community management Archives

Meet TheCR Network Scholars | Mohamed Mohammed

February 26, 2021 By Jim Storer

As part of our continuing efforts to increase the impact of our community resources, we are excited to introduce you to the 2021 Scholarship Cohort. Each month in 2021 we’ll interview a cohort scholar and learn why community is important to them.

Why do you believe in Community/Community Management?

Community is, as Rob Bernshteyn has expressed, the future of business. It represents the ideal of both the efficient and responsible operation of business.

My favorite example of this is the use of community platforms/ forums to figure out how best to deliver value to the user of a product or service.

Community, when taken seriously (and funded as such), can be what separates a transactional relationship from one that continually adds value to users’ lives.

What area of Community do you want to learn most about?

I am interested in learning about the business side of community management.

Are you currently working in Community?

Yes! I work as a Community Manager in charge of the forum communities for publishing brands such as PC Gamer, Tom’s Guide, and Space.com.

Thanks, Mohamed! Watch this space for updates from Mohamed and our other 2021 Scholarship Cohort.

You can learn more about our 2021 Scholarship Cohort here.

Institutionalizing Inclusion

June 30, 2020 By Mac Stephens

Inclusion is a critical focus for most organizations and has been particularly prominent over the past few months. Online communities are uniquely suited to promote wide-scale inclusion because of their collaborative rather than directive structure—they reward members for their unique contributions instead of forcing compliance to a standard. Communities are also generative, producing more value for every participant than is contributed by them—delivering a compelling ROI for every member. But the best communities don’t just assume that their existence will immediately foster widespread inclusion; instead, they prioritize investment in operations that will institutionalize inclusion.

When we asked members of TheCR Network for specific responses on how their community promotes inclusion, three methods stood out.

Validating Concerns – One community manager received concerns from members about a lack of female speakers in a large annual conference his organization holds. He investigated and found that 15 to 18 percent of speakers were female and that this number was in line with similar conferences in his industry, but he didn’t stop there. Looking deeper he discovered that the percentage of female speakers was not representative of female members in his community, so he reached out to his community and they created a five-step plan to make their conference more inclusive.

Making Inclusion Visible – One of our members noted that while they still have much to do, they created a code of conduct, which is accessible to the entire organization, and an inclusive holiday calendar that allows for community members to discuss inclusive movements like Pride. Her community also marks moderators and admins so members of the community have clear pathways to report concerns. She is also working to recruit a more diverse cohort of customer advocates, formalize welcoming procedures for new members, and even implement slackbot to combat the word “guys” in their Slack channels. All of these measures make the importance of inclusion visible, daily.

Providing Inclusion For Everyone – A member in a large organization brought up the importance of seeing inclusion everywhere. One of her community’s biggest diversity issues is age. Her community often feels curtailed for older generations, and it’s common for younger employees to feel their ideas are not important. While her organization is working towards BIPOC and LGBTQ+ inclusion, ageism was overlooked. Her community has since developed a multi-tiered incident response plan with a section dedicated to HR. They have also set up a number of filters to pick up word usage that might indicate exclusive behavior. Clubs that cater to a younger audience are being developed, even when there is push back from older committees; the community channels allow for discussion and eventual approval.

These sorts of solutions cannot exist without the inclusive culture that well-functioning communities bring. Institutionalizing inclusion requires public progression and admitting openly that there needs to be change. This sort of acknowledgement demonstrates to community members that their organization validates concerns and that inclusion is lived, not just communicated. Advanced communities show that this is achieved best when community governance is highly integrated across organizational leadership as well as across emergent community leadership. When more voices ask questions and provide answers, holes in inclusion practices can be identified and addressed faster.

Inclusion is the result of advanced strategies.

This year the State of Community Management research shows that communities are more effective when they engage with more constituencies. Communities that do this best are those with roadmaps, dedicated budgets, and advanced strategies. They can calculate value and report it, and they empower their members to be actively engaged and innovative. None of this success could be achieved without inclusion, and all of the measures that lead to this success promote it. This generative nature changes culture, promoting a culture of equity in voice and experience.

Advanced Communities include a wide range of stakeholders in decision-making.

Download The State of Community Management 2020 Report

Five Best Practices for Onboarding New Members

May 11, 2020 By Jim Storer

How you welcome your new members matters – one of the most consistent findings in our State of Community Management research is on the impact of onboarding programs on getting new members to engage in a community.

