The Beginner’s Guide to Effective Online Engagement...16 Best Practices for Online Engagement Efforts 6. Start With the Right Question Starting with the right question sets the tone

The Beginner’s Guide to

Effective Online Engagement

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Table of ContentsThe Benefits of Online Engagement...........................................................................4

Best Practices for Online Engagement Efforts..........................................................10

Tips for Promoting Participation................................................................................23

Conclusion.................................................................................................................34

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Research for This Guidebook

MetroQuest combines years of practical experience with extensive research into best practices in the field of online engagement. For over 18 years MetroQuest has been providing public involvement software to public agencies and planning, engineering, architecture and public involvement firms. Our technology spun out of a major multi-university research project that examined how software could be most effectively used to improved public engagement.

To guide this research we interviewed leading consulting firms and public agencies of all sizes (primarily regional and state/provincial urban and transportation planning agencies and municipal governments) to understand their primary goals for improving public engagement for their projects. The first three pages of this guidebook outline the top engagement goals that we consistently heard. MetroQuest was built around these goals, and they continue to guide us to this day.

Our interest in research and development has never stopped. On behalf of several national agencies we have researched hundreds of case studies and compiled best practices from across the industry. Our knowledge also extends to a wide variety of other online engagement software and we frequently conduct training programs on the array of tools available. Indeed, we have partnered with other vendors many times allowing us to see firsthand the most effective way to leverage the tools available to improve public involvement.

This guidebook is intended for those new to online engagement and presents the high-level lessons from our research and practical experience. We hope that it proves to be a useful resource.

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The Benefits ofOnline Engagement

5 The Benefits of Online Engagement

Increase the quantity of participants

Decrease costsA key goal for any project is to keep costs under control. In terms of public involvement, traditional forms of engagement can be very expensive – a standard public meeting could cost $10,000 or more. If this public meeting engages only 50 attendees the cost is $200 per participant.

Online engagement tools can help by decreasing the cost per participant. When using a well-designed digital engagement tool, this cost could be closer to $5 per person.

Hearing from 50 people at a public meeting is not enough – these people generally represent a very narrow demographic, and it’s unlikely that their opinions are representative of the entire community’s.

Imagine if instead of 50 people, you gather feedback from 8,000. What will this lead to? You’ll have input from a much larger portion of your overall community that will better reflect all stakeholders.


Increase the quality of responses

It’s not just about the numbers, it’s also about quality. Asking someone an open-ended or multiple-choice question is easy, but it can be uninformed or low-quality data.

Online engagement has the capacity to combine data collection tools with an educational process so that the input that is gathered is as informed as possible.

Rich choices with education leads to higher-quality feedback.

Get quantifiable dataGathering input from thousands of people is great. What’s even better is when that data is easy to analyze and take action on.

Digital tools allow your team to spend more time on finalizing reports and getting them approved, instead of inputting data manually or trying to make sense of hundreds of comments.


Get buy-inYou need community and stakeholder buy-in to support your plans through to implementation. Nothing creates buy-in more than an inclusive and transparent process that allows your community have their say. The more people that you can engage meaningfully, the more support your project will have in the general community.

Even those who ardently oppose your plans will appreciate having their voice heard, and such inclusion may even help to soften their opposition.

Protect the agency from community backlashThe last thing an agency wants is protests and news stories in the papers about community opposition.

By involving the public in your planning process early on, your agency will create a better rapport with your constituents and might avoid or lessen any backlash.

Some of the most effective online tools are designed to provide an outlet for public input without allowing for unconstructive negative comments to dominate the conversation.


To get a clear picture of what the general public actually thinks, you need to not only engage a larger volume of people, but also a far broader demographic. It’s critical to reach the people who usually don’t participate - the underrepresented groups in your community.


Online Engagement Can Reach the Average Person in Your Community

One of the main points to keep in mind is who you really should be targeting – the average person in your community.

