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 they participated in the survey and what they got out of their assessment.
By Dennis Engkvist, Online Community Manager @Rebtel
Rebtel is an app company whose user base consists of people that want to connect with their friends and family all over the world through our VOIP service. Our users are very active in communicating with us and the value of keeping an honest and open dialogue is something each person at Rebtel understands the need for. Consequently, social media and community building has become an increasingly important aspect of our business.
When I answered the 2013 State of Community Management survey, we were just leaving our old social media strategy behind and I was charged with implementing a new one. The addition of two new members to the social media team has been a game changer! This made the briefing I had with Rachel Happe and Maggie Tunning really interesting, since the maturity of our community grew from a stage 2 to a solid stage 3 (the build stage of communities) in a very short period of time.
So what have been the key takeaways from the 2013SOCM for us?
1) How fast these changes can happen if the right leadership & culture exists.
The answers I provided for the research were, of course, valid last spring, when following up with Maggie and Rachel this summer, our community work had gained a much faster pace! This was a natural progression for us but really took off since our management truly understood the value of community and put more resources behind it.
2) ROI is still difficult for many, but doesn’t need to be
Many companies still rely heavily on trying to calculate ROI in likes, shares, comments etc. This is always surprising to me since social media and community ROI is not hard to calculate, it’s just different! There are many ways to measure community success. You need to understand the what, when, why and how of the business goals of the community and collaborate with all departments involved to be sure you’re working towards reaching them. The 2013 SOCM provided great insight into what metrics community managers were measuring regularly.
So what will be the next step for me as the Community Manager for Rebtel, and the company as a whole when it comes to social media and community? Well, The Community Roundtable’s research showed me that some best practices are to:
- Create a thorough community playbook.
- Better understand how Rebtel will work with our resources on a strategic, tactical, and operational level.
- Be sure the employees working in social at Rebtel have the training and professional development resources they need to keep up the momentum of our community growth.
I look forward to answering next year’s survey and seeing how our community and others have matured and changed.
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Rebtel is an app company that connects you with your loved ones. Over 23 million users use the service worldwide and its biggest fans use the app regularly to stay in touch with their most important relations. Deloitte Technology recently recognized Rebtel as the second fastest growing technology company in Sweden. For more info please visit: www.rebtel.com
The Community Roundtable provides strategic, tactical and professional development programming for community and social business leaders through online training, a membership based peer to peer network, and advisory services for organizations in all stages of their online community and social business development. We also publish groundbreaking research to inform and educate on trends in community management and social business.
