about upcoming initiatives in the public space.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Interesting concept which seems to have potential, but this seems to fall victim to assuming that it will be intuitive to use for everyone without explanation. I spent some time clicking around the site, and it wasn’t at all clear what the functionality is. As someone who’d be interested in setting up an online town hall on member perspectives and organizational strategy, I’d love to see a bit more about what the platform can do and how it does it. Can someone point me to how this is supposed to work? For example, how does an individual best offer their thoughts? How does the organizer put questions out there for discussion? Where are there opportunities to vote an idea up or down? How should you promote a discussion to others who might be interested?
Thanks in advance for any clarity you can provide.
@Bob Rich Thanks for taking the time to explore the site and provide your feedback! We agree that there is always room to improve the user experience, especially while we are in beta. I am excited to let you know that a whole new and tightened up interface is in development and will be rolling out in pieces over the next several months. In the meantime, here are a few clarifications to your immediate questions and observations:
To learn what is possible, check out http://crowdhall.com/about/crowdhall . If you or your organization want to create a free, public town hall, all you need to do is sign in with Facebook or Twitter and it will automatically generate a town hall with any previous branding that exists on your current social media. To see your town hall, just click the person icon at the top right of the screen. You can then “Manage” that hall by editing the title, adding details (such as “ask me anything”, “Share your ideas”, or ” Each Friday we answer the top posts”). In the “Manage” tab, you can also close a hall when the experience is complete, leaving only submitted posts and responses which can be referenced later, or you can delete the entire experience and its content.
Once a hall is created, you can enter it, share it on all existing social media to invite your audience, a custom url is automatically created and can be shared via email as well. Many of these features can be seen in any of our featured halls when you enter the site. Here is one for example http://crowdhall.com/VotePG .
As a participant of a hall, I receive a link from the host via social media, or email. I click it, sign in, and simply begin submitting my own ideas, questions etc… depending on the title of the hall. Once a post is submitted, I can vote on others or socially share the ones I like.
An organizer can create topics or tags for a hall so that when participants submit a post, they select which topic is related, this lets both hosts and participants easily sift through posts while voting as well. What results is a prioritized list of questions or ideas that can be organized by topic. If you look at any hall, you will see that every post can be voted on just to the right of the text.
Finally, if you want to promote a discussion or town hall of interest, you can share it as mentioned above. As a site, we group similar topics and categories together and push them to participants who tend to enjoy said topics.
Thats a lot of info so I hope it is useful. We are working on a new FAQs page and I will incorporate some of these points there thanks to you! Feel free to add more feedback to our own town hall http://crowdhall.com/CrowdHall or email me at jordan@crowdhall.com
Best,
Jordan Menzel
@Bob Rich
Thanks for taking the time to explore the site and provide your feedback! We agree that there is always room to improve the user experience, especially while we are in beta. I am excited to let you know that a whole new and tightened up interface is in development and will be rolling out in pieces over the next several months. In the meantime, here are a few clarifications to your immediate questions and observations:
To learn what is possible, check out http://crowdhall.com/about/crowdhall . If you or your organization want to create a free, public town hall, all you need to do is sign in with Facebook or Twitter and it will automatically generate a town hall with any previous branding that exists on your current social media. To see your town hall, just click the person icon at the top right of the screen. You can then “Manage” that hall by editing the title, adding details (such as “ask me anything”, “Share your ideas”, or ” Each Friday we answer the top posts”). In the “Manage” tab, you can also close a hall when the experience is complete, leaving only submitted posts and responses which can be referenced later, or you can delete the entire experience and its content.
Once a hall is created, you can enter it, share it on all existing social media to invite your audience, a custom url is automatically created and can be shared via email as well. Many of these features can be seen in any of our featured halls when you enter the site. Here is one for example http://crowdhall.com/VotePG .
As a participant of a hall, I receive a link from the host via social media, or email. I click it, sign in, and simply begin submitting my own ideas, questions etc… depending on the title of the hall. Once a post is submitted, I can vote on others or socially share the ones I like.
An organizer can create topics or tags for a hall so that when participants submit a post, they select which topic is related, this lets both hosts and participants easily sift through posts while voting as well. What results is a prioritized list of questions or ideas that can be organized by topic. If you look at any hall, you will see that every post can be voted on just to the right of the text.