It makes sense – having someone welcome you, give you some ground rules on behaviors, give you a tour of the community, etc., makes new members more comfortable, and you’re more likely to dip a toe in a new community if you have ideas for how to do it.

In this webinar, Kelly Schott shares five best practices for onboarding new members into your community.

Lili McDonald on Being Comfortable with Community Technology

April 27, 2020 By Jim Storer

Join the community experts at The Community Roundtable as they chat about online community management best practices with a wide range of global community professionals. Topics include increasing online audience engagement, finding and leveraging executive stakeholders, defining and calculating online community ROI and more.

Episode #69 features Lili McDonald.

In this episode of the podcast, Lili shares her experience with online community technology platforms, how community managers can streamline community operations, the power of an online form, and how setting boundaries can help you stay sane.

Listen Now:

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Find more episodes of Conversations with Community Managers here.

About Conversations with Community Managers*

To better reflect the diverse conversations our podcast covers we’ve changed the name of our long-running series to Community Conversations.

Community Conversations highlights short conversations with some of the smartest minds in the online community and social business space, exploring what they’re working on, why they do what they do, and what advice they have for you.

These episodes are a great way to begin to understand the nuances of community strategy and management.

Each episode is short (usually less than 30 minutes) and focuses on one community management professional.

Dina Vekaria + Maren Beckman on Remote Teams

March 9, 2020 By Jim Storer

Find more episodes.

Episode #65 features Maren Beckman , Global Community Manager, and Dina Vekaria, Senior Global Community Manager at Pearson.

In this episode of the podcast, Maren and Dina discuss best practices for time zone management on remote teams, thriving on a dispersed team, the power of using “work out loud” (WOL) practices for accountability and visibility, and their successful “People of Person” vlog series.

Listen Now:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

About Conversations with Community Managers*
To better reflect the diverse conversations our podcast covers we’ve changed the name of our long-running series to Community Conversations.
Community Conversations highlights short conversations with some of the smartest minds in the online community and social business space, exploring what they’re working on, why they do what they do, and what advice they have for you.
These episodes are a great way to begin to understand the nuances of community strategy and management.
Each episode is short (usually less than 30 minutes) and focuses on one community management professional.

Going Back To Its Roots: Journalism and Community

October 7, 2019 By Kelly Schott

When you think of the word “journalism”, what comes to mind? A quick skim through Google News sees words like “crisis”, “lie”, and the headline statement, “Journalism needs help”. We don’t necessarily think of “community” when we think of journalism, but maybe we should.

*A piece by Venture Beat on journalism’s fate*

As how we communicate evolves, how we find information and connect with other does as well. As the social, digital, and virtual become more prevalent in our lives, community approaches have become more important in bringing people together in online (and offline) spaces.

Most of us have heard how journalism is dying, but not all of us have heard that journalism is trying something different: community.

Where Journalism Is

If you’ve read any tweet, article, or blog post, you know the drill. Journalism has trust issues. Publications are losing readership and revenue. Technology is shifting and privacy concerns are mounting. None of this is wrong, per se, but this also isn’t the entire story.

Each of these statements is interrelated. Social media users have heard of why they should be concerned about their privacy, so they don’t trust platforms, and, in turn, don’t trust the information on them. In the age of information immediacy, journalists need to pump out information to be first and right, usually sacrificing the latter to get the former. Stories are scooped quickly and spread like wildfire, for better or for worse. A bad story or a piece of wrong information is shared and criticized immediately, damaging a journalist’s, and their publication’s, reputation. With all of this in mind, the public is hesitant to trust and, even more so, hesitant to pay for journalism.

That’s the narrative we’re constantly hearing, but is it the whole truth?

How does journalism go from this storyline to a new one: a storyline where journalism is for the people and maybe even by the people?

How does journalism build trust back and continue to provide a service that the public so desperately needs?

How does journalism go back to its roots: within the fibers of community?

What Journalism Needs

So where does journalism go from where it is now? The answer is toward community. Journalism needs to reach back to its roots and meet people where they are.