The keenest and most motivated participants are easy. They will show up no matter what. Unfortunately, there’s not many of them and quite often they hold extreme and negative views. For this reason people who are less likely to participate are the most important targets when designing a broad and inclusive engagement program. It’s important to understand the reasons why these people are less likely to participate. Here is what we’ve heard repeatedly:

1. They are too busy and don’t have time to attend public meetings

2. They don’t have strong feelings about the planning process,

3. They don’t feel qualified to have an opinion, or

4. They are already supportive of the agency and the direction they are taking.

The unfortunate fact is that these are the very people who are most likely to provide constructive input. The most effective way to engage these people is to address the barriers that are keeping them from engaging – lowering the barriers to engagement as much as possible. Online engagement can have extremely low barriers to entry, so now we’ll discuss how to create a successful online outreach effort.

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Best Practices for OnlineEngagement Efforts

11 Best Practices for Online Engagement Efforts

1. Create a Compelling Brand for the Project

Be memorable and make things easy to understand. Use plain English with simple spelling and avoid highly technical jargon. Make sure your brand clearly relates to the project.

Good branding makes people excited to get involved and will garner more interest and sharing on social media. Good brands get recognized and spread – bad brands don’t.

For example, consider a catchy URL for your project’s website. Whether it’s an entirely separate website, or just a vanity URL that will redirect visitors to your existing site, a memorable site name will stick with people and lead to more word-of-mouth marketing and engagement.


A common frustration for the public is when they are asked to participate but there’s nothing on the table because they were not involved early enough in order to have a real impact on the decisions being made.

Make sure that everyone gets a chance to have their say before any decisions have been made.

2. Start Engaging Early in the Planning Process


3. Show People What’s at Stake and How Their Input Will Be Used

There will be three questions on people’s minds:

1. What’s at stake?2. Why should I be contributing ideas?3. Is there anybody listening?

To drive participation, tap into people’s sense of purpose. People like to know that what they’re doing is impactful, that important things are on the table and that serious change will come about from the feedback that they give.

What this translates to is the need for a good call-to-action (CTA). This might be on your website or promotional material, and the first thing that people should see is a CTA that explains why this is important. Try to create different CTAs for different audiences.


Attention spans are short – make sure that your visitors don’t lose focus or get bored. Be aware of the busy schedules of most people, and have an experience that is quick and easy to complete, yet still full of rich information that can be absorbed in a relatively short amount of time.

It’s a balance, but a good rule of thumb to remember is that the sweet spot is in the 5 to 6 minute range. People will arrive and make an assessment of how long it will take. If it looks too long, they won’t even start.

The shorter you make it, the more information you’ll get.

4. Keep it as Short as Possible Aim for a 5-minute experience


5. Make it Easy to Learn What to Do

If people feel successful quickly, they are more likely to continue.

Make your engagement experience so intuitive that people could complete it without any instructions. Many people skip instructions and just experiment.

Don’t make it overly complex, otherwise it will be an uphill battle just for people to have their voice heard. The easier the process is, the more engagement and input you’ll receive.


6. Start With the Right Question

Starting with the right question sets the tone for the entire online engagement process.

Asking people to rank their priorities is one of the most engaging ways to start. Posing this question first makes it very much about them - the participant. Participants will have a deeper connection with the task at hand and will want to be more involved in the process.

7. Educate People About Choices and Tradeoffs Before Asking Their Opinion

Simplistic multiple choice questions are easy to discount. Look for ways to educate people about their choices.

At the same time, remember to avoid biased alternatvies. These options are not realistic, and people are very adept at sensing bias. There are always pros and cons with any alternative.

Having people vote in favor of a scenario when they’re educated and aware of the negative tradeoffs makes their vote more meaningful.


We all know the saying, a picture is worth a thousand words. They are also fast! Images communicate 60,000 times faster than text. Visuals also stir emotions incredibly effectively, so if you want people to feel something, use pictures.

As well, pictures are stored in a person’s long-term memory while text will go into short-term memory. So again, if you want something to be memorable and engaging, put a picture on it.

8. Leverage Visuals as Much as PossibleImages are fast, emotional and memorable.


There are many benefits of having a tool that is fun. With online engagement, you’re competing with Facebook, Twitter, funny cat videos and everything else out there.

Anything you can do to make the experience more enjoyable will pay off. This includes interactive elements (dragging items into priority order, coin games, visual preference surveys, making comments on a map) and visually attractive colors and layouts.

Plain, complicated, or unattractive sites will cause participants to wander away.

9. Make It Fun

It’s important to keep in mind that the most critical goal is to engage the people who are less motivated.


