7.1 Maintaining Your Topic Page

Overview

• Choose an eye-catching picture for your overview image to grab people’s attention.
• Keep people in the loop! Keep people in the loop! Provide the context for your consultation, and keep this page updated with any news. After the consultation is finished, summarize the results and outline any next steps participants can keep an eye out for. 
• Provide clear directions on how you want participants to engage with the consultation. If you have an active survey or discussion questions, let participants know!

Discussions

• In our experience, having 2-3 active questions at once allows for optimal discussion. You can change up the questions at any time; the answers to the old questions will be captured in your reports.
• Adding diagrams, maps or videos to the discussion questions can help participants formulate informed answers.  
• Keep a close eye on the conversation. Participants will often post their questions here, rather than emailing. Remember, your responses will appear with the tag “Topic Administrator”. 
• Consider enabling pre-moderation of discussion comments.

Resources

• People want to be informed. PlaceSpeak can support a large number of resources on a topic page, so usually the more information you can provide, the better.
• Wherever possible, include images or videos to encourage greater engagement.
• If you have content you would like participants to mail in, or worksheets completed at in-person meetings, consider making them available for download here.

PlaceIt

• A specific question usually generates more responses than allowing freeform contribution. PlaceSpeak provides a space to enter instructions that will appear above the PlaceIt map. 
• A video tutorial is available online should your participants need assistance using the PlaceIt tool.

Events

• PlaceSpeak is a fantastic complement to your in-person events, such as town halls or public meetings. If you have a poster you are using to promote the event, be sure to include it here. 
• Once the event has passed, update the listing with a recap and photos. 
• You can save events to different types of calendars (Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar, Yahoo Calendar).

Noticeboard

• Noticeboard contests are an excellent way to encourage participation. Ask participants to post images or comments relating to the consultation, and feature winners on the overview page, or through the resources. 
• Noticeboard is a great way to obtain user-generated content and unstructured ideas.

Map

• When naming your map polygons, consider that they will be used in two ways. First, your reports will be organized by these polygons. Second, participants who choose to disclose their location will have the polygon name appear with their profile picture.