dianne kibby - how to build a community for a highly technical audience
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A Global Community of Engineers
About Premier Farnell
We are a high service global distributor of products and services for the electronic design and maintenance engineers. Access to 2 million products from over 3,000 suppliers Global access to products with 42 local language websites
Global distributor of electronic components & services
The element14 community – Happy 5th Birthday!
§ A community of and for design engineers - help engineers, educators and electronics enthusiasts to connect, collaborate and solve problems
§ We now have access to a group of engaged customers – over 270K registered global members
§ Unique in our Industry with many recognized awards
§ Annually we experience 50% growth in overall participation from our members.
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What is element14? • Named after silicon – the 14th element of the periodic
table
• An essential element in the electronics industry
At the heart of most new technology…we aim to be at the heart of an
engineer’s design process.
The Ben Heck Show
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The element14 Ben Heck Show Maker\Modder Extraordinaire Weekly video series on element14
Just launched the 150th episode 315,347 YouTube Subscribers 17,564,532 Total Views 921,000 Average Views/Month
The Ben Heck Show – Innovation
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Lesson 1: Give the community it’s own Identity
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Technical Content – important to an engineer – but does it drive engagement? Products are extremely important to an engineer’s design – but how does it drive engagement?
Our challenge
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And then there was direct selling, banner ads, email signups, which definitely didn’t drive engagement…..
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They did want to hear the experiences of others - Roadtest reviews from an engineer using the product
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And they did want to help other engineers asking technical questions…..
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We asked our members
Lesson 2: Stay dedicated to your members
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The electronics industry marketplace is massive – can’t do it all
The launch of Raspberry PI: Early content development - unboxing videos, user projects, tech specs, live webinars Half a million visits in 3 days and 1.8 million total visits the month of launch. A robust area of the community with ongoing content creation
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Lesson 3: Own the trends in your industry
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Global Design Challenges
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Global Design Challenges – Partnering with Industry’s Technology leaders Showcasing member talent
Lesson 4: Showcase talents and feed the egos of your members
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Technical product videos are good Live events with experts are better Product specifications are important But member projects showcase how a product is used Engineers are experiential learners
STEM Academy – Educators sharing with
Educators Top member webinars with
Educators
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Lesson 5: Teach them in a way they want to learn
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Give the community its own identity
Stay dedicated to your audience
Own the trends in your industry
Showcase the talents of your
members – Feed the Ego
Teach them in a way they want to
learn
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Engaging a technical audience