Finally, if you want to promote a discussion or town hall of interest, you can share it as mentioned above. As a site, we group similar topics and categories together and push them to participants who tend to enjoy said topics.
Thats a lot of info so I hope it is useful. We are working on a new FAQs page and I will incorporate some of these points there thanks to you! Feel free to add more feedback to our own town hall http://crowdhall.com/CrowdHall or email me at jordan@crowdhall.com
@Bob Rich
Thanks for taking the time to explore the site and provide your feedback! We agree that there is always room to improve the user experience, especially while we are in beta. I am excited to let you know that a whole new and tightened up interface is in development and will be rolling out in pieces over the next several months. In the meantime, here are a few clarifications to your immediate questions and observations:
To learn what is possible, check out http://crowdhall.com/about/crowdhall . If you or your organization want to create a free, public town hall, all you need to do is sign in with Facebook or Twitter and it will automatically generate a town hall with any previous branding that exists on your current social media. To see your town hall, just click the person icon at the top right of the screen. You can then “Manage” that hall by editing the title, adding details (such as “ask me anything”, “Share your ideas”, or ” Each Friday we answer the top posts”). In the “Manage” tab, you can also close a hall when the experience is complete, leaving only submitted posts and responses which can be referenced later, or you can delete the entire experience and its content.
Once a hall is created, you can enter it, share it on all existing social media to invite your audience, a custom url is automatically created and can be shared via email as well. Many of these features can be seen in any of our featured halls when you enter the site. Here is one for example http://crowdhall.com/VotePG .
As a participant of a hall, I receive a link from the host via social media, or email. I click it, sign in, and simply begin submitting my own ideas, questions etc… depending on the title of the hall. Once a post is submitted, I can vote on others or socially share the ones I like.
An organizer can create topics or tags for a hall so that when participants submit a post, they select which topic is related, this lets both hosts and participants easily sift through posts while voting as well. What results is a prioritized list of questions or ideas that can be organized by topic. If you look at any hall, you will see that every post can be voted on just to the right of the text.
Finally, if you want to promote a discussion or town hall of interest, you can share it as mentioned above. As a site, we group similar topics and categories together and push them to participants who tend to enjoy said topics.
Thats a lot of info so I hope it is useful. We are working on a new FAQs page and I will incorporate some of these points there thanks to you! Feel free to add more feedback to our own town hall http://crowdhall.com/CrowdHall or email me at jordan@crowdhall.com
Thanks for taking the time to explore the site and provide your feedback! We agree that there is always room to improve the user experience, especially while we are in beta. I am excited to let you know that a whole new and tightened up interface is in development and will be rolling out in pieces over the next several months. In the meantime, here are a few clarifications to your immediate questions and observations:
To learn what is possible, check out http://crowdhall.com/about/crowdhall . If you or your organization want to create a free, public town hall, all you need to do is sign in with Facebook or Twitter and it will automatically generate a town hall with any previous branding that exists on your current social media. To see your town hall, just click the person icon at the top right of the screen. You can then “Manage” that hall by editing the title, adding details (such as “ask me anything”, “Share your ideas”, or ” Each Friday we answer the top posts”). In the “Manage” tab, you can also close a hall when the experience is complete, leaving only submitted posts and responses which can be referenced later, or you can delete the entire experience and its content.
Once a hall is created, you can enter it, share it on all existing social media to invite your audience, a custom url is automatically created and can be shared via email as well. Many of these features can be seen in any of our featured halls when you enter the site. Here is one for example http://crowdhall.com/VotePG .
As a participant of a hall, I receive a link from the host via social media, or email. I click it, sign in, and simply begin submitting my own ideas, questions etc… depending on the title of the hall. Once a post is submitted, I can vote on others or socially share the ones I like.
An organizer can create topics or tags for a hall so that when participants submit a post, they select which topic is related, this lets both hosts and participants easily sift through posts while voting as well. What results is a prioritized list of questions or ideas that can be organized by topic. If you look at any hall, you will see that every post can be voted on just to the right of the text.
Finally, if you want to promote a discussion or town hall of interest, you can share it as mentioned above. As a site, we group similar topics and categories together and push them to participants who tend to enjoy said topics.
Thats a lot of info so I hope it is useful. We are working on a new FAQs page and I will incorporate some of these points there thanks to you! Feel free to add more feedback to our own town hall http://crowdhall.com/CrowdHall or email me at jordan@crowdhall.com
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