By Amy Turner, The Community Roundtable Incorporating gaming elements into communities not only adds value, but also enhances a member’s experience and gives them an enjoyable moment that would not have otherwise existed. Definitely, a key community must-have for staying ahead of the … [Read more...]
3 Best Practices When Budgeting for Community and Social Programs
By Shannon DiGregorio Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable. 2015 may seem far away, but for many organizations Fall is when major planning and budgeting initiatives kick off. For many community and social teams their budget may cover everything from technology licensing, … [Read more...]
3 Tips for Building Your Community and Social Media Team
This is a guest post from Sarah Price, Community and Social Media Programs Lead for Google Glass and member of TheCR Network. Managing a community team or hoping to someday? Your community managers, forum reps and social support agents will be the face and voice of your brand. Here are a few … [Read more...]
Best Practices for Building an Editorial Calendar
Georgina Cannie shares best practices for building an editorial calendar for an online community program, as well as a look at the research, programming and professional development available exclusively to members of TheCR Network. Building an editorial calendar for your community program will … [Read more...]
Best Practices for Community Moderation, or Why Patience is a Virtue
Policies, guidelines, and governance provide the framework and boundaries for your community, but moderation is where those policies are turned into day-to-day management. Direct moderation is the day-to-day interaction and management that signals to members what gets attention—both good and … [Read more...]
Best Practices for New Member Leadership Programs
This month we kicked off our new webinar series - A Look Inside TheCR Network with a look at best practices for new member leadership programs in online communities. Each month our community manager extraordinaire, Hillary Boucher a behind the scenes look inside TheCR Network. … [Read more...]
Best Practices for Online Community Platform Migration
Intrigued by TheCR Network, but want to learn more about what membership entails before joining? Watch Hillary Boucher share a special look inside TheCR Network. In January Hillary shared a look at the research, programming and professional development available … [Read more...]
Best Practices for Selecting a Community Platform
Q: What's the difference between buying a new home and selecting a community platform? A: One is a major expense, fills you with angst and forces you to move all your stuff. The other changes your address. Joking aside, we tend to approach the selection of a new platform like we would a new … [Read more...]
Celebrating Community Success – Ian White (Rackspace)
By Hillary Boucher, Community Manager at TheCR Network. As community manager of TheCR Network – our peer network of social business and community leaders – one of the things I love is celebrating our members' successes with them. We know the many challenges our members face as they work to … [Read more...]
CMGR Best Practices: The Best of Throwback Thursday
Over the last year we've been sharing deep cuts from TheCR Library. Turns out not everyone is at the same place on their community journey (um, obviously!) and the insights and best practices we may have shared a year or even two years ago are just what someone might need today. Hence … [Read more...]
CMGT 101: Building Narratives in Your Online Community
Note: This content appears in a slightly different form in our ebook: CMGT 101: 17 Community Leaders Share Their Secrets for Success.CMGT 101 is packed with engagement ideas, governance tips, career advice, and more from community leaders working at innovative organizations like CA Technologies, … [Read more...]
CMGT 101: Community Value Statements
Note: This content appears in a slightly different form in our ebook: CMGT 101: 17 CommunityLeaders Share Their Secrets for Success.CMGT 101 is packed with engagement ideas, governance tips, career advice, and more from community leaders working at innovative organizations like CA Technologies, … [Read more...]
CMGT 101: Moderation in Online Communities
Note: This content appears in a slightly different form in our ebook: CMGT 101: 17 Community Leaders Share Their Secrets for Success.CMGT 101 is packed with engagement ideas, governance tips, career advice, and more from community leaders working at innovative organizations like CA Technologies, … [Read more...]
CMGT 101: The Power of Engaging Community Programming
Note: This content appears in a slightly different form in our ebook: CMGT 101: 17 CommunityLeaders Share Their Secrets for Success.CMGT 101 is packed with engagement ideas, governance tips, career advice, and more from community leaders working at innovative organizations like CA Technologies, … [Read more...]
CMGT 101: The Power of Smart Communication
Note: This content appears in a slightly different form in our ebook: CMGT 101: 17 CommunityLeaders Share Their Secrets for Success.CMGT 101 is packed with engagement ideas, governance tips, career advice, and more from community leaders working at innovative organizations like CA Technologies, … [Read more...]
Community Best Practices: Architecting the Community that Meets Your Needs
By now, countless organizations have learned the painful lesson: “If you build it, they will come,” only works in the movies. But there’s a related lesson that is a core tenet of community management. How you build it—the shape of the community you create—drives whether the community meets your … [Read more...]
Community Best Practices: Creating an Action Plan
From values, to members, to tactics. Formulating an action plan for your community is where the rubber begins to meet the road. Your action plan highlights how you are going to make this community effective on a day-to-day basis. It needs to take into account the organizational environment in … [Read more...]
Community Best Practices: The Benefits of Starting Small
If you are starting a community today – you are both blessed and cursed by history. Years of research and community development today offer more advice than ever on the best practices of community. But the growth of online communities generally can also set expectations that new communities should … [Read more...]
Community Jobs Round-up – 04/07/17
Every week we share a list of new community management jobs - usually everything from community coordinators all the way up to director level positions (depends on what we can find each week). This week as a special bonus posting we're featuring an open role with TheCR team - a … [Read more...]
Community Management FAQs – What is community strategy?
What is community strategy? A successful community strategy integrates social tools and methods with business goals and processes. A good community strategy also aligns an organization’s goals with member needs setting you up to succeed in both keep engagement high and provide ROI. We recommend … [Read more...]
Community Rules of Engagement
By Shannon Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable. Today is a very exciting day - TheCR Network moved to a new home. After years on the same platform our dedicated community team spent the last few months packing up the old Network, and spiffing up our new home. I know I'm … [Read more...]
