Help us Welcome New Members!

Warm Greetings again everyone!

With the Voices of Our Future application coming up in September, we are seeing a flood of new members coming in to our vibrant, supportive community! This is an exciting time, which you might remember from your early days on PulseWire. Starting out in an online community can be daunting, intimidating and uncertain. One of the ways that we help ease the transition is by welcoming new members with personal, encouraging comments. Our goal is to make PulseWire as supportive, interactive and collaborative as possible. In meeting this goal, you play a vital role in being the first point of contact, welcoming our new members to our global community.

I know that some of you have been active already with Welcoming, but now is a great time for the rest of you to start!

I encourage you to create your own, unique style for welcoming new members to PulseWire. Try to make your message personal by making note of something the new member indicated about their work or passions in their introduction. Encourage new members to explore the site, interact with the community and share their voice through their journal. Here is an example of a welcoming message to new members:

Dear (name),
Welcome to PulseWire! You are now part of a thriving community of grassroots women leaders and supporters from over 180 countries. See the PulseWire Getting Started Guide to learn more about networking in our community: http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire/about/guide
I look forward to hearing your voice in the community!
In friendship,
(your name)

You could also add in an encouraging note about applying for this year's Voices of Our Future program! Tell them about your experience, and direct them to the Applicants Group here: http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire/groups/37925

You can find new members in our Member Directory, where most recent members will appear first. When a new member first fills out their profile, this information will be the basis of their first journal entry, allowing you to comment. When you click on a member profile, underneath their picture is a list of most recent posts. Click on the introductory journal and add your comment to welcome them to the community! You can also find their introductory journals in the Voices Rising section.

If a member hasn’t yet filled out their profile, you can welcome them by sending a private message. Click on the white envelope next to their profile picture that says “send a private message”.

Concentrate on members who have not appeared to have been welcomed by at least 1-2 people yet. Our goal is that each new member is welcomed by 2-3 people at least. This is a task that can be completed any time of day – and as much or as little as you’re available to spend on it.

We appreciate your support with this! We already have over 150 Applicants for the program, after only 10 days of announcing. This promises to be another exciting year for World Pulse and the Voices of Our Future program.

Thank you again!
In Partnership,
Scott

PS-- In case you didn't see, CNN posted their story about breast ironing (directly inspired by Shekina's article) and it was their number one story that day. Check my comment in my previous post for a direct link!