10. Give People Cathartic Input Opportunities

While your project team will have input that they need to gather, don’t forget what participants want to say.

Think about what kind of input people will want to get off their chest and give them an easy opportunity to provide it.

Let’s say you’re planning a new transportation network. Having your community members to put markers on a map is especially valuable because it lets people feel good by getting to place a marker on something that’s been bugging them for months.

Always include easy ways for people to say what they yearn to say. People are far more likely to want to share it with their friends if they feel good about their input.


Imagine if you engaged 10,000 people from a broad demographic of your overall community – huge success, right?

But what would you do with all of that information if the data you collected was just sticky notes or text comments? What are the trends? How do you summarize it on a graph?

Now you’ve got a huge headache. Make sure that your data can be tabulated and analyzed easily.

11. Collect Easy-to-Use Data


Avoid

Avoid tools that require people to register prior to participating

Be aware of these potential pitfalls of online engagement tools.

Most people are really hesitant to register for something new. In fact, only about 1 in 10 people are willing to register for a tool prior to participating. That means that by requiring a registration process you’re missing out on 90% of your possible engagement.

The people that are willing to register are the most interested and the most motivated, but the downside is that it’s not a lot of people and not a very broad demographic of your overall community. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s just a different group of people. These are the same sort of people that are likely already coming to public meetings.

If you do want to collect email addresses or other demographic information, do it at the end of your engagement process. People are the most willing to provide this information after participating, when they are most invested in the process.

Don’t allow for grandstanding or bullying

People can get intimidated in the more competitive crowdsourcing tools and open forums, where everybody’s views and opinions are open to public scrutiny and comments.

Not everybody feels comfortable in situations like these, and this leads to a decrease in the amount and breadth of people that will participate in your project. The people who are comfortable in such open and potentially more hostile environments are, again, generally the same people who would go to public meetings.

People are more likely to share their views if they feel safe and that their ideas won’t be challenged.


Case Study Example

During a recent project that we did with the Hillsborough Metropolitan Planning Organization in Florida, our client assumed that the majority of their local community were in favour of the current state of things – automobile oriented urban sprawl with no major density downtown where most people commuted.

This assumption was based on what they were used to hearing from the “public” at traditional workshops and meetings.

Imagine 2040 Hillsborough

What happened when Tampa tried online engagement?

80%Voted for Urban Density

After using MetroQuest and getting 6,000 responses from a broad demographic, they were shocked to see that over 80% were actually in favour of a much more densely populated downtown core with extensive public transportation options and support for cyclists.

This result was all the more impactful because MetroQuest presented both the benefits and trade-offs of each alternative before collecting their opinions. That meant that people supported this smart growth direction knowing full well that along with the benefits come some tough trade-offs.

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Tips for Promoting Participation

24 Tips for Promoting Participation

Not only are specific goals the key to strategic planning, but they also serve as a useful motivational tool for you and your team.

Don’t be content with your regular levels of engagement - push yourself and make it a priority to engage a large and broad audience. Keep your progress towards big milestones updated in a visual way, maybe on a whiteboard or in an internal team email update.

Concrete goals lead to real results.

1. Raise the Bar HighHave a clear objective for digital participation and push towards that goal


2. Create a Sense of Urgency

Let people know that there is a limited time for public input.

When a website is up, people will assume it’s around forever. Start a countdown. In your calls-to-action and your marketing, let people know that there’s only a week left. Create urgency.

3. Test Out Different Calls-to-Action

You need to use the right language in order to motivate people to participate. Some things to keep in mind:

• Different demographic groups will respond to different issues

• Connect with people emotionally

• Stories and images are more powerful than stats

• Ask questions to engage people

• Calls-to-action need to register in about 7 seconds


4. Use Incentives

Have prizes or rewards for participating - it doesn’t have to be much, but in our experience incentives tend to be extremely effective.

A reward could be something as simple as promising to let them see the results as soon as they are available in return for their input and their email address.

Physical prizes like an iPad giveaway are also great incentives and can drive participation to surprising levels.


Don’t rely on just one medium to get your message out there to promote your engagement initiative. In today’s world there are many outlets to leverage. These include your main website, social media, cards and mailouts, radio, TV, newspapers and press releases. Combine the best of traditional and digital marketing techniques.