Community Triage: 5 Common Community Management Problems
Lesson 1 for the day: Do not put a plastic cutting board in the oven. Lesson 2: Do not grab with bare hands to take it out. My recent life lessons brought me to the ER waiting room to watch triage nurses in their element. As each patient arrived, they took their vitals, assessed their symptoms … [Read more...]
Conversations with Community Managers – J.J. Lovett, CA Technologies
Welcome to the latest episode in our community management podcast series, “Conversations with Community Managers” featuring J.J. Lovett, Director, Communities at CA Technologies. Join TheCR’s founder and principal, Jim Storer and director of marketing, Shannon Abram as they chat with community … [Read more...]
Conversations with Community Managers – Lori Harrison-Smith, Steelcase
Welcome to the latest episode in our community podcast series, “Conversations with Community Managers.” Join TheCR’s Jim Storer and Shannon Abram as they chat with community managers from a variety of industries about their community journey. They ask the community questions you want to know the … [Read more...]
Conversations with Community Managers – Renee Vogt, Merck
Welcome to the latest episode in our community management podcast series, “Conversations with Community Managers” featuring Renee Vogt,VTN Capability Owner at Merck. Join TheCR’s founder and principal, Jim Storer and director of marketing, Shannon Abram as they chat with community managers from … [Read more...]
Conversations with Community Managers – Shirlin Hsu, BCG
Welcome to the latest episode in our community management podcast series, “Conversations with Community Managers” featuring Shirlin Hsu, Global Communities Strategy and Enablement Manager at BCG. Join TheCR’s founder and principal, Jim Storer and director of marketing, Shannon Abram as they chat … [Read more...]
Conversations with Community Managers – Tracy Maurer, UBM
Welcome to the latest episode in our community management podcast series, “Conversations with Community Managers” featuring Tracy Maurer, Collaboration Systems Manager at UBM. Join TheCR’s founder and principal, Jim Storer and director of marketing, Shannon Abram as they chat with community … [Read more...]
Conversations with Community Managers – Cynthia Fortlage
Welcome to the latest episode in our community podcast series, “Conversations with Community Managers.” Join TheCR’s Jim Storer and Shannon Abram as they chat with community managers from a variety of industries about What’s your best advice for someone just starting out in Community … [Read more...]
Conversations with Community Managers: Erin Winker, Aetna
Welcome to the latest episode in our community podcast series, “Conversations with Community Managers.” Join TheCR’s Jim Storer and Shannon Abram as they chat with community managers from a variety of industries about their community journey. They ask the community questions you want to know the … [Read more...]
Defining Community Requirements that Scale, Part 1
By Jim Storer, Co-Founder and Pricipal of the Community Roundtable Community is subject to the old adage, “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” But simply planning isn’t enough. We often discuss that simply building a community is not enough - sadly, the average community is not the Field … [Read more...]
Digging in to 2016 at TheCR
By Rachel Happe, The Community Roundtable. Wow. 2016. A fresh Moleskine for me and a blank canvas for all of us. While I am not big on resolutions I do use the new year as an opportunity to take stock of the previous year and declare my intentions for the new year. In particular this year, I … [Read more...]
Dos and Don’ts for Happy and Healthy Community Moderation
We all know that a community manager’s to-do list can be daunting, if not paralyzing, at times. But what about a community moderator? Community moderation can be just as demanding. For several years, I was the one and only official member of the community “team” for a large company. Among my many … [Read more...]
Five years later, these community management tips ring true – SOCM2011 in review
By Ted McEnroe, Director of Research and Training, The Community Roundtable As you know if you have been keeping an eye on the community management space for awhile, The State of Community Management 2016 is not our first time at the community management research rodeo. In fact, SOCM2016 is … [Read more...]
Friday Community Jobs Roundup – 3/31/17
It's the last day of March and Spring is officially here. Evern if there is snow on the ground in Boston (just a little left) we are ready for budding flowers and balmy breezes. What goes great with the changing of the season? A new community job perhaps? Each Friday we compile a comprehensive … [Read more...]
Friday Roundup – One Week Left Edition
By Shannon DiGregorio Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable. Our annual research initiative - the State of Community Management survey closes next Friday, February 28th. If you have already taken this short survey (only 15 minutes!) - thank you! If you haven't taken it, and are … [Read more...]
Friday Roundup: Selling Community to the C-Suite
By Amy Turner, The Community Roundtable Need some help convincing executives why your organization needs to be more active in social media and community? TheCR Network spoke with Jaime Punishill (Head of Digital Marketing & Channel Management for TIAA) to discuss practical strategies for … [Read more...]
Happy CMAD 2018 – Community Management Advancement Day
HAPPY CMAD 2018, EVERYONE! I'm going to be honest - CMAD is one of my favorite days of the year. While CMAD started out as Community Management Appreciation Day, we like to imagine it has evolved into something more - community management advancement day. Because really, what shows more … [Read more...]
Help – I’m a lone wolf community manager!
By Shannon Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable. One of the most common frustrations we hear about from community managers is that they feel isolated from the rest of their company. Often, community managers sit on a communications or marketing team, sometimes they even reside … [Read more...]
How Can I Use Gamification for Community Engagement?
By Shannon Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable. Gamification is a hot topic in TheCR Network, and among community managers at large. In fact, – nearly half of our surveyed communities in the State of Community Management 2014 employed some form of gamification (and more than … [Read more...]
How Do I Convince our Executives to Invest in Community?
By Shannon DiGregorio Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable. This is a short and sweet (as in "Sweet! Best practices I can use!) post on one of the most common questions we get at TheCR: "How do I convince our executives to invest in community programs? Help!" Through the … [Read more...]
