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The Community Roundtable

Empowering global community leaders with research-backed resources, training, and tools.

CMGT 101: Why use storytelling in your online community?

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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, Aetna, Electronic Arts, SAP, Pearson, Akamai, and Atlassian. Download the ebook here for free. 

Chris Catania is the Community Team Lead and Strategist at ESRI. He shared best practices for using storytelling in a powerful way in your online community.

Why is storytelling a powerful tool for community managers?

Stories move us. And community professionals must prioritize and master the art of storytelling in their daily work. Storytelling is vital to communicating the business value of community to stakeholder audiences. An inspiring well told community story can win minds and transform an organization.

Do Demonstrate Value

Focus on WIIFW: What’s In It for We. Appeal to the shared common good not just individual gain and you’ll connect with your audience and make a greater impact.

Do Target Your Message

Focus on having different stories to share with different people. Always be ready to share your stories at a moment’s notice in a meeting or in the elevator.

Do Seek The Right Stories Out

Stories don’t just come to you. You have to know what stories you’re looking for and then go get them. You have to put on your journalist hat, ask the right questions, be constantly curious and discover the gems yourself. And once you find the story you have to mold, shape and refine it so it’s ready to share. But don’t wait for perfection. Sometimes just beginning and sharing it over time is part of refining your story.

Don’t let your story get stale

Evolve your story. Adapt and grow your community story to show how your community is growing and evolving, too.

Recap: Community Manager Spotlight Webinar with Chris Catania, Walgreens

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In January we kicked off a brand-new program – the Community Manager Spotlight series. This was, in part, to really dig into all the different roles and titles that a “community manager” can occupy. Increasingly, we find our members are doing the work of a community manager, but often without the title. Being a community manager can mean different things at different companies; here’s a sampling of member titles:

  • Director of Community
  • Manager, Social Content
  • Global Community Manager
  • Director of Member Engagement
  • Community Evangelist
  • Senior Manager, Research
  • Associate Business Analyst
  • Social Media & Event Manager
  • President & Chief Social Strategist
  • Senior Product Manager

I could go on, but you get the point. Our goal is to advance the business of community and part of that is advancing the discipline of community management. Over the coming months, the Community Manager Spotlight  series will highlight a different person practicing community management at their company, putting faces to names, and providing case studies and best practices from a wide array of practitioners.

In our inaugural webinar Jim Storer (our co-founder) chatted with Chris Catania, Online Community Manager at Walgreens. In the video below Chris and Jim discuss the community journey at Walgreens, and Chris provides a look at how Walgreens is executing their community management strategy. Highlights include a look at how Chris and his team launched their social intranet, The Wall, and how they are using a big red sofa to connect with employees around the world.

Our next webinar is scheduled for February 27th and will include special guest J.J. Lovett from CA Technologies talking about the platform changes they have undergone in recent years and best practices when migrating communities. We hope to see you there!

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Guest Post: Talking with TheCR About The Business Of Community Management at Walgreens

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Guest blog post by Chris Catania, Online Community Manager at Walgreens.

This post originally appeared at www.christophercatania.com.

When you’re building an enterprise social network at a large company and aiming to make your organization more social and collaborative, one of the most important things you should do is surround yourself with smart people who have done or are doing the same thing as you’re aiming to do.

That’s why I’ve enjoyed being a member of the Community Roundtable. The CR network is run by and is full of smart leaders who know their stuff when it comes to the business of community management. Over the last two years, being a member has helped to build and strengthen our internal social media and community management strategy at Walgreens.

It was a pleasure being on the advisory board for the 2013 State of Community Management Report and in 2014 the Community Roundtable is kicking off a new live webinar series called “Community Manager Spotlight” and I have the honor of being the first guest.

I invite you to join us next Wednesday January 29th @ 2pm EST for the 30 minute live webinar to learn how we’ve been using community management strategies to build our internal social media program at Walgreens and where we’re heading as our program grows. It’ll be lots of fun and I’m looking forward to sharing our story with you.

Get more info and register for the webinar here.