It’s fair to say that here at Bright One we’re fans of social media. It’s potential to aid third sector organisations to reach and communicate with the individuals who support them, as well as reach new people is vast. We use it a lot when it comes to working with our clients, but it is also a vital tool in our internal and external communications. We see it as a great way to bring together a team of volunteers working remotely, helping them to connect in much more dynamic ways which suit their lifestyles.

We thought that it’d be good to let you all know how we here at Bright One use the internet to reach out to people, so we’ve made the below Bright One Online guide(using the excellent online tool Prezi). It shows you where you can find and connect with all of Bright One on the internet, and keep up-to-date with what we are up to. To watch the guide you can either navigate through it manually (by clicking on the arrow which takes you through each point) or hover over it until you see “autoplay” and it will take you through it..

You can find the links to all our online presence below…don’t be shy, come and find us!

]]> http://brightone.org.uk/bright-one-online/feed/ 1 http://brightone.org.uk/the-ties-that-bind/ http://brightone.org.uk/the-ties-that-bind/#comments Tue, 17 Nov 2009 09:19:34 +0000 nicolajones http://brightone.org.uk/?p=1373

This is a note from Nicola Jones, Bright One’s new Community Manager. You can follow her on Twitter at @navigatornic.

I’ve been watching Bright One from the periphery since its very early days. I’ve seen it grow and become and exciting and creative player in third sector communications, a real alternative to the traditional forces at work, so when I heard Bright One were looking for a Community Manager the chance to combine my own skills with volunteering for an organisation I’ve admired greatly was too good to be true!

By day I am the Community and Communications Manager of UnLtdWorld.com – an online community that connects social entrepreneurs to the people, tools and information they need to change the world. I’ve been lucky enough to be at UnLtdWorld pretty much since its conception. It’s been a crazy ride, taking it from a simple idea to a community of over 13,000 members worldwide.

I think I’ve ended up as a Community Manager mostly because I’ve always liked teams. I like the idea of feeling a part of something. I strongly believe in the power of a united and strong community and how that will always succeed more than people striking out alone.

What will having a Community Manager mean to Bright One? Hopefully it will further strengthen the ties Bright One has to all its stakeholders, make everyone feel part of a movement, make people feel connected to Bright One before, during and after any interaction they have with us.

Community Managers are a fairly new breed, an important development in a marketplace where there are so many distractions and so many competitors. It is important to make people feel like they belong to something to ensure their loyalty and engagement. So whilst I could try and tell you what the best practice is for community engagement, I’m not sure there should be any. There are things that all communities need, qualities that Community Managers should have, but each community is so different that the only really key things are being versatile, relevant and listen to your community. What they say goes.

So that’s what I’ll try and bring as Bright One’s Community Manager. In practice I’ll be running Bright One’s social media presence, but more than that I’ll be working with internal and external communications to really look at how we all relate to each other. In theory, I’ll listen to how you all want to communicate and I’ll not be afraid to chop and change as you do, and as Bright One grows…

Oh and I’ll try not to talk about my Oasis obsession too much!