At the start of each year, we dive into emerging trends in online community engagement, making predictions about what the next 12 months might bring. Now that 2024 is drawing to a close, it’s time to revisit those predictions and reflect on how they’ve panned out. By engaging with a broad range of clients, potential customers, and professionals across sectors—from local and state governments to industries and not-for-profits—we gain valuable insights into how community engagement is evolving and influencing decision-making processes.
Social Pinpoint’s close ties to the “frontline” help us spot trends early and anticipate shifts. Let’s take a closer look at how our top predictions for 2024 played out.
Here were our top five online community engagement predictions for 2024:
Hyperlocal Engagement
Elevated Data Transparency
AI Adoption at the Organisation Level
Community Empowerment in (Private) Digital Workspaces
Low Barrier Engagement
1. Hyperlocal Engagement
As mentioned in our 2024 community engagement trends blog, communities are becoming more familiar with public engagement. Since COVID, they have become increasingly hyperlocal in their thinking and acting.
In 2024, we predicted that organisations would need to adapt by offering tailored information and conducting consultations to better engage specific communities on hyperlocal projects.
While we don’t think we’ve seen the biggest shift yet to hyperlocal consultations (e.g., at a street level), we have noticed a growing trend, particularly within local government in Australia. These organisations aim to help communities gain a clearer understanding of what is happening in their local areas while encouraging residents to participate in engagement activities to foster trust—giving people the chance to raise issues or questions with their local ‘neighbourhood officer.’
By using a digital community engagement platform like Social Pinpoint, several councils, including those from cities such as the City of Melbourne (VIC), City of Adelaide (SA), and City of Port Adelaide Enfield (SA), as well as regional councils like Alpine Shire Council (VIC) and Gladstone Regional Council (QLD), have embraced the growing trend of neighbourhood portals or community hubs.
This involves creating a project space dedicated to specific neighbourhoods, wards, or communities. In most cases, by using our Project Map tool, organisations can showcase projects happening in local areas and connect people with local staff, such as neighbourhood or placemaking officers working in those communities. This trend appears to have been initiated by the City of Melbourne, which uses ongoing data collected to create a knowledge database benefiting the entire city council.
2. Elevated Data Transparency
Similar to the above, while it’s difficult to observe publicly and at the scale we initially anticipated, we have seen a noticeable increase in requests for API access in Social Pinpoint. This helps organisations leverage and utilise the data collected on the platform in various ways.
Organisations in Australia, like the Cities of Melbourne and Casey are just a handful of Social Pinpoint users who have continued to access high levels of data via our open API. They use this data to feed into PowerBI tools, creating custom dashboards for internal use and charts on their project pages, particularly when closing the loop.
Reporting back after a consultation has closed—or ‘closing the loop’ as we affectionately call it—is certainly a big driver for this trend and is key for building trust. Customers like the City of Port Adelaide Enfield clearly highlight in their engagement summary reports, using the Facts tool, things like who they heard from, how many responses they received, the themes they took away from the data, and relevant quantitative data showing how decision-making processes were made.
While the Northern Beaches Council uses the data they collect to manually update a submission response number on open projects, which we think creates a bit of FOMO for those who have not yet participated, it also clearly shows the community the number of people they are engaging.
3. AI Adoption at the Organisation Level
We stated earlier this year that AI is here to stay and evolve, and so far, we believe we’re right. Following the rapid adoption in 2023, 2024 has focused more on strategising and asking key questions about who, what, why, where, when, and whether it is safe.
Organisations have been evaluating the risks and benefits of AI applications, with some of the groups we work with even developing policies to define what can and can’t be used, and for what purposes. Although we can’t see this publicly, we’ve observed it through the increase in requests to our support desks and customer success teams. These requests focus on how we’re doing with our products and AI, as well as which potential plug-ins are compatible with both Social Pinpoint and Consultation Manager.
We’ve seen a significant increase in product requests related to reporting options and how we’re adopting AI to enhance capabilities such as qualitative summarising, theming, and auto-tagging.
Without explaining too much, our product roadmaps for 2025 will focus on reporting, particularly within Social Pinpoint. This will likely include updates to features like our assisted analysis capability, as our Product Manager has recently spoken with several customers who emphasised the need to simplify their work processes.
4. Community Empowerment in (Private) Digital Engagement Workspaces
We predicted growth in open dialogue models being applied in both private and semi-private workspaces to facilitate citizen panels, strategic planning and budgetary processes. Again, while we can’t show you how this happens, as it’s private, we do know that the private and password-protected functionality in Social Pinpoint has seen a significant increase in use.
Mini Frankston City Initiative | Frankston City Council
We’ve seen many Social Pinpoint users continue to leverage private projects to create mini-collaboration and empowerment spaces that are specific to one issue or community group. This includes favourites like Mini Frankston City, a city-wide representative group to more specific use cases around drug and alcohol recovery groups with some of our Local Health District customers. We have also seen an increase in questions about how to do this from current and potential customers looking to add deliberative groups to their engagement processes.
The private functionality is also helping more customers support decision-makers within the organisation. We’ve specifically heard from councils using it with newly elected members and landscape boards/natural resource management boards using it with their elected boards. This is important as it means users can share data from public consultations within one system easily and also have decision-makers use tools the community members are using for public participation.
5. Low Barrier Engagement
At Social Pinpoint, we expected this to be a trend in 2024, and we were certainly right. Organisations have shaken of the shackles of the last few years under COVID restrictions and have started to offer a much wider array of ways to engage—not just online. This mixture of digital, hybrid, and in-person engagement options, and indicating how much time each will require, has helped lower the barrier to entering a community engagement process.
We have seen more projects using timing on their digital tools, as well as advertising events such as pop-ups, where those with more time or those who prefer face to face interaction can come along and have their say on the project that interests them.
There’s been a growing trend towards presenting bite-sized, relevant information to help people quickly grasp the key aspects of a project, without the need to download large, cumbersome documents. The use of design tools that enhance the flow of a project page, such as our Block Quote tool (used in innovative ways to guide the narrative), is becoming increasingly popular. Additionally, short video introductions have also gained traction as an effective way to engage audiences and provide an overview of a project.
Community Vision Review Initiative | City of Darebin
This is clearly demonstrated by the City of Darebin’s Community Vision Review, where they utilised one of our coaching sessions to enhance the project’s user experience. The artwork on their site was created specifically for the project and is featured in the project banner, video flows, hotspots, and the survey
By using the Tabs and the Block Quote tool, we get great flow through the project, while Darebin also offered those in the community several low-barrier options to get involved. You can read a case study about this project, showcasing how our coaching sessions helped show a positive impact by increasing and empowering meaningful engagement.
Final Reflections
While not every prediction hit the mark, many of the key trends we anticipated have become more evident in 2024, contributing to the success of community engagement efforts. Hyperlocal engagement and greater data transparency have gained significant traction, with initiatives like neighbourhood hubs and visual ‘closing-the-loop’ projects helping to empower communities and build trust.
Though some trends, particularly those in private digital workspaces, remain difficult to fully validate publicly, we’re confident these shifts are taking shape. As we look ahead, it’s clear that the landscape of online community engagement continues to evolve, and these trends will play a crucial role in shaping the future of how we connect, collaborate, and make decisions together.
Effective placemaking initiatives arise from the collaborative visions shared by government staff and community members. This is accomplished through co-designing and actively participating in the planning stages of a project. So, join us as we explore five inspiring placemaking project examples that empower community engagement.
These five initiatives benefit local residents’ specific needs and interests and help beautify our neighbourhoods for increased tourism for future visitors and residing community members for years to come. Each project is a living testament to the transformative power of thoughtful placemaking. They empower residents to shape their surroundings and cultivate a sense of belonging and ownership.
