Nobody quite knows how much traffic popular micro-blogging service Twitter deals with each day - Twitter themselves appear to guard this information quite carefully. "Huge" is probably a terribly insufficient description for the number of tweets that are generated by the massive and growing user base.

Even so, we've still been slightly taken aback at the popularity of our Twitter-related events, with our first Bristol-based event, in partnership with popular local recruitment consultants Adlib, selling out almost instantly. Spaces on our first Masterclass, featuring BusinessZone.co.uk editor and Twitter-addict Dan Martin, are filling up fast too. We'll be running many more of these events in 2010 - why not follow us to get instant updates on upcoming dates? We're @SiftGroups, by the way.

Followers of our blog might also have noticed the appearance of a new blogger, Peter Furtado, and the Publishers amongst you should find his insights from many years in the industry interesting. We'll be launching some new services for publishers early next year including our Commercial Healthcheck, which will test sites against the good practice we've developed over more than a decade in our sister company Sift Media. I look forward to talking to many of you about it in the run up to Christmas.

James Skinner
COO SiftGroups

SiftGroups News
We are pleased to tell you that SiftGroups has just completed the delivery of a new site for the Department of Health.

http://www.spaceforhealth.nhs.uk is a site designed for healthcare premises professionals and allows them to access information to help them design and manage healthcare premises. The system allows administrators to collaborate on official documents before approving them for publication and allowing users to disaggregate data to share and re use across different publications.

This has been a seven month project working with numerous stakeholders and third parties to achieve the end result on time and on budget. The client will be bringing a lot of the current printed material on line but they are very happy to have successfully showcased the system at their recent Iheem conference.

What do you do when you join a community?
by Peter Furtado

As always, the best way to answer the question is to think about real life. Personally I find joining an existing community (like a sports club) a fairly stressful business. I introduce myself, look for a friend or mentor to show me the ropes, engage in the core activities and hope to attract the attention of more established members, until something happens — maybe the arrival of someone newer than me, maybe an invitation to join a committee — which means that suddenly I feel like...

Read more and comment on this blog post.

Taking the hard work out of measuring the success of your community
by Stuart Glendinning Hall

A key factor in the success of your community is demonstrating that it can deliver results. This is linked to the fact that the role of the community manager has risen in importance in the private sector as how they can help generate value is better appreciated. Because part of that value is intimately connected to setting up and monitoring the value created through the community and feeding that back to the host organisation, and the community itself. That’s a neat fit on paper but in...

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Social media expert:
Compelling niche interest content and genuine audience engagement on your site is a natural environment that your audience will be drawn to return again and again.

Read four more tips

Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists

Facts
The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) encourages the study and advancement of the science and practice of obstetrics and gynaecology through postgraduate medical education and training development, and the publication of clinical guidelines and reports on aspects of the specialty and service provision.

Challenges
The project presented two key challenges: the general overhaul of the existing website which had not been significantly updated for three years, and the delivery of a range of key objectives identified during an intensive planning and requirements gathering phase facilitated by SiftGroups. The fundamental objective was to become the first port of call for the sector, not only in terms of the provision of advice, guidance and governance, but also to bring together international members and to provide training and career development for members.

Read more at SiftGroups.com

Ask us a question about this project.