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.

Happy CMAD 2018 – Community Management Advancement Day

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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 appreciation than saying, “we see you and we want to help you get to where you want to be!”?

We started brainstorming a way to celebrate CMAD 2018 that would both highlight some of the amazing community management leaders we know and provide a tangible asset for community professionals everywhere to enjoy. Thus, CMGT 101 was born. We worked closely with 17 community leaders to get their advice on specific topics, like member retention, effective engagement, community UX and more and compiled this ebook: CMGT 101: 17 Community Leaders Share Their Secrets for Success.

CMAD 2018

We could not have published this ebook without the thoughtful contributions from: 

  1. Lori Harrison-Smith, Steelcase
  2. J.J. Lovett, CA Technologies
  3. Aaliyah Miller, Aetna
  4. Patty McEnaney, Envestnet
  5. Monique van den Berg, Atlassian
  6. Jerry Green, The Community Roundtable
  7. Kirsten Laaspere, Akamai
  8. Jay Graff, JM Family Group
  9. Marjorie Anderson, PMI
  10. Jerry Janda, SAP
  11. Dana Baldwin, Electronic Arts
  12. Dina Vekaria, Pearson
  13. Judi Cardinal, Akamai
  14. Lisa Allison, Analog Devices
  15. Heather Ausmus, Ciena
  16. Chris Catania, ESRI
  17. Stephanie Field, Carbon Black

You can head here and download your own copy of CMGT 101: 17 Community Leaders Share Their Secrets for Success and check out the best practices that this amazing group of community leaders shares.

If you are a community professional please know that we do appreciate you, and all the work that you do every day to advance the world of community management. If you aren’t a community professional – what you are waiting for? Quick – find one and thank them!

A final shout-out to ALL the community leaders in TheCR Network – we only highlight 17 of them here, but there are hundreds more who inspire us daily and it is immensely gratifying to get to work alongside them.

Happy CMAD!