Here’s our round-up of five placemaking community engagement examples to draw some inspiration from:
Informing Residents of New Precincts in a City Centre
Neighbourhood Activity Centre
Long-Term Frameworks
Community’s collective vision
Enhancements for a Park
City of Kalgoorlie Boulder | Kal City Centre
1. Informing Residents of New Precincts in a City Centre
The City of Kalgoorlie Boulder had embarked on a multi-million dollar project to revitalize key precincts within the Kalgoorlie Central Business District in St Barbara’s Square. Kalgoorlie’s goal for Kal City Centre was to create vibrant, economically robust, and diverse spaces that would help benefit community members within the area.
To keep the community informed about the new precinct features, Kalgoorlie utilized various visual elements including a Photo Gallery showcasing a bird’s-eye view of St Barbara’s Square, a video, Feature Grids, and a Newsfeed for project updates. To further engage residents, Kalgoorlie has included a Call to Action button, prompting community members to subscribe and stay updated on the project’s progress.
Wyndham City Coast County | Neighbourhood Activity Centre
2. Neighbourhood Activity Centre
The Woodville Neighbourhood Activity Centre (NAC) in Wyndham is an established hub featuring a local shopping centre, schools, open spaces, and recreational facilities. However, it lacks a vision or guidelines for its operations and future growth. To help address this, Wyndham City Council worked towards a Woodville Place Plan and sought input from residents, businesses, and visitors to shape the area’s future.
Wyndham has since released the draft of the Woodville Place Plan and has encouraged locals to participate through different engagement tool methods. For instance, by utilizing the Form tool, Wyndham asked residents to read and submit their feedback on the plan. Wyndham also displayed the objectives and actions of the plan in a visually engaging format to simplify information and reduce text-heavy content. In addition, Wyndham utilized a Quick Poll as an easy way to get real-time responses from community members by asking them the following question: ‘How do you rate the plans for our Draft Woodville Place Plan?’.
Wyndham had also expanded its engagement efforts by making its engagement site multilingual, allowing residents to translate the content on the page according to their preferred language. This initiative aims to enhance accessibility and inclusivity, ensuring that all residents can easily engage with the information and have their say in community discussions regardless of their language proficiency.
City of Port Phillip | South Melbourne Structure Plan
3. Long Term Frameworks
The City of Port Phillip has prepared a new draft for its South Melbourne Structure Plan to help establish a long term vision for the next 20 years of South Melbourne. This plan will also be used to identify actions to manage change and help respond to challenges such as climate change, population growth and COVID-19.
As a way to educate and inform residents of the plan for the long-term framework, Port Phillip has utilized the Hotspot tool to help indicate to residents where the four precincts have been identified to deliver place-specific outcomes for South Melbourne. By clicking on each dot, members can view further information on the specific recommendations of each precinct as a way to help reduce text heavy content on the page. The City has also used other elements such as FAQ’s, a Document Library, and Facts cards as a way to provide further information to residents.
City of Boroondarra | Glenferrie Place Plan
4. Community’s Collective Vision
The City of Boroondarra created a ‘Glenferrie Place Plan’ to help guide the future revitalisation of the Glenferrie precinct in Hawthorn. As a product of closing the loop, this plan showcases extensive community feedback, research and analysis. It features urban greening and sustainable transport, arts events and smart technology, sports, recreation and revitalised laneways, tapping into what’s special about Glenferrie and its community.
As part of the Glenferrie Place Plan, Boroondara has utilized engagement tools like Feature Grids to highlight the nine initiatives and showcase the community’s shared vision for Glenferrie. By leveraging this engagement tool, Boroondara encourages residents to explore the plan visually, enabling them to delve deeper into information regarding their specific needs and interests.
Boroondara has also utilized the Timeline tool and a Follow button, encouraging residents to keep up to date with the long-term plan.
City of San Diego | Balboa Park Priortization Framework
5. Enhancements for an Ideal Park
The City of San Diego’s Parks and Recreation Department has engaged AEA Consulting to develop a Prioritization Framework for future Balboa Park capital projects, to inform future decision-making and provide better alignment between available resources and what residents want to experience when they visit.
Using a mixture of online and in-person engagement to seek input from the community, San Diego utilized digital tools such as the Social Map, where they asked residents the following question – “Where would you like to see improvements in Balboa Park?”. This allowed residents to add a marker to specific locations of the map and add a comment with what they would like to see renovated or enhanced. As a result of their engagement efforts, San Diego garned over 400 contributions!
San Diego had also used the Gather tool to ask for additional feedback which encouraged residents to either add a comment or a photo to share their story. Along with the Fund It tool by using the posints system to get community members to vote on ‘Which draft criteria do you want to prioritize?’.
The City of Holdfast Bay | Parklets
Bonus Project: Low Barrier Engagement
Here’s a bonus project, which highlights one of our predicted community engagement trends for 2024; low barrier engagement. The City of Holdfast Bay have been engaging the community on what they think about ‘Parklets’. Parklets are little pop-up spaces that utilise one or two car parking spaces to extend the public realm. For example extra seating for a cafe, the installation for a popular food truck or safe lock up spaces for bicycles.
In this project Holdfast have utilised two engagement tools, timed how long each will takes to participate in to respect participants time and given the community the choice on which one suits them for providing feedback. Information is clear and to the point and utilises tools like the Fact Cards and FAQ tool to keep things brief.
These community engagement placemaking projects showcases the power of collaboration and shared input for public participation between government staff and residing residents. By involving community members in the planning and decision-making processes, these initiatives will not only help to support their specific needs and interests, boost tourism and the neigborhood area, but also fostering a sense of ownership and belonging among residents.
As we look ahead to the future of placemaking, these examples serve as inspiring models for empowering communities and creating vibrant, sustainable, and people-centric spaces.
We are in the enviable position of collaborating with hundreds of organizations worldwide and innovating together to drive community and stakeholder engagement forward. Our clients range from local and state governments to industry and nonprofits that use and rely on engagement in their decision-making processes. This experience allows us to take a pulse of engagement strategies and outcomes across a variety of fields and reflect on emerging online community engagement trends for 2024.
Here are our top 5 online community engagement predictions for 2024:
Hyperlocal Engagement
Elevated Data Transparency
AI Adoption at the Organization Level
Community Empowerment in (Private) Digital Workspaces
Low Barrier Engagement
1. Hyperlocal Engagement
Communities are very familiar with public engagement, and since COVID, they have become increasingly hyperlocal in their thinking and acting.
In most cases, this would be defined along the lines of geography. For example, a street, a neighbourhood, and a suburb. But it could extend to digital groups such as defined groups, panels, and boards. Organizations will need to and are adapting to this shift with appropriate information and consultations targeted at specific communities on hyperlocal projects.
For example, most local governments across Australia run tree planting schemes on a street-by-street basis where old trees and non-native species are replaced – this is known as Street Tree Renewal projects. Usually, the engagement around this is specific to the residents of that street only where trees are being replaced. This process limits the local government to maybe a handful of streets a year if they follow a process of mail-drop, feedback, and tree planting one street at a time.
By using a digital engagement platform like Social Pinpoint, consultations like this can be run concurrently or consecutively at a very hyperlocal level to scale engagement. These spaces can be built out to discuss and help local governments manage the process in an agreeable timeline, collaboratively with their communities.
Resort Municipality of Whistler, Canada | Municipal Facilities Feedback
An example from Canada, the Resort Municipality of Whistler is hosting two tandem engagement projects – one more general and one hyperlocal. The more general project is collecting broad feedback on Municipal Facilities, while the more focused and hyperlocal engagement is collecting feedback from youth and parents surrounding a specific Youth Centre. By dividing these into separate consultations, they’ve been able to create engagement strategies that reflect the need to bring younger and more diverse voices into decision-making processes.