Instead of fighting to find the next best thing, journalists need to find their readers, go to them, and create a space for them. Instead of fighting the ever-changing media and technology landscape — either by holding onto the old ways or pushing against the new — journalists need to tell their stories in a way that will reach their readers. Instead of fighting what people want to read and producing what they’re supposed to produce, journalists need to deliver relevant and necessary content.

All of these needs can be fulfilled by simply knowing who these readers are.

A key piece of community strategy is profiling your community members and understanding their motivators, their influencers, and their goals for being there. If journalists go back to this way of thinking, they can set up a foundation from which to build upon.

Why Journalism Should Embrace Community

Community approaches all center around the people, as does journalistic strategy, for, if there are no members or readers, there is no community or journalism. Since these two entities have similar starting places, they stand to learn a lot from each other, as they really aren’t all that different. They just have different outputs.

Some know that community and journalism aren’t all that different, as some journalists have already started implementing community approaches. From the hyperlocal to regional to national, journalistic outlets have leaned into community approaches, putting the person at the center of their cause and structuring how they disseminate information around people’s needs and wants.

In recent years, contributor networks (or publications that provide space for readers to add comments, suggest stories or topics, and give feedback) have become more and more prevalent. These two-way conversations between readers and journalists fulfill the feedback loop and bring readers into the journalistic process, making them a part of the narrative and creating buy-in.

*Jersey Shore Hurricane News employs a contributor culture to produce reporting.*

This involvement builds trust and validity through personal connections and allows for readers, or members of these journalism-centered communities, to be a part of the journalism process. Just like in a formal community of practice, community members work together around a common goal. Journalists can take the feedback from their contributors and implement new ideas, take edits into account, or even follow up after the fact.

In a similar fashion, these contributor networks also put a face to the journalist, as they’re a part of the community as well. By engaging in comments, hosting offline events to speak to members of the public, and physically speaking to their readers, journalists create a contributor culture that both keeps readers coming back and builds trust in the process.

Amidst all of the technology shifts and concerns, a key aspect of community and journalism alike is to meet people where they are. In community approaches, a community manager needs to use the tools that work best for their members and, similarly, a journalist needs to share their information and stories where their readers are going to find and connect with them.

By creating an online place where readers can go to engage with a story, the journalist, and other readers, journalists can create a formal feedback loop: engaging with readers online (in social media, on a community platform, on a formal website, etc.) around content and then use that engagement to fuel future stories and reporting. Essentially creating a shared purpose with readers that is to produce well-rounded, publicly-sourced content that is relevant to the entire readership base.

What Journalism is Doing Right

There are already many outlets that are taking these community approaches and integrating them with their journalism strategy, and we keep seeing more emerge.

Organizations like Free Press are working to strengthen the community/journalism relationship to enact change. Projects like the News Voices program (run by Free Press) aim to bring communities and journalists together to shape journalism’s future around community. Getting more specific, some projects, like Voting Block, work to bring local communities together (in events like political potlucks) to speak to both each other and journalists to open dialogue around difficult topics.

Other organizations, like the Membership Puzzle Project, are looking at journalism business and governance models and what will be sustainable moving forward. The Membership Puzzle Project focuses on membership models and how membership drives both revenue and loyalty. On the technology side, Hearken built a “public-powered” model where journalists speak with their readers before publication to produce inclusive, relevant, and timely content. Hearken also created the Engagement Management System technology platform that keeps journalists on that mission while also complementing the traditional journalism administrative tasks (email leads, newsletter & CRM integrations, etc.).

Finally, on a more local level, we’ve seen organizations working hard to create their own communities. One member of TheCR Network joined TheCR’s community of practice because they wanted to get a formal understanding of community approaches before launching their own community within their online publication. After dealing with a loss of readership after print changes and a lack of engagement because of no commenting ability, they’re focusing on meeting people where they are and opening up channels for conversation.

Yes, journalism as a whole might be struggling, but there is so much promise in what the few and mighty are working to do. Many of these may be on a more local level, but they show that journalism can (and probably should) adapt community approaches in order to stay relevant and financially solvent.

If you know of other examples of journalistic outlets utilizing community approaches, let us know!

If you’re implementing that yourself, we’d love to have you in our community for community professionals. We’re always working to advance the community industry and journalism is very much a part of that. Read more about how to join TheCR Network and start bringing more community strategy into the journalism space.

