How To Write Content That Strengthens Community Networks

👍 If I were the Public Information Officer or Communications Director for a city—even just for one day—here’s exactly what I’d do to deliver measurable impact. 🎯 First, I’d ensure existing residents feel informed, valued, and included. That starts with clear messaging across social media, email newsletters, and neighborhood groups. I'd prioritize timely updates, upcoming events, and city initiatives that actually affect their daily lives—because consistency builds trust. 🎯 Second, I’d establish a new resident onboarding strategy. When someone moves into the city, they should automatically be welcomed with a digital or print “Welcome Packet” that introduces key services, contact info, event calendars, trash and recycling schedules, and how to stay connected with city updates. This builds immediate engagement and prevents confusion. 🎯 Third, I’d create a direct line of communication with existing businesses—not just when permits are due, but throughout the year. That could include a monthly “Business Brief” email with updates on city projects, economic initiatives, grant opportunities, or upcoming public works that may impact foot traffic or operations. When businesses feel supported, they stay longer and reinvest in the community. 🎯 Fourth, for new business license recipients, I’d trigger an automated outreach campaign—perhaps an email or personal welcome letter from the mayor’s office—thanking them for choosing the city. I’d link them to business support services, networking groups, ribbon cutting opportunities, and a city contact they can actually call. ✔️ The common thread? Proactive communication that’s tailored, timely, and genuinely helpful. Too often, cities are reactive. But if you plan ahead, you can build systems that engage the public year-round, not just when there’s a road closure or an emergency. ✔️ Smart communication isn’t loud—it’s strategic. And if I were running a city’s communications for a day, that strategy would reach the right people with the right message at the right time. #PublicRelations #CommunityEngagement: #CityCommunications #ResidentOutreach #NewResidentWelcome #SupportLocalBusiness #TargetRiver #TheTargetMarketer

If you're struggling with engagement in your forum, sometimes it can feel overwhelming to add new strategies on top of the work you're already doing. When I work with clients on engagement sometimes I see the light drain from their eyes when they realize they have to do *more* work 😂 Luckily, I think that often the things that impact your forum engagement the most are not net-new strategies that add effort, but simply figuring out how to make your existing connection points work better together. One example I would bet applies to 9/10 community builders reading this—it comes up with my clients *that* often—is making better use of your live sessions & touch-points with community members to feed into forum & async engagement. Most of the community builders I talk to feel that getting quality engagement in their live calls (group coaching sessions, office hours, events, etc) is *much* easier than sparking it in forums. A habit tweak to start translating that—whenever you're hosting a live event in your community, keep a pen and paper next to your computer where you track these four things: 🤝 Connections: based on what you're learning in the call, who can you connect the members of the call to that might be elsewhere in the community? This is a way to start to compound the relationship network in your community so you're not the only one drawing people in. 🧠 Expertise: what areas of expertise are you learning your members have that you didn't know about? How can you ask them to contribute those expertise to your community? 💬 Post wishlist: often during a call, things come up that I *wish* were visible in the forum. Questions, insights, resources shared, etc. Make a note so that you can either prompt those later, or prompt them right then & there on the call. Make it a habit to start saying, "Hey, that's a topic that's going to be useful to the larger community. When we get off this call, can you make a post about that?" ✍ Content ideas: calls are also going to show you what your community is interested in talking about. Make note of content ideas that arise through questions or insights, and use them for your newsletter, your social calendar, or even your community prompt content calendar. I got five-ten of these for my calendars from my community's group coaching call this week. TL;DR—if you can get into the habit of making some good notes & call-outs during live calls with community members, you can impact other areas of your community without adding extra time & effort. Hope this is helpful—and I'd love to hear from folks if there's anything else you routinely note down while you're on live calls!

Like many in B2B, I’ve seen my clients struggle with building an engaged community. That's why we decided to try something out of the ordinary: focusing on relationship-building over broadcasting. Here’s how we did it: Step 1: Engage with your audience on a personal level. Step 2: Create value-driven content that sparks conversation. Step 3: Build a space where your audience feels heard (forums, groups, etc.). Step 4: Consistently nurture those relationships with follow-ups. These steps address the challenge by fostering genuine connection instead of just pushing content. The results were nothing short of remarkable: Increased engagement by 60% in just three months. This experience has taught me that community-building is key to sustainable growth.  It's clear that the power lies in creating two-way conversations, not one-way broadcasts. Have you ever considered or tried something similar in your field? #b2b #communitybuilding