City of Melbourne, Victoria | Neighbourhood Portals
At the City of Melbourne, hyperlocal has been on the agenda for a while now. Their Neighbourhood Portals allow community members to find projects in their neighbourhood and provide feedback using a variety of tools, including adding comments on maps. The data collected is then fed into a knowledge database for the various City of Melbourne staff teams to access and benefit from in the long term. This helps to cut down on engagement fatigue and repetitive questioning. In some cases, we know it has also had a big impact on giving a participation boost to ‘less attractive’ projects by associating them with the ‘more attractive’ ones.
City of Melbourne, Victoria | Urban Forest
Likewise, the City of Melbourne’s Urban Forest project has focused on reviewing Urban Forest Precinct Plans as implementation guidelines that underpin their wider Urban Forest Strategy. The 10 very specific precinct levels are where people can provide hyperlocal feedback by commenting on a Social Map. The project started in 2023 and will continue at least until 2025.
2. Elevated Data Transparency
Similar to the above, we’ve seen a growing expectation from the public for transparency on how their input is being actioned. They’re asking for greater detail on how engagement data is analysed and used for smarter decision-making. They want to feel that their opinion is valued.
Today, organizations are receiving larger data sets, not just from traditional in-person activities, but also digitally from platforms like Social Pinpoint and social media. With that, managing data has become increasingly important and using the data appropriately even more so.
Many organizations use tools, like Consultation Manager, to track stakeholder interactions in one place, cross-reference data across projects and use data beyond a single project. At the project level, they use Social Pinpoint to further analyse sentiment using AI, create thematic word clouds and highlight comments using visualization tools like maps, charts and graphs. The recent integration between these two solutions is helping engagement professionals save time and take their analysis to the next level. Still, others are turning to dedicated BI tools using our open API.
In Australia, the Cities of Melbourne, Wyndham and Casey are just a handful of Social Pinpoint users now accessing high levels of data via our open API to feed into PowerBI tools to create amazing custom dashboards for internal use and charts, some even sharing live feedback with their communities. This use case is on the rise as organizations want to show how data is working for them and their community.
West Hollywood, California | Target Vision Zero Action Plan
Having recently completed the public feedback portion of their Target Vision Zero Action Plan, the City of West Hollywood in California is now using its Social Pinpoint project page to close the loop and push the results and conclusions from that feedback back to the public. With an overview of the process, they use Social Pinpoint’s Tabs tool to break down their feedback into easily digestible sections. For example, under the Community Outreach tab, they use a screenshot of their final Social Map and under the Crash History tab, they review historical data.
While the plan has now been adopted by the City, they are still encouraging anyone who lives, works or spends time in West Hollywood to review the plan and provide feedback. This ongoing feedback will inform the next stage and the implementation of the proposed safety improvements recommended in the plan.
Hobsons Bay City Council, Victoria | Tourism Strategy
In 2024, we will certainly see more organizations transparently sharing engagement results online, like Hobsons Bay City Council. They close the loop on projects using a variety of content tools, likeFacts andHotspot in their Social Pinpoint toolkit, to share what they heard back to the community. They also use the data beyond the single project to promote smarter use across projects.
We are already seeing growth in data transparency and smart use this year, whether it’s sharing data internally for others to benefit from across departments (like the City of Melbourne’s, Neighbourhood Portals) or by including older yet still relevant data in project decision-making.
3. AI Adoption at the Organization Level
AI is here to stay and grow, hopefully with us. In 2023, early adoption was all about the ‘wow’ and exploring what AI could do for us as individuals. We saw no formal training, no rules and quickly developing products. Now, as we move into 2024, what we predict is that the ‘wow’ factor will fade and we’ll see serious adoption to enhance speed and efficiency at the organizational level.
Organizations have been working to explore the organizational risks and benefits of applications like ChatGPT and Dall-E, slowly trying out different systems and prompts to improve internal processes around survey writing and data analysis.
While data privacy and reputational risk remain major stumbling blocks to more mainstream application of AI in government, we anticipate that organizations will spend the next year developing robust internal systems and norms to establish acceptable use of these tools specific to the government context and even choosing preferred tools and creating “closed loop” AI systems.
The intersection of AI and community engagement offers a promising horizon. AI introduces efficiencies, personalisation and data-driven insights that can redefine the participation experience. Yet, balancing this technological prowess with the intrinsic human touch that has always underpinned interpersonal relationships is crucial. For more, see our blogs on ‘Will AI Replace Community Engagement’ and ‘10 Ways to Use Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Community Engagement’, including a downloadable prompt guide below.
For AI to be used responsibly and ethically in a way that fosters positive and inclusive community engagement, organizations will need to create systems that ensure data privacy, avoid biases in AI algorithms and maintain transparency. It will be interesting to examine the differences in how different parts of the world, with varying data protection laws, approach the normalization of AI tools – perhaps a topic for next year’s trends article.
4. Community Empowerment in (Private) Digital Engagement Workspaces
“Empower” has now been on the IAP2 Spectrum for 34 years and in 2024, we expect social empowerment in digital engagement workspaces will become more popular as a tool to aid deliberation, collective impact and ongoing relationship building. In particular, we predict growth in open dialogue models being applied both in private and semi-private workspaces to facilitate citizen panels, strategic planning and budgetary processes.
We’ve seen many Social Pinpoint users leverage private projects to create mini-collaboration and empowerment spaces that are specific to one issue or group. This can range from a birdwatching group to a greenway cleanup coalition, to a collection of nonprofits working in refugee resettlement.
Our Recovery is an example of a semi-private workspace hosted on Social Pinpoint – it combines public-facing transparency about members and the work of various groups. It facilitates private discussion spaces that empower those committees to work together during recovery after a natural disaster, using a place-based, community-led approach to ensure projects, grants and support programs developed are the right fit for the community.
City of Pittsburgh, United States | Oakland Plan
5. Low Barrier Engagement
This is a trend that has slowly been gathering steam globally over the last few years and covers the ability to offer your community the opportunity to engage in a project with little barrier to participation but maximum impact. In digital engagement, this means creating a pathway for engagement that reduces clicks, offers rapid feedback opportunities and avoids text-heavy documents. The idea is that you can carve out a path to engagement that reaches those who have very little time or capacity and a parallel path for those who have more time or capacity – yet both sets of input are aggregated and equally valued in the final decision-making process.
At Social Pinpoint, we see an increasing number of organizations designing participation strategies in this way and we expect this to trend up in 2024. Organizations will, for example, offer different digital, hybrid and in-person engagement options and indicate how much time each will require.
If you have 5 minutes, leave an idea via theVisioner board;
If you have 15 minutes (or more!), visit us in person at the pop-up at this place, on this date and at this time.”
There’s also an opportunity here to use various content tools to break down large text-based documents into bite-size relevant information to help people access the key elements of a project without the barrier of needing to download a heavy-weight document. A popular tool being used here is theFacts Card.
In 2024, we think we will see a big increase in the skill of producing low-barrier engagement. The ability to offer participants a choice of engagement opportunities based upon their self-determined interest and capacity is not an easy thing to do or manage, but an important part of bringing in more diverse voices. With the support of a high-level Customer Success Team, like the one at Social Pinpoint, we anticipate a move away from the question-heavy survey and associated survey fatigue and a shift towards more deliberative and interactive tools likeGather andSocial Map.
What do you think? Were we right with our review of 2023 in part one, and do you think our predictions for 2024 will be correct?