Calculating Community ROI: Measuring the Networked Value of Engagement

September 19, 2018 By Jim Storer

Few teams know their community ROI

Our State of Community Management research revealed that despite the high returns we calculated, only 41% of those surveyed say that they are able to calculate value in any way themselves, and only 23% have taken the next step to calculating ROI for their community program. Only 23%!

What’s the big deal about calculating ROI, anyway?

By calculating ROI you demonstrate to stakeholders that they are making a good choice about investing in the community program – and that it is worth more investment. The other, critical, thing it can do is to show how community value has grown historically and how that value is projected to grow in the future, giving them further assurance that they are making a smart financial choice.

Evaluating the investment return (ROI) of the community directly connects to increased executive interest, support and investment – which in turn has a massive impact on resource allocation for communities programs. So, why don’t more community programs calculate their ROI?

Our research suggests that there is a lack of business skills on community teams and this gap is a disservice to both the business and the community team. Overwhelmed by supporting value creation, community teams do not have the resources or the time required to measure and report their own success.

Calculating Community ROI: Measuring the Networked Value of Engagement

Our research brief, Calculating Community ROI: Measuring the Networked Value of Engagement, explores a simple formula for capturing the ROI of a behavior at the heart of all successful communities: an answer.

No matter what your community use case, questions and answers are its lifeblood. By capturing the value of this single behavior, you capture the lion’s share of the return communities generate. Drilling in on answers highlights the way that communities surface innovations, strengthen networks, highlight best practices, and drive behavior change.

This brief includes The Community Roundtable’s Community ROI calculation as well and approaches to find or estimate the inputs required to calculate it.

The result is a straightforward, understandable formula that focuses the heat of the executive spotlight on the results that matter the most to business outcomes.

Access the research brief.

5 Big Lessons in Community Building Based on a Decade of Experience

September 18, 2018 By Rachel Happe

Image via SmilingTreeToys at Etsy.com

I am lucky to have collaborated with hundreds of organizations on their community building initiatives. That experience gives me a breadth of visibility that very few have had, allowing me to see both the similarities and differences across contexts. Communities are very much like the Leo Tolstoy quote about families “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

And like all failures, we learn a lot more by those communities that are struggling than by looking at those that are thriving, where people happily putter on almost unaware that they are in the fortunate state of being surrounded by support and stimulation.

Here are five of the biggest lessons I have learned over the last decade

1. Communities generate compounding value by changing behaviors

Do you know what behaviors generate the value you are hoping to see? If not, you are likely overwhelmed and have a hard time prioritizing what engagement and community management activities are most valuable. If you don’t know, a good place to start is to understand and diagram out the workflows you hope to impact and how engaging in the community improves those workflows.

2. Communities need different approaches at different stages

New communities need a lot of hands-on, direct relationship building effort. As communities start to thrive and generate their own value, the task of community management changes to governance, infrastructure, and measurement efforts that enable others to engage easily. These two types of work are quite different and often need different resources.

3. Shared value is critical for a sustainable community

We talk about purpose a lot and shared purpose is needed to attract the right set of people to a community. However, if the community is not supporting the creation of value, people will not stick around. The only way to sustain engagement is to continually deliver value that cannot be generated as effectively anywhere else.

4. The risks of not having explicit community management are significant

If no one is responsible, no one is responsible and organizations leave themselves open to all sorts of risk, including communications crises, unacknowledged product and service issues, festering frustration, competitive threats, and more. Communities do not inevitably become toxic environments – they devolve because no one is responsible for ensuring they don’t.

5. Most community management activity is not visible

A misconception of community management is that community staff are responsible for engaging the community themselves. They are, of course, but not in the way many people assume. To be effective at letting the community do its own work, the community team necessarily has to enable people in it to engage each other and solve their own problems, rather than always stepping in themselves. In fact, communities don’t gain efficiency and effectiveness unless the community management team steps back from the limelight. Their primary role is to ensure others in the community are connecting, engaging, and leading rather than doing so themselves.

Dos and Don’ts for Happy and Healthy Community Moderation

November 13, 2017 By Jerry Green

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 responsibilities was community moderation, so I got a firsthand view of what went into successful moderation and balancing the community management workload.

And while I could have written a few hundred pieces of advice, I’ve narrowed it down to ten you need to have a happy and healthy community (and moderator).

DO welcome new members to the community.