Some of the most successful techniques can be quite simple, like giving out free, nice-looking bookmarks at community centers and workshops – this helps to keep you top of mind in people’s day-to-day lives.

5. Use a Variety of Outlets


News organizations are looking for relevant content, and many planning projects have an easy “feel good” spin.

Reporters want to write about these kind of projects. They’ll come to your events and then help publicize them for free. It’s easy - just reach out to them. Spend zero advertising dollars and get potentially game-changing results.

Don’t forget to connect with a range of media sources, from traditional news outlets to more informal bloggers. Partner with local power bloggers or digital friends and have them promote your digital engagement initiative.

6. Cultivate Earned MediaReach out to media outlets and convince them to profile you and your project


Sending email blasts is still one of the best tactics for reaching your community and driving engagement online, and by using simple tools like MailChimp, sending email campaigns is as easy as 1-2-3.

In one of the case studies we researched, the project team sent their survey out to a list of 20,000 people. They got over 10% of recipients to participate shortly after sending the email blast. You too can get huge results from simply tapping into your existing contact list.

It doesn’t have to be just your email list – how can you leverage the email lists of your partners and biggest supporters?

7. Take Advantage of Your Existing Database

Email blasts can attract over 20% participation if crafted carefully


8. Harness the Energy and Enthusiasm of Community Groups

An invitation that comes from a friend or trusted group carries extra weight.Focus on issues covered in your project – each major aspect will probably have one or two community groups that are actively involved in those areas. Look through the content of your engagement initiative and ask yourself, for each piece of content, what community groups represent these issues? Frame your marketing to them around this content and these issues and get them actively involved.

Make share kits full of premade materials (suggested tweets, newsletter-ready stories, etc) that make it easy for people to get involved and help promote your project, then distribute these kits to community members and enthusiastic supporters. Doing something like this has two benefits:

- It’s in your words

- It’s so easy and fast for them to cut and paste that more people will help out

Lower the barrier, make it easy for people to share information about your project with their contacts.


9. Leverage Sharing on Social Networks

Social media is an amplification tool for interesting content. Use it to promote your initiative and share materials throughout your community.

They key to social media success isn’t just having a bunch of followers – it’s about the level of interaction with your community and getting them to share your content.

If you’ve followed all of our other tips so far, you’ll already have created something compelling that people will be eager to talk about and share with their friends.

Remember - make it easy, one click to share!

In our next eBook we will outline some ideas for other initiatives that can have a great ROI.

Project-specific Facebook pages are seldom effective. Try to leverage existing pages that have established communities.


Social media success requires consistent effort, so make sure that you have a plan in place before starting. Strategically allocate the necessary resources to ensure success.

Think carefully about your brand, your tone and your key messages, and get agency buy-in before beginning.

10. Use Social Media StrategicallyDedicate the appropriate time and resources


But remember ...Don’t rely on online alone – a multi-pronged approach is most effective.

Digital engagement is well-suited to collecting opinions and educating the public at large in a short timeframe, whereas traditional public meetings can be a great forum for working with a smaller group of motivated citizens to create solutions.

Use online engagement to gather informed input that better represents the majority of the people in your community, and then use that data to leverage the highly motivated locals who show up to community workshops – creating high-impact plans with their input and assistance, based on the input of the masses.

By combining online engagement tools with effective public meetings, you can achieve amazing results.

In our next eBook we will outline some ideas for other initiatives that can have a great ROI.

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Conclusion

The Beginner’s Guide to Effective Online Engagement

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Section 4

The key takeaway from all of this is that there are huge benefits to finding ways to improve your engagement activities. When implemented well, digital tools can dramatically improve public engagement. The payback is a clearer view of public opinion and greater community acceptance of your proposed plans.

With proper planning and execution, you could be engaging thousands, gaining insight and building community support.

We hope you found this guide insightful, and we wish you success on your next project. Let us know if we can help in any way.

Want to learn more?

Contact us today for your next project

[email protected]+1 855.215.0186

www.metroquest.com

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The Beginner’s Guide to Effective Online Engagement...16 Best Practices for Online Engagement Efforts 6. Start With the Right Question Starting with the right question sets the tone