Before we look forward and reveal our predictions for the top 2024 trends in online community engagement, let’s look back. 2023 was the year that saw some very clear trends, especially in the digital community space. We saw hybrid engagement come of age, we saw really clear stages in engagement, and we even saw the rise of AI. Below, we’ve listed the five trends we have mapped as the top 2023 online community engagement trends.
The Solidification of Hybrid Engagement
Staged Engagement
Community Development and Going Beyond the Project
Participatory Budgeting
The Initial Adoption of AI in Community Engagement
1. The Solidification of Hybrid Engagement
We predicted this two years ago and it was certainly de rigueur for most when planning community engagement over the past year. Various forms exist, but many projects showcased a mix of online and offline engagement strategies.
City of Port Adelaide Enfield, South Australia | School Idea’s Pitch Project
The City of Port Adelaide Enfield represented this trend well with their ‘School Idea’s Pitch’ Project, which saw students act as elected members and make mock Council decisions on various issues offline. Their ideas were then shared online for community comment and support through upvoting, with some ideas being taken to the Council’s chamber for discussion. This was a great way to get younger members of the community engaged in what local government does at an early age and a good example of the value of hybrid engagement.
City of Clarington, Canada | Parks, Recreation and Culture Master Plan
On the Canadian side, Clarington in Ontario implemented a robust hybrid engagement strategy for their Parks, Recreation and Culture Master Plan, which included pop-up open houses around town, online meetings at various times of day, asynchronous digital engagement surveys, and even in-person kiosks at City Hall. The kiosks in particular saw great positive feedback on bridging the digital divide and high levels of engagement throughout the second half of 2023. It will be exciting to see how the kiosks are used going forward, and how peer municipalities learn from Clarington’s example.
2. Staged Engagement
When we say staged, we don’t mean fake news. Instead, what we mean are consultations with multiple stages of engagement from early engagement, even pre-engagement, through to closing the loop. Using a digital engagement platform makes staged engagement even easier and facilities a more robust process.
Strathbogie Shire, Victoria | Public Art Project
This was perfectly presented in Strathbogie Shire’s ‘Public Art’ Project, which started with pre-engagement to engage the community before the project had officially begun to see what community members were feeling, and ended with closing the loop to ensure that the participants were able to see the results of the project once it was concluded and so they could see their influence on the outcome.
Island County, Washington | Comprehensive Plan
With large and long-term planning projects, a similar goal can be achieved by using the same project space over time. Island County, Washington (USA), recently launched their Comprehensive Planning process with the intention of collecting ideas in the visioning stage, before later moving into the plan development stage. This will allow participants to influence the process while it’s still being developed and to find upcoming engagement opportunities both in- person and online.
3. Community Development and Going Beyond the Project
Late in 2023, at a conference in Canberra one of the speakers said, “people don’t live in projects, they live in places.” We couldn’t agree more. In the online space, what we have seen in the last year is the ‘traditional’ online community engagement starting to go beyond the project and transitioning to include more ongoing relationship and community development type projects. This will certainly continue into 2024 as it adds more value to the online space and also helps maintain and engage the online community.
City of Port Adelaide Enfield, South Australia | Get Shady Project
In 2023, a stand out project in Australia was the City of Port Adelaide Enfield’s ‘Get Shady’ project which engaged the community long term to distribute over 3000 native species of trees to help create a shade canopy to tackle climate change. This simple yet important project has helped the local government develop its relationship with the community on an issue that is on everyone’s minds while not providing a strict timeline.
Village of Deforest, Wisconsin | Birds of Deforest and Houses for Them
We also saw elements of this ‘beyond the project’ style work in North America in towns like Deforest, Wisconsin, where they are using Social Pinpoint to capture community spirit and a little bit of Citizen Science around birdwatching and acknowledging the role of community advocates to preserve and support this activity.
4. Participatory Budgeting
Participatory Budgeting started in Brazil in the 1980s, and it was used across Europe as a recovery tool to the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). It is now growing in use throughout Australia and North America. It’s not surprising that we are starting to see a big increase in the use of Social Pinpoint’s Fund It tool.
Now a popular tool, Fund It is certainly seeing more use in local government budgeting processes. It’s also often used in funding community projects; for example, participatory budgeting and tradeoff exercises can be used to engage the public in choosing everything from building elements of playgrounds and dog parks, to voting on the final designs for public art and mural projects.
Bayside City Council, Victoria | Library of Things
A favorite of ours is Bayside City Council’s ‘Library of Things‘ because it encapsulates the local government’s desire to spend public money on items for the library, like lawn mowers and kitchen utensils. But it takes away the stigmatic cost element by first asking the Community to choose items using points in the Fund-it tool and secondly by asking them to provide their own ideas via the Gather tool. While there is no project decision here to be made, the community is using participatory budgeting to own its Library of Things.
In Monterey, California, they deployed the Fund It tool to assess community values around distribution of housing units (instead of dollars or points!). The question posed was: “We need to accommodate X many additional housing units in Monterey over the next X many years, how would you distribute those units among the following neighborhoods?” The Fund It tool gave project managers space to explain the tradeoffs involved in choosing different neighborhoods while still keeping the budgeting exercise simple enough to be accessible to a broad cross-section of interested community members.
5. The Initial Adoption of AI in Community Engagement
While we are only just really learning the possible impacts (good and bad) of AI in community engagement, ChatGPT set the world alight earlier in 2023 with talk of how AI could help us with our everyday lives. If you attended any conference between September and December 2023 in the community engagement space, you would have surely encountered at least one workshop, session or keynote on the subject. Earlier last year, IAP2 North America even hosted a six-part series on the role of AI in public participation while at least three sessions at the IAP2 Australasian Conference were about AI.
What we have learnt is that there are both advantages and disadvantages to early adoption with AI. Speed and efficiency are great at an organizational level; however, the human element is often critical in a community engagement context, and data privacy and reputational risk must be carefully considered in the deployment of AI tools. Are your communities and stakeholders ready for it, even if you are?
We were excited to see these trends advance the field of community engagement in 2023. While some of these trends, such as hybrid engagement, continued to build from previous years, we expect many of these trends, like the growth of AI, will certainly continue to take shape into 2024.
In recent years, we’ve observed the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI), and it shows no sign of slowing down, particularly in the foreseeable future. Notably, it’s consistently reshaping our behaviors, decision-making processes, and the way we interact with one another. Yet, with the ongoing development and increased integration of AI into our daily lives, a crucial question arises: Will AI replace community engagement?
Community engagement has played a crucial role in being responsible for societal progress, fostering connections, shared visioning, and better placemaking. However, as AI technologies evolve, there’s been a growing curiosity and an increasing amount of uncertainty about if and how it can change the way people engage in communities.
Within this article, we will explore the benefits and challenges of AI while discovering ways to strike a balance between technology and human connection for community engagement.
The Benefits of AI in Community Engagement
The relationship between AI and community engagement offers a promising horizon. It introduces efficiencies, personalization, and data-driven insights that can redefine the participation experience. It’s crucial to balance this technological prowess with the intrinsic human touch that has always underpinned customer relationships. Here are 5 advantages of using AI in your community engagement strategies:
1. Speed and Efficiency
2. Consistent Moderation
3. 24/7 Availability
4. Reducing Human Error
5. Helping in a Repetitive Job
1. Speed and Efficiency
Successful community engagement projects, particularly when online tools are used, can lead to massive volumes of data. While quantitative datasets can be easily visualized using colourful graphs to garner instant insights, analyzing qualitative data can be daunting and time consuming. This is where AI can drive speed and efficiency.
For instance, you can use Social Pinpoint’s Analysis Assistant to analyse vast amounts of unstructured, qualitative data in real-time. This means that you can utilise your engagement data to quickly gather sentiments, themes, and insights.
