Recently we had a call with TheCR Network members to go through the 2012 State of Community Management report. Not surprisingly with everything on their plates, many had not had time to digest it all the way through. So they were thrilled to have Rachel Happe go over the key findings in more … [Read more...]
2015: The Year Community Management Goes Mainstream
By Rachel Happe, Co-Founder of The Community Roundtable 2014 was a great year for community management generally and for The Community Roundtable specifically. Because of that, I spared you a year-end wrap up (you are welcome), but I do think it is worth taking the opportunity a new year presents … [Read more...]
A Path to Community Maturity
A few of years ago The Community Roundtable debuted our Community Maturity Model (CMM) in the hopes that it would help members of TheCR Network, our advisory clients and, well, everyone advance the business of their communities. It has been wonderfully received over the years, but we often get … [Read more...]
Announcing the 2012 State of Community Management Report
We are very pleased to announce our third annual State of Community Management report. We started our annual report as a means to achieve our mission of advancing the business of community - making what we know collectively about community building more visible and accessible to everyone. The … [Read more...]
Announcing The 2013 State of Community Management Research
For the last few years, TheCR has been publishing an annual State of Community Management report, compiling and organizing the best of what we learn from our work with over 90 companies. This year we felt the time was right to extend that research into quantitative data that community teams could … [Read more...]
Are You Measuring Social Media or Playing Bingo?
Last week, Radian6 hosted its first user conference and I was impressed with the content, speakers, and the logistics of the event itself. One of the panels I attended was the ROI panel, in large part to support Ken Burbary and KD Paine but I realized while listening to the confusion and arguments … [Read more...]
Brainyard’s Community Manager Webinar: Your Questions Answered
Wow! What a great webinar we were part of yesterday. I presented alongside Sandy Carter of IBM and we had a great conversation about community management and community managers. Thank you to the many great people from a wide variety of companies on the call, some of whom are just starting out on … [Read more...]
Building a Social Business: Start with Email Changes
Social business is all great in theory and recent studies show that executives now think it is a key strategic initiative for them... but that doesn't help those tasked with figuring it all out know where to start. I often say that people come to communities for content and stay for relationships. … [Read more...]
Building a Social Community: Tell Me a Story! (Radio)
In case you missed it Rachel Happe was on SAP Radio last week along with Mark Yolton of SAP and Sean O'Driscoll of Ant's Eye View. It was quite a lively discussion and makes for a great listen during your commute or lunch hour. Some of the topics discussed in depth include: - Why communities? - … [Read more...]
Building Reputation: Your Reputation Lives Forever [Infographic]
![Building Reputation: Your Reputation Lives Forever [Infographic]](https://communityroundtable.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Screen-shot-2014-01-07-at-10.31.21-AM.png)
By Shannon DiGregorio, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable. This week we've been thinking about building reputation as a trusted expert in social and community matters. Equally important is the reputation that your brand has online - and as an extension of that the online … [Read more...]
Building Value: Articulating the Power of Community Management
Over and over we hear from members and peers that articulating the value of a thoughtful and well-executed community program is one of the hardest parts of their job. Sure - wrangling tough community members isn't a walk in the park, and no one likes a troll, but condensing the power of community … [Read more...]
Building your Community Approach
By Shannon DiGregorio, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable. Here on The Community Roundtable blog we've decided to try something new for 2014. Each month we'll pick an aspect of community management and tackle it from many angles, providing commentary, resources and expert opinions. … [Read more...]
Check Out Our New Look
We are very excited to introduce our new and improved website! While putting on a little make up and freshening up content is always a good idea, we wanted to rethink everything. Our goal with the new web site is to help visitors: Understand where they are on their journey to adopt social … [Read more...]
Communities and the Value of Answering Unarticulated Needs
We had an excellent member call late last year with John Stepper of Deustche Bank who is working on a training course to help employees manage their reputation inside the organization. This conversation about influence and reputation is very active on the social web but taking that inside the … [Read more...]
Community 101
One of the primary jobs of a community manager is to help coach, train, educate, convince, and prod others in the organization to understand what this online communications environment is all about and why it should matter to them. A large part of that training covers the different tools and online … [Read more...]
Community In Real Life
(Originally published in TheCR News - our monthly newsletter.) We were recently reminded about the power of taking online communities offline through this short video. This is an approach we strive to embrace at TheCR. Why? Create Member Collisions - Our members benefit from interacting … [Read more...]
Community Management: More Than One Role, a Discipline
The Community Roundtable aims to advance the business of community. I'm going to say that again...we advance the business of community. I wanted to repeat it because I think it's an important distinction as the way we look at community management. As Jim Storer has said, everyone is a community … [Read more...]
Community Manager Burnout
When I saw the topic for yesterday's Twitter #cmgrchat, I thought it was a good one to discuss, particularly now. The holidays just ended where everyone feels stretched in too many directions. It's January so the business expectations for a New Year are fresh in everyone's mind and people are … [Read more...]
Community Managers are Human Experience (HX) Professionals
Over the last decade we've all learned how important the user experience (UX) of software is to how well it performs. If features are hard to use and the interface looks stale, it's less compelling to the user. The UX is particularly important in communications and social technologies because there … [Read more...]
Community Managers on Why Training Makes a Difference
It's wonderful to see the growth and evolution in the community management space. So many companies are seeing the value of community and the value in services that support community managers. We are humbled by it and as we pass our four year mark supporting community managers we are very excited … [Read more...]
