We are very fortunate at The Community Roundtable to meet and help many companies with their online community efforts. The companies we help are as varied as are the reasons and times in their community maturity cycle that they seek us out.
Some haven’t even started formal communities yet, but have started social efforts and want to learn from others who have been there and succeeded when starting their own community. We call this stage Start.
Many have established communities and have seen some successes but aren’t sure how to get to the next level and like to bounce questions and ideas off their community management peers. This is the Build stage
And a smaller group have thriving communities and seek our expertise as a fresh set of eyes to help them strategize how their communities could be even more productive. These companies have reached what we consider the Grow stage.
On our new website we offer the tools to help you evaluate where your online community is at and the services and resources to help you navigate each stage in the journey: start, build and grow.
Today we’re taking a closer look at what a company in the build stage looks like:
If you have reached this stage you are most likely working on at least one of these projects:
- Developing an operational framework (i.e. community management playbook)
- Formalizing governance of our social media/community practices
- Deploying proprietary social software customized for your organization’s specific needs
- Hiring dedicated head count for social media and/or community management roles
- Creating a metrics scoreboards and reporting templates to measure community efforts
- Documenting your company’s social response and escalation efforts
Here is an example of a possible roadmap for a company who has reached this stage
Does this sound like you? See what some of TheCR Network members who found us at this stage have to say about our services, and at the bottom of the page check out the pay services and free resources available to help your community thrive at this level and mature on to the next.
And let us know what you think. What resources are we missing? What services are most helpful at this stage?