2. Consistent Moderation
Through programming, AI can enforce consistent community guidelines and moderation to ensure that all users are treated fairly and equally. By utilizing AI driven moderation such as Social Pinpoint’s anti-SPAM technology, you can leverage AI to automatically identify and address any potential violations and harmful content, which results in a safer and more inclusive digital environment.
3. 24/7 Availability
AI never sleeps, allowing AI-driven humanized chatbots and virtual assistants to provide round-the-clock community support to residents in real-time. AI possesses the capability to accommodate diverse time zones and work schedules, enabling you to promptly address various needs and concerns, ultimately enhancing the overall user experience for community members. This 24/7 support contributes to a more engaging and accessible platform for users worldwide.
If you look at FranklyAI for example, you can move away from surveys and forms and effectively chat with AI who is actively listening using user led conversations. It’s more conversational that the standard chatbot that will normally find out information from you to then provide information back, normally with choices.
4. Reducing Human Error
While mistakes are bound to happen, you can harness AI for community engagement to reduce human errors. While human moderation will always be highly valuable, AI has automated processes that can consistently analyze data and interactions, reducing the risk of oversight or mistakes in content moderation. Additionally, AI algorithms can adapt and learn from patterns, ensuring a more accurate and efficient identification of issues, further enhancing the overall reliability of community management.
5. Helping in a Repetitive Job
To help assist you with tedious repetitive tasks, AI can also help you by automating repetitive procedures so that you can concentrate on more intricate and other creative areas of your work. So, not only will it accelerate particular workflows, but it also has the ability to reduce the likelihood of humans feeling fatigued, to help promote a more sustainable and fulfilling work environment.
Let’s turn our attention to the challenge of using artificial intelligence for community engagement now that we have explored what benefits it can bring.
The Challenges of AI in Community Engagement
AI, however, lacks the human touch to create an authentic connection. While AI offers numerous advantages, it is important not to overlook the value of human interaction in building and maintaining thriving community engagement. Some key aspects that AI cannot fully replicate include:
Emotional Intelligence
Body Language
Active Listening
Building Rapport
Adaptability
1. Emotional Intelligence
Emotions hold significant importance in community engagement, particularly in handling sensitive or emotionally charged situations. While AI can replicate and simulate emotional responses to some degree through data and algorithms, it is unable to truly ‘feel’ emotions, as it lacks essential biological systems.
Humans, on the other hand, possess the ability to understand and empathize with emotions, making them better suited to navigate such situations than AI. This is why human interaction and moderation will always be valuable in community engagement, with support from AI to respond to more common comments and to flag areas of concern.
2. Body Language
Communication is more than just words. It also entails expressing our genuine emotions and thoughts through body language. In fact, body language contributes to over 90% of the information we convey. Nonverbal cues like gestures, mannerisms, facial expressions, and tone of voice also plays a crucial role in conveying meaning.
Despite AI’s diverse capabilities, it becomes more of a challenging task for it to understand elements like sarcasm. Humans, however, possesses the ability to interpret body language, which allows individuals to gain insights into others’ true feelings, enabling context-aware communication in various interpersonal interactions.
3. Active listening
While some AI models claim to have active listening capabilities, that’s obviously with the data that is shared. In a human situation, whether in a room or online, additional and off-topic comments can be as valuable as during a community engagement session.
4. Building Rapport
Genuine, human connections foster trust and relationships among community members, which in turn helps to create a supportive and engaging environment. Incorporating human intuition and empathy into community interactions can help Council’s to understand the needs and desires of their residents and effectively handle their concerns. In addition, genuine connections can contribute to a sense of belonging and strengthen the bonds that go beyond the capabilities of AI-driven communication.
5 Adaptability
Community engagement professionals can adjust more easily to unique circumstances by identifying and responding to the evolving needs and preferences of their communities. Individuals are able to cope with such situations with greater sensitivity by understanding and addressing the needs and concerns of their community members through personalised and tailored approaches through human touch in their involvement in the community.
Striking the Perfect Balance: AI and Human Collaboration
The integration of AI in community engagement poses challenges and opportunities. Achieving the optimal balance between AI and human interaction allows you to leverage the strengths of both, fostering a more efficient, supportive, and engaging environment for participants. With the correct approach, AI becomes a powerful tool that enhances, rather than diminishes, the distinctive human connections fundamental to any community engagement process.
However, it’s essential to use AI responsibly and ethically. In order to promote positive and integrated community engagement, it is essential that key factors be taken into account, such as data protection, avoidance of bias in artificial intelligence algorithms or the preservation of transparency in AI-driven processes. The potential of AI to improve the community’s involvement and strengthen connections with users is going to increase as it evolves.
Achieving the full advantages of AI in online communities, while maintaining the human touch, hinges on striking the right balance between technology and human interaction. Here are a few ways you could strike this balance:
Hybrid Model
AI as an Assistant
Continuous Improvement
1. Hybrid Model
Employ a combination of AI-driven tools and humans for things like moderation and analysis. Use AI to handle routine tasks, such as basic moderation, sentiment analysis and answering FAQs, while reserving more complex or sensitive issues for human intervention. Social Pinpoint has a wide range of participation tools, including optional moderation levels and the ability to turn the assisted analysis on and off when needed.
2. AI as an Assistant
Artificial intelligence virtual assistants, like chatbots and ChatGPT, contribute to improved interaction between humans and AI, by utilizing data-driven insights to make better-informed decisions. Consequently, this can also help address concerns within communities and enhance a council’s community engagement strategy. To see how AI can help you, our team created a ‘ChatGPT Cheat Sheet for Community Engagement’ so you can get started on utilizing AI to streamline content creation.
3. Continuous Improvement
It’s important to regularly evaluate the performance of your AI tools and to make adjustments when necessary to maintain a harmonious balance between AI and human engagement. By doing so, you can ensure that technology will compliment and augment human capabilities rather than overshadowing the essential aspects of genuine community connection.
In summary, AI can serve as a valuable tool for aiding community engagement professionals with capabilities like data and sentiment analysis, communication automation, and to save you time. However, it is not likely that AI will replace community engagement. This is because within community engagement, authentic human touch and interactions remains essential for cultivating stronger relationships with residents, which is something that cannot be replicated by technology alone.
In a recent study released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in October 2023, it was revealed that 42.9% of Australians aged 16–85 had experienced a mental health disorder at some point in their lives. Specifically, within the last few years, predominantly during the pandemic years from 2020 to 2022, it indicated that 21.5% of individuals aged 16–85 had a 12-month mental disorder, while 37.9% had a selected physical condition. Comparing this to the 2017-18 data, there was an increase from 20.1% to 17.5% in 2014-15 for Australians with a mental or behavioural condition.
Concerning this surge in mental health disorders, we spoke with a well-known mental health agency to understand the implications for engagement levels between individuals and agencies post-pandemic.
When it comes to mental health engagement, a local focus is preferred. Those accessing mental health services tend to favour local services with regional knowledge, often avoiding online relational engagement tools. Mental health services predominantly engage online by sharing resources and facilitating support groups, including reference groups comprising individuals with specific mental health conditions and groups involving their families and caregivers.
Present engagement activities primarily involve surveys conducted by various agencies, while face-to-face grassroots engagement occurs at the local level through offices, established meeting places, or social media where data management and analysis are challenging.
Despite agencies utilising social media for organic content and advertising outreach, engaging service users with privacy and confidence remains a challenge.
Considering the ongoing outreach, feedback, and engagement, why not explore the use of a digital engagement platform to consult individuals, involve groups, and promote resources and outcomes from these collaborations, especially at a local level?
