No One Wants to Come to your Meeting: 5 Tips for Engaging People Online

I'm an active member of my town's mom group on Facebook. I was pleased to see that one of our board of education's elected officials knows that this is a great place to get feedback. If you want to know something, ask the moms, am I right ladies?

She was curious why no one is attending their monthly meetings, which are held roughly at dinner time, and wanted to know how to better engage parents.  It doesn't take an expert to tell you that no parent wants to go to a public meeting and watch bureaucrats talk at 7:00 at night. Parents commute, they have to worry about homework, baths, dinner, and hopefully getting to The Walking Dead before passing out at 10:00 PM.  

We are hyper connected and over scheduled. We have a million obligations and  often both parents work or one parent is holding it together on their own. Kids are involved in a plethora of scheduled activities and the days of running around the neighborhood unsupervised until the street lights come on are a thing of the past. 

We also live in a "maybe" culture. Being able to RSVP via Facebook and other online means has made us less accountable. How many times have you respond "maybe" with no intention of actually going to an event? 

​As an online engagement professional who's worked in both corporate and education settings, I can tell you. It doesn't matter if you're an 18 year old student or a 50 year old doctor - no one wants to come to your meeting. Unless there is free food or they are getting paid -- and sometimes not even then. 

It can be frustrating but there are solutions! Here are my tips for when no one wants to come to your meeting:

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