Community Maturity Case Study: Rebtel
As a thank you to those who participated in the 2013 State of Community Management quantitative study we selected 3 participants to receive an in-depth custom community assessment including performance benchmarks and next steps. Today we have one of those company’s, Rebtel’s, perspective on why … [Read more...]
Community Strategist Training Starts Tuesday
On Tuesday our latest module in the community manager training series will begin. As with all the modules it is: Taught by experienced community professionals who do the work everyday Online and recorded so if you have a conflict you can watch and learn later Includes an online community so you … [Read more...]
Community Types and Terms Defined
I have now officially been working in the online community space for just over one year and there still seems to be a lot of confusion and disconnects when people are talking about their community or talking with The Community Roundtable about how being a member of TheCR Network can help them. And … [Read more...]
Complexity, Simplicity and Why Community Is Difficult for Organizations
The markets that organizations deal with daily are complex. They always have been but that complexity used to be easy to ignore. Now we can no longer ignore it because it is playing out across the Internet in real-time, many people and organizations react by retrenching and becoming even more rigid … [Read more...]
Connection, Friend, Member – Who’s In Your Company’s Online Ecosystem?
We came across this article last week about defining your online community to higher ups, and it resonated because people mean a lot of different things when they use the word community. As the article so aptly states, it is hard sometimes to understand if you are "referring to the online community … [Read more...]
Content Marketing is Required but not Sufficient
by Rachel Happe, Co-founder of The Community Roundtable I hear the phrase 'content is king' thrown around a LOT. Great content is certainly a critical component of any digital strategy - it's a keystone of what we do at TheCR - but on its own it is insufficient. I'm always waiting for the … [Read more...]
Content Tips For Busy Community Managers
Today’s guest blog post comes from Peter Staal, the online communications manager for LeasePlan in the Netherlands who was one of The Community Roundtable’s scholarship recipients for our most recent community manager training course. Here is some of what he learned: Content is king. Basically for … [Read more...]
Count Me In: Why This Community Manager Is Excited About the Upcoming Training
I fell into community management and social media organically, as a volunteer for community organizations and not-for-profits that were important to me. I had always planned on re-entering the work force after starting a family and it turns out I had a skill set that developed from my volunteer … [Read more...]
Coverage of The 2011 State of Community Management
We have been pleased that initial reaction to our annual report on The State of Community Management has been so positive and that so many people we respect have taken the time to cover the report and provide their perspective. One of the things I love is to see is what resonates with different … [Read more...]
Danger: Community/Social Strategist Shortage Ahead
I've been thinking about this post for a long time. It started some time last fall when I was talking with a member of TheCR Network about how they should approach building out their social media/community team. In the course of the conversation, my recommendation boiled down to this... "hire the … [Read more...]
Do Companies Need a Break-Up Policy?
Over the weekend I found myself coming back to this article again and again. I think because it shows how very much the rise and growth of community management has changed the way individuals and corporations now interact in the business world. When I was in college (those many years ago) you were … [Read more...]
Do Organizations Need to Be Transparent…or Just Human?
I was discussing the troubles at the Susan G. Komen Foundation recently with a few peers. We wondered if their recent challenges were a direct result of the way they treated their community vs. other operational issues. A quick recap: In January 2013 they pulled funding for Breast Cancer … [Read more...]
Does your community culture make you a Lake Wobegon community?
By Ted McEnroe, Director of Research and Training I was reviewing data from the State of Community Management from the 2016 report when a data point caught my attention that wasn't part of the initial publication. Even at the Stage 1, our lowest level of community maturity, nearly half of … [Read more...]
Executive is Just Another Word for Community Manager
Executives are charged with executing on a set of goals. They all want to accomplish those goals in a way that maximizes their investments. Executives need to marshal a range of constituencies (their team, peers across the organization, customers, partners, experts, consultants) to make things … [Read more...]
Five Things the Boston Marathon Can Teach You about Community Programs
By Ted McEnroe, The Community Roundtable Monday is the 119th running of a remarkable tradition - the Boston Marathon. For decades, the Marathon has been a Greater Boston institution, a must do for people to either run, attend or watch on TV. People from across the region whose closest thing to a … [Read more...]
Friday Roundup – Building Value for 2014
As we head into the new year we're paying special attention to building value in our communities in 2014. Over the last week week we looked at resources you can use when you're building a social or community program, the value of social business and how to articulate the power of community … [Read more...]
Friday Roundup: Building Connections
By Shannon DiGregorio, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable. Build month at The Community Roundtable is past its halfway point - I've had a great time thinking about all the ways we build our communities. This week we looked specifically at building connections - not just connections … [Read more...]
Friday Roundup: Building Reputation
By Shannon DiGregorio, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable. Build Month at The Community Roundtable continued this week with a look at how you can build reputation in social and community initiatives. Whether you're focused on becoming a social strategist or augmenting your skills … [Read more...]
Getting Executives to Say Yes to Social
There are many executives who are curious and interested in this whole social business phenomenon. They want workers to try it, test it and see what it can do for the business bottom line...but what about participating? That is often where the process slows down or comes to a screeching halt and … [Read more...]
Giving Your Community A Vacation – And a Break
It's summer. The weather is warm and the beach and lakes are calling. It is not the time to force engagement just because organizations like to see everything go up and to the right. And yet, there is a persistent anxiety among community managers that they must always be on and always connected - if … [Read more...]