Five Benefits of Utilizing Digital Engagement for Mental Health Professionals
Here are five benefits of utilizing digital engagement for professionals in the mental health field when the focus is on staying local:
Enhanced Local Connections
Increased Accessibility
Tailored Support Services
Reduced Stigma at a Local Level
Collaborative Local Initiatives
1. Enhanced Local Connections
Digital community engagement facilitates mental health professionals in establishing stronger connections within their immediate geographical area. This approach fosters a sense of community and solidarity, exemplified by the City of Melbourne’s successful Neighbourhood Portals on Social Pinpoint.
Peer Support Groups – Facilitating online peer support groups where individuals can connect, share experiences, and provide mutual support. Peer support has shown to be effective in reducing feelings of isolation and promoting a sense of belonging.
2. Increased Accessibility
Digital community engagement platforms broaden the reach of mental health professionals, connecting with a more diverse audience locally. This accessibility extends support to individuals who may face barriers to traditional in-person services due to geographical limitations or disabilities. Social Pinpoint’s bespoke translation tool enhances engagement diversity across different languages in your locality.
Crisis and intervention resources – Ensuring that the platform includes easily accessible crisis intervention resources, such as helplines and mental health crisis services is vital. Having immediate access to support in times of crisis is crucial.
3. Tailored Support Services
Professionals can use digital engagement platforms to collect local information, offering support services and resources tailored to the unique needs of their community. Social Map simplifies data collection for a more effective understanding of local challenges.
Interactive Assessments and Screening Tools – Include evidence-based mental health assessments and screening tools to help individuals self-assess their mental health. These tools can guide users to appropriate resources based on their needs.
4. Reduced Stigma at a Local Level
Engaging with digital communities allows mental health professionals to address stigma directly. By participating in local conversations about mental health, they can break down stereotypes and promote open dialogue, ultimately reducing stigma on a community scale. Social Pinpoint’s Conversation tool facilitates open discussions in groups or privately.
Psychoeducational resources – Provide evidence-based psychoeducational resources on various mental health topics. This can include articles, videos, and infographics that offer practical tips and information for managing mental health challenges.
5. Collaborative Local Initiatives
Digital platforms provide a space for mental health professionals to collaborate with local organizations, government agencies, and community leaders. This collaborative approach ensures that solutions are well-suited to the local context. Social Pinpoint’s Private Project functionality allows professionals to work together confidently before launching any initiatives.
Community initiatives – Engaging the community in collective challenges or initiatives that promote a sense of unity and purpose. Collaborative efforts can contribute to a supportive community environment.
In summary, digital community engagement offers mental health professionals a range of benefits, including enhanced local connections, the ability to tailor support services, reduced stigma at a local level, collaborative local initiatives, and targeted outreach and services. These advantages empower professionals to make a significant impact on the mental health and well-being of their local communities.
As the festive season dawns upon us, it’s tempting to assume that community engagement should take a back seat while individuals revel in the holiday cheer away from home. Community engagement during the holidays goes beyond decorations and celebrations; it’s about building connections and plans that last. Therefore, it’s precisely during this time of joy that nurturing engagement becomes even more vital.
Let’s explore how community engagement can be adapted during the festive period, considering the travel and festivities that often pull residents away from their usual life cycle routines.
Three Strategies for Festive Community Engagement
In the spirit of the holiday season and nurturing connections, here are three strategies that can be utilized to boost your upcoming community engagement for the festive season.
Closing the Loop
Planning Ahead
Celebrating the Wins
1. Closing the Loop
Closing the loop in community engagement involves creating a feedback system that ensures once everyone’s voice has been heard, they get to hear how their input has influenced an outcome. The festive period often brings a sense of reflection, making it an ideal time to address projects that have advanced or closed throughout the year.
By actively closing the loop on community feedback, residents will feel valued and heard, fostering a stronger sense of belonging. With Social Pinpoint and Consultation Manager’s in-built emailer, you can use it to showcase all the excellent projects that you have closed, much like a family Christmas newsletter.
2. Planning Ahead
While the festive season is a time for joy and celebration, it’s also a crucial period for planning your community engagement initiatives for the year ahead. Therefore, use this time to gather input on potential projects from colleagues around the organization, possible events you could support, and improvements that can be made from what you have learned in the past 12 months.
Hosting visioning sessions or collaborative workshops both with colleagues and community groups can help identify community priorities. Planning ahead not only ensures a smoother execution of future initiatives but also demonstrates a proactive commitment to better community engagement.
By utilizing the data you have collected on tool use and participation levels in Social Pinpoint and/or reports on issues learnt and interaction types in Consultation Manager, planning how best to engage next on that sticky upcoming project should be well informed and easier than pulling a Christmas cracker when the time comes to deliver.
3. Celebrating the Wins
Reflecting on the achievements and positive changes within the community after a successful project is essential for morale and motivation not only for the community who participated but also the staff that have spent many hours planning, executing and delivering. Take the time to celebrate the wins, both big and small.
Whether it’s completing a project, reaching an engagement goal, or fostering positive stronger and bigger relationships, ensure you acknowledge and share these successes. Celebrating these wins not only boosts morale but also inspires a sense of pride and accomplishment, encouraging continued active participation. With over 30 content tools in Social Pinpoint, showing these wins off in a high visual and active way is simple. It’s like putting the icing on the Christmas cake.
As we immerse ourselves in the festive spirit, let’s not forget the power of community engagement. While we certainly don’t advocate doing any engagement over the Christmas period – unless it’s something fun like City of Canada Bay’s Christmas Window competition or helpful like City of Pittsburgh’s Snow Angels, using this time for closing the loop on feedback, planning ahead for the future, and celebrating the wins are three key components that can elevate your practice during this joyous season.
By fostering connections, being actively prepared for the next 12 months, and recognising achievements, organisations and communities can lay the groundwork for a thriving and engaging future together. Happy holidays!
In today’s fast-paced world, digital community engagement has become a game-changer not just for government agencies looking for support with decision-making processes but for sports clubs looking to engage their members and wider sports communities beyond the game.
It is transforming the way they connect with paying fans and those who wish to become part of what is almost like a close-knit family around one single passion. Sports club members, after all, are often die-hard supporting mouthpieces with a high level of feedback that clubs could ultimately benefit from listening to and using their knowledge to shape the club’s future.
Recently in Australia, at the FIFA Women’s World Cup, almost two million fans attended the games (total) – up by more than 600,000 from the previous record. In the AFL (Australian Football League), this year’s paid membership figures show that most clubs broke the previous year’s records, with three clubs now tallying over 100,000 members. In the UK, the Premier League dominates, with Manchester United claiming to have a worldwide fan base of over one billion fans, while across the big pond in the NBA (National Basketball Association). The New York Knicks are said to have a TV market size of nearly 7.5 million people. That’s a lot of people you could engage and listen to.
Benefits of Digital Community Engagement for Sport Clubs
If you’re involved in sports club membership, community engagement or multicultural community liaison, here are five key areas highlighting the incredible benefits of using a digital community engagement platform for your sports club:
Enhanced Member Experience
Community Building
Inclusive and Diverse Communities
Data-Driven Decision-Making
Member-Driven
1. Enhanced Member Experience
Being Part of their Club’s Decisions: Digital engagement platforms allow sports clubs to provide their direct members with relevant updates, invitations, and news to ultimately be able to participate in key decisions affecting their club. This personal touch enhances the overall member experience by being able to contribute to the club’s future.
Club Ownership: Members can participate in discussions, collaborate on club decisions and share opinions and ideas as the club moves forward. Being listened to in key areas will make members feel like they are a bigger part of the club. This can create more positive relationships between sporting clubs and their members, by building trust with its management and owners.
2. Community Building
Online Forums and Groups: Digital engagement fosters community building through the ability to create online forums and groups where members can interact, share experiences, and build lasting connections with fellow sports enthusiasts. The club itself can use this data to improve fan and member experience as well as reach potential members.
