For growing associations and nonprofit organizations, online content sharing is critically important in the success of a socially-enabled web destination. Document sharing among Groups, Chapters, Committees, and Special Events participants promotes community engagement and interaction before and after offline meetings.
In
a custom-tailored social community, members will have multiple options
for creating and posting text, visual and audio content. The content
can be linked to specific groups, selected individuals or made
accessible to the community as a whole. In addition, the documents can
be shared with anyone or made private to be viewed only by designated
constituents. The
privacy option especially facilitates sharing among association chapters and committees. Pre-event planning and post-event follow-up can proceed at a brisk pace—a pace unachievable outside a socially-enabled, Internet-based community.
A Few Ways Organizations Are Using Document Sharing
-Simple, fast dissemination of minutes and summaries from meetings
-Effective sharing of conference presentations to registered attendees
-Collaboration on plans and proposals using shared commenting and version control
-Rating and Tagging shared documents to help develop a consensus among chapter members
ThePort Network has carefully crafted a social media platform that fully supports document- sharing file types. A sampling of exchangeable files includes:
Microsoft Word Apple iWork
Adobe PDF Images (.jpg, .png, .gif)
Video (.avi, .wmv) Music (.mp3, .wma)
Zip files
ThePort Content-Sharing Practices for Associations:
-Share Documents with Individual Friends and Groups
Collaborate on tasks by sharing documents with members, chapters and
committees. Select with whom you would like to share. Use the privacy
option if desired. Seamlessly create documents online.
-Security and Privacy Checks Included
Perhaps you don’t care to share a sensitive document with the entire
community. Or, your communication is only appropriate
for reading by fellow committee members. In either case, you also
want to be sure your document is secure and virus-free. That is why we
recommend you seek a community provider who offers built-in security
and permission checks.
-Add Comments, Ratings and Tagging to Your Documents
In order to reinforce active document sharing, have your organization’s
online community enabled with Commenting, Rating and Tagging. When
published content can be
commented upon, rated and tagged, it helps members collaborate on
changes and identify better content that deserves your attention.
-Request the Capability of Version Control
Especially when several individuals are collaborating on a
series of documents, the exchange of content can become confusing. As
members revise and publish over previous forms of a document, unwanted
changes may occur. With ThePort’s Version Control technology, your members can instantly replace documents with prior versions.
Above all, make content sharing in your branded, integrated community a social networking priority. For associations and
nonprofit organizations of every size, robust document exchange equals
happier, more productive members at every level...local chapter to
corporate executive committee.
If
you have ideas, questions or comments about how document sharing can be
a focal point of a social networking community, please share them here.