This is especially important when launching a new community. Acknowledge new members, reiterate the purpose of the community and encourage them to participate. (Check this great new member case study.)

DO show members how to participate.

Give new members a list of three things to do. These can include: Read the guidelines for participating; like a post you value or enjoy; search for a topic of interest; respond to a post you can contribute to.

DO establish clear guidelines for participation.

Your guidelines should focus on encouraging the behavior you’d like members to exhibit in addition to discouraging the conduct that is prohibited. Be firm and consistent in applying the guidelines to all members.

Do be sure you understand the question or issue.

Before you respond to a member’s post, read the post again. Especially in a customer support community it’s important to show that you understand the question and are genuinely interested in assisting. Too often I see a member respond “That’s not what I was asking. Did you even read my post?”

DON’T be a robot.

Respond in a sincere, personal voice. Some community moderation platforms provide the functionality of selecting a prepopulated response. Avoid using “canned” responses unless volume necessitates it.

DO be empathetic.

Always remember that the member you’re responding to may be justly upset and they’re looking to you for assistance. You represent your brand in the community and sometimes the brand will have done something wrong and the consumer is looking to you for help.

DO leverage analytics to evaluate your community’s content.

Example: Check frequently searched terms to see what your members are looking for. Make sure those topics have appropriate content posted and tagged accordingly.

DO acknowledge and nurture your Super Users.

It’s amazing how much support a small group of passionate, dedicated advocates can contribute. A quick note of appreciation, thanks or congratulations can go a long way.

DO use key word filters to screen all posts.

Key word filters can be used to screen obvious issues like profanity but they can also be used to alert you of potential issues. I’ve used them to search for potentially volatile political discussions, product issues and dissatisfied clients.

DON’T feed the trolls.

Every community has them. They’re only there to stir the pot. Deal with them calmly and within the guidelines. Depending on their behavior you can ignore them, warn them or send them away. (Here’s another great post about conflict resolution in communities.)

Three ways to maintain a positive tone in your online community

November 7, 2017 By Jerry Green

For anyone who manages or moderates an online community, you know that sustaining a positive tone can sometimes be a challenge. Members view it as a safe place to provide feedback, vent their frustrations, and have their voice be heard. It’s not always pretty.

In a past life, I managed a large external support community. Given the nature of the subject matter and the rapid growth from a couple thousand to well over 100,000 members three years later, the tone early on wasn’t exactly a positive one. However, thanks to some savvy community peers and a long-term strategy, we were able to turn it around.

I’ve outlined three lessons I learned in the process that will help you keep your community helpful and not hostile.

1. Establish clear guidelines for participation.

This doesn’t just mean create a list of things users aren’t permitted to do. While you will want to include a list of prohibited behavior, more importantly, focus on sharing with users the behavior and participation they can do to contribute, add value and benefit. No one enjoys being told what not to do. Instead, show your membership how they can contribute and engage productively. Post a question. Answer a question. Give kudos and acknowledge good contributions from others. (Here’s another post with an example of good guidelines for participation.)

2. Demonstrate the tone you want members to mimic.

I’ve seen all too many examples of online communities where the members go rogue. The engagement, content and tone are nothing like what the brand originally intended. Often times this happens because the forum or group doesn’t have a community moderator. I would never recommend starting an online community, forum or group without moderation. Users tend to mimic the tone they experience so if you’re starting a new community be sure to “seed” the community with appropriately toned content prior to launch. If you’re coming into an established community that needs help with tone, in addition to reviewing and cleaning up toxic content be sure to create positive content and feature this content when possible. Be sure to acknowledge and recognize members who contribute the types of responses that mimic the tone you are trying to establish.

3. Firmly and consistently enforce the participation guidelines.

I mentioned earlier the need to establish clear guidelines for participation at the start. Equally important is fair and consistent enforcement of the guidelines. If you have a member going off the rails and you don’t guide them back in, then not only might that member continue to veer off the desired path but that behavior is being witnessed by other members who may see the conduct as acceptable. Community members tend to mimic the behavior they see. The sooner you rein in the offender the less chance you’ll have of others following suit.

Diligently following these three recommendations will help you create and maintain the welcoming, supportive environment online communities strive for. Remember to define appropriate participation, mimic the desired behavior and be consistent with enforcement of the guidelines.