Gamification: Many sports clubs use digital engagement to introduce gamification elements, such as challenges, rewards, and leaderboards, which further motivate and engage members. Imagine running a challenge to design next year’s Home kit and the engagement that would achieve.
3. Inclusive and Diverse Communities
Broadening Membership: Digital engagement platforms enable sports clubs to reach a wider audience, including potential new members and fans, making it easier to attract individuals from diverse backgrounds, skill levels, and interests. The use of visual content tools or multilingual translation means those who would often find it hard to engage with the club can now access and take part in their own time.
Inclusivity Initiatives: Clubs can use digital channels to promote inclusivity by organising events, workshops, and resources that cater to a broad spectrum of members, fostering a sense of belonging for all. With digital tools, in-person events can be enhanced to provide a hybrid approach while those that can’t make it can still participate from the comfort of their own home and not miss out.
4. Data-Driven Decision-Making
Analytics Insights: Digital engagement platforms provide valuable data on member engagement, preferences, and participation rates. This data can inform club leaders about what works and what needs improvement, helping them make informed decisions.
Example of Hume City Council’s using the Fund-It Tool for their Sunbury Aquatic & Leisure Centre Project
Feedback Loops: Clubs can collect member feedback through multiple engagement tools online such as surveys and polls, enabling them to make adjustments to improve the overall fan experience. The ownership will increase when they see they are being listened to. A great example here is the Hume City Council engaging the community on a new swimming facility by using Social Pinpoint’s Fund-it tool to help shape pool equipment choices.
5. Member-Driven
User-Generated Content: Digital platforms empower members to contribute content, such as photos, videos, and stories, allowing them to actively participate in shaping the club’s identity, history and culture collaboratively. Most professional clubs these days have an Instagramable mascot, why not ask younger fans to engage with the mascot online and get their feedback with someone they connect with on match-day. By having the mascot ask questions or for younger members to share, you will gain data and insights from a different demographic.
Geographic reach: Most sports clubs these days, whether small town amateur league to the multi-million dollar clubs of the AFL, NFL, and Premier League, have great geographic reach (remember Manchester United’s world stats, according to a survey conducted by Roy Morgan in 2019, Manchester United is the third most popular football club in Australia, with 1.12 million fans). With digital engagement it doesn’t matter where a member lives, they can still feel part of their club and interact with each other.
As a result, digital community engagement is a winning strategy for sports clubs. It’s about forging meaningful connections and building a thriving sports club community. It enhances the member experience, provides valuable insights, and opens up inclusive, member-driven, and collaborative environments that celebrate achievements and foster a sense of belonging.
If you are the champion of community engagement within sports clubs, harnessing the power of digital engagement will undoubtedly help you take your club’s sense of togetherness to new heights, ensuring it remains strong and vibrant for years to come.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is already being used in community engagement across various industries and sectors. The intersection of AI and community engagement offers a promising horizon. AI introduces efficiencies, personalization, and data-driven insights that can redefine the participation experience.
Artificial intelligence (AI) involves using computers to do things that traditionally require human intelligence. AI can process large amounts of data in ways that humans cannot.
The goal for AI is to be able to do things like recognize patterns, make decisions, and even judge like humans. Or, even sing like Johnny Cash – an AI-generated cover of Cash singing Barbie Girl has recently gone viral.
AI is even changing how we make decisions. My Netflix always seems to know exactly what I should watch next and my Spotify recently introduced me to my own AI DJ (it’s actually pretty good).
Currently, AI is the very foundation of software we use every day, such as sentiment analysis or content moderation. And, it’s poised to have a significant impact on community engagement.
Using AI in Community Engagement
For community engagement, AI opens up a world of efficiencies and extra assistance, allowing you to keep more of a pulse on the community voice. So, how should you be using AI in your community engagement initiatives?
1. Personalized Content and Communication
AI can analyze vast amounts of data to understand individual community members’ preferences and interests. With this information, AI-powered platforms could deliver personalized content and communication, ensuring that each community member receives relevant information, updates, and messages.
2. Analytics Assistance for Better Insights
AI can process and analyze large datasets from various sources, including social media, surveys, and user interactions. This data analysis can provide you with valuable insights into member behavior, preferences, and trends, helping you to tailor engagement strategies accordingly.
Social Pinpoint’s Analysis Assistant processes large volumes of qualitative, unstructured data in real-time with machine learning. This means you can instantly uncover sentiment, themes, and insights from your engagement data.
3. Social Media Listening
Platforms such as Brandwatch and Meltwater provide social media listening capabilities so you can consistently monitor mentions of your organization online. Driven by powerful AI models, social listening allows you gauge shifts in public sentiment, identify emerging topics or themes, and respond promptly to negative publicity.
4. Community Management and Moderation
AI can assist community engagement teams in monitoring and moderating online discussions. It can identify and flag inappropriate or harmful content, ensuring that your community engagement platform remains a safe and respectful space.
User-generated images and videos can also be filtered by AI to detect inappropriate or harmful content such as nudity, violence, gore, hate symbols, or illegal activities.
Social Pinpoint utilizes powerful anti-SPAM technology to automate moderation and keep undesirable content from appearing on your site.
5. Content Creation
With AI content creation tools, you can generate written or visual content based on text prompts. Specifically, these AI tools, such as ChatGPT, Jasper and ClickUp can create engaging, relevant, and human-like content like articles, social media posts, and even videos.
This means you can help keep members informed and engaged while saving a lot of time finessing content. Some engagement platforms, such as Consultation Manager, even embed these tools to allow users to take advantage of advanced technology and speed up tasks such as image creation.
However, understanding the types or prompts and inputs to provide these tools can be a steep learning curve. Recently, our team created a ‘ChatGPT Cheat Sheet for Community Engagement’ so you can get started on utilizing AI to streamline content creation.
6. Enhanced Community Support
Humanized chatbots and virtual assistants can provide real-time support to community members, addressing their queries and concerns promptly. With a well-programmed and maintained chatbot, you can easily improve your overall community support experience and ensure members can feel heard.
FranklyAI is a great example of a platform that actively listens by conducting user-led discussions. It’s much more conversational than the standard chatbot as its programmed to the needs of your community and consultation.
7. Predictive Engagement
By analyzing historical data with the help of predictive AI, you can anticipate future community engagement trends and patterns. This can enable you to predict community needs or aspirations, optimize and plan project delivery, and engage your community more proactively.
8. Language Translation and Accessibility
AI-powered language translation tools can break down language barriers within diverse communities, allowing members who speak different languages to communicate and engage effectively.
Social Pinpoint has a powerful multilingual add-on to generate accurate, culturally-relevant translations. This add-on utilizes Localize, an advanced AI translation tool that can translate text, and even identify and attempt to understand slang or idioms through machine learning.
For web accessibility, UserWay is an incredibly popular integration that many Social Pinpoint clients utilize to amplify their digital accessibility needs.
9. Virtual Meeting Assistant
Throughout a single community engagement project, the number of meetings you need to attend can seem endless. AI meeting assistants can record meetings automatically, provide real-time transcription, and take automated notes, all whilst tracking decisions, identifying highlights, and communicating action items.
This means that you and your team can focus on participating in the meeting and creating value in the moment.
10. Targeted Outreach and Recruitment
AI could even help you identify new online community members based on their interests and online behavior, enabling you to easily recruit for panels or focus groups.
As an example, Paradox uses machine learning to interact with candidates through a conversational user interface. When programmed correctly, their chatbot answers key questions applicants may have about the role or opportunity, without staff hours being used.
Will AI Replace Community Engagement?
While AI offers numerous benefits, it is important not to overlook the value of human interaction in building and maintaining thriving community engagement.
AI cannot replicate emotional intelligence, body language, adaptability, active listening, and authentic relationship building. Humans are capable of building trusting community relationships and this still continues to pave a strong foundation in the value of our community engagement teams.
It’s also important to note that while AI can enhance community engagement in many ways, there are ethical considerations and potential challenges, such as data privacy, algorithmic bias, and ensuring transparency in AI-driven processes.
Organizations and communities must approach the use of AI in community engagement responsibly to maximize its benefits while mitigating potential risks.
With the rise of technology, online community engagement has become a powerful tool for public participation. And, as technology continues to shape how we interact, empowering the youth to actively participate is becoming very crucial. Why? Well, given their tech-savvy nature, and their role as future leaders in shaping our world, it really emphasizes just how important it is to get them involved.
But how can we foster community engagement among the younger generation? Well, engaging with the youth can prove to be difficult, as they’ve often been met with the feeling of being dismissed, unheard, or misunderstood. This can result from generational gaps in communication styles, a lack of platforms for their voices, and sometimes a dismissive attitude towards their perspectives.
So, building trust and rapport with the youth requires organizations to help bridge these gaps and create inclusive environments by acknowledging their concerns and valuing their perspectives, especially during critical decision-making processes.
Within this article, we’ll delve into the importance and advantages of connecting with youth through online digital platforms. Additionally, we’ll provide guidance on how you can tailor your engagement activities to help aid your organization in improving youth empowerment.
How should we define ‘youth’ in our community?
Since engaging with the youth involves actively communicating with a diverse range of different age groups, tailoring your communication efforts to match their unique interests and needs is essential. For instance, let’s take the example of promoting a local environmental cleanup initiative and explore how to engage both students and young adults in the community.
Students: With students, you might collaborate and organize interactive workshops in local schools that highlight the importance of environmental preservation. You may use relatable examples and visuals to explain how their participation can make a positive impact on their surroundings.
Young adults: You might utilize social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok to share visually appealing content related to the cleanup initiative. Encourage young adults to share their own experiences, using relevant hashtags to amplify the campaign’s reach.
By tailoring these approaches to their specific stage in life, councils can effectively engage and empower the youth in ways that resonate with their aspirations and goals.
Why should we engage with the youth in our community?
Involving the youth in your community is far more than a choice – but a need that’s backed by multiple compelling factors. Here are a few reasons why you should be engaging with the youth in your community.
Fresh perspectives and ideas
Inclusivity and representation
Addressing specific concerns
Shaping future leaders
Fresh perspectives and ideas: The youth constantly brings new perspectives and innovative, out-of-the-box ideas. Their unique viewpoints can help drive creative solutions to community challenges and foster a culture of continuous improvement.
Inclusivity and representation: Ensuring a diverse and inclusive community where all voices are heard and valued is essential, as it can lead to better decision-making that reflects the needs and aspirations of everyone. If your demographics are skewed then younger community members are going to feel excluded.
Addressing specific concerns: Youth often face distinct challenges that require specific attention. By engaging them directly, we can address issues such as education, mental health, employment, and social justice that are specific to their age group.
Shaping future leaders: The youth represents the future of our society. So, by actively involving them in community engagement, you can help boost their leadership skills, civic responsibility, and a sense of ownership to help ensure that these future leaders are equipped and well-prepared.
Empowering the youth with online community engagement.
It’s wonderful that you’re eager to foster youth empowerment through community engagement. However, where should you begin? Here are our five tips to get you started.
Educate the youth on community engagement
Actively listen and acknowledge important matters
Accessible and easy to access
Interactive and engaging
Space for anonymous feedback
1. Educate the youth on community engagement
Firstly, there are a few questions you might like to ask yourself that you may need to consider.
For instance, do the youth in your community clearly understand what community engagement is? Are they aware of the benefits of participating and why it’s important? Do they even know about your organization or your community engagement platform?
Answering these questions can help you lay the groundwork for what awareness you need to bring to the table to help improve and foster meaningful engagement.
2. Actively listen and acknowledge important matters
The needs and concerns of young people are often sidelined due to their age, resulting in feelings of exclusion and frustration. Consequently, neglecting their input can cause them to withdraw from community engagement. So, it’s important to actively listen to their concerns to create inclusive environments where they feel heard and encourage their meaningful participation.
Furthermore, placing importance on significant issues such as mental health, which deeply resonates with often-dismissed young people, can help boost active engagement in these meaningful discussions. This can be achieved by ensuring their voices and concerns are not only recognized but also heard.
For instance, Mission Australia conducted a 2022 Youth Survey Report, which revealed 33.9% of young individuals aged between 15 and 19 identified mental health as a major concern in Australia. In addition, nearly 3 out of 10 of these participants felt unsure about how to get help or assistance for their challenges, which highlights an opportunity to enhance awareness about mental health support services that are available.
By addressing the needs and concerns of these individuals and integrating their insights into decision-making processes, you can help foster a more inclusive and empowered environment that recognizes the value of every age group.
The ‘Peel Youth Mental Health – No Wrong Door Program‘ project by the South Metropolitan Health Service serves as a great example. The government managed to obtain feedback through a survey that targeted individuals and their families aged between 12 and 25 to help them choose their program’s name and colors. This initiative not only encouraged youth engagement in decision-making on important matters but also enhanced their awareness of more accessible mental health services.
3. Accessible and easy to access
The digital realm breaks down geographical barriers, allowing youth from diverse backgrounds to participate and contribute regardless of their location.
This can encompass initiatives such as developing user-friendly online platforms tailored to their tech-savvy nature, organizing interactive workshops, and employing social media channels to connect and inspire youth involvement.
Collaboration with schools, universities, colleges, and youth organizations can enhance accessibility by embedding community engagement into curricula or extracurricular activities. By highlighting the importance of active citizenship and offering opportunities for hands-on involvement, we can ensure that youth are engaged and equipped with the skills and perspectives needed to shape their communities future.
Online engagement can accommodate varying schedules, enabling youth to participate at their convenience, making it ideal for students who might be juggling academic commitments.
4. Interactive and engaging
While surveys can be a valuable tool, filling out too many over time can get tedious. The youth want something more exciting and engaging that captures their attention. Given their tech-savvy nature, incorporating visuals like graphics, videos, and interactive tools online can effectively capture their interest and engagement.
By leveraging interactive and visual engagement tools, councils can present information in engaging ways that resonate better with the younger generation. This, in turn, nurtures a stronger sense of community involvement and inclusivity as the youth find themselves seamlessly integrated into conversations that shape their environment.
5. Space for anonymous feedback
To combat controversial issues, you might consider implementing a project that receives anonymous feedback, which would only require respondents to provide their age. This approach would provide insights into private matters, like lifestyle habits (smoking, vaping, and drinking), and positive aspects like road conditions and access to cycling paths.
This method ensures a formal and confidential means of gathering valuable information to inform your endeavors more effectively. And, if your engagement platform includes advanced community-building features, you can consistently increase your engagement rates with your younger community members over time.
The City of Greater Bendigo provided a great demonstration of collecting input regarding vaping and smoking within the wider Greater Bendigo area. Through the implementation of a survey, they engaged with the youth to find out the reasons behind smoking and vaping in Greater Bendigo. This initiative aimed to gain insights into the areas within the community where they would prefer to establish smoke-free environments.
Online community engagement is a powerful avenue to involve youth, including students, young adults, and children, in community matters. By recognizing the importance of their participation it empowers them to contribute meaningfully to the community’s development, ensuring a brighter and more inclusive future for all.
If we harness the potential of online platforms, we can create a safe space where the voices of the youth are acknowledged, heard, and valued.
