Want to increase engagement? Welcome new community members… and then follow up!

October 26, 2017 By Rachel Happe

One of the most consistent findings in our State of Community Management research is on the impact of new member 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.

But then what?

If you’re like many communities – you don’t follow up again to see how the settling in process has gone. But maybe you should.

Making a second contact with new members a short time into their community experience substantially increases the likelihood they will continue to contribute and correlates with still higher engagement. The difference is exceptionally notable when it comes to the number of inactive members – communities with formal follow-up programs for new members see inactivity rates that are 15-20 points lower than those communities that don’t follow up.

So what can you do?

Contact the new member after a certain period of time to see if they have any new questions.
Contact them after their first post or other significant activity and see if they were satisfied with the response or had other questions.
Contact them to see if there is anything you can help them find/solve.

Reaching out tells them that the community has their interests in mind at a time when maybe they are a little more settled in a new place than they were on day one. And it may just keep them involved.

Community Management Fundamentals

October 23, 2017 By Jim Storer

Need to bring someone up to speed on the basics of community management? We just revamped our community management fundamentals presentation and it’s a great way to explain the ins and outs of community to someone that doesn’t quite get it yet.

Check out the presentation:

Community Management Fundamentals 2017 from The Community Roundtable

Pretty great, right?

Other community resources you can use:

TheCR Academy

Community training for every level of your organization

Community Case Studies

Learn from real life community success stories!

Community Management 101

Answers to common community questions!

30+ Years of Community Resources

August 21, 2017 By Jim Storer

A couple days ago I paused to reflect on all of the people and resources that have helped me (and The Community Roundtable, our members, and partners) since we launched in 2009. It’s not a short list. I put the question to TheCR team and we started to collaborate on a list of resources going back as far as we can remember. The attached infographic attempts to capture our list, but it would have been a mile long if we included them all. I’ll use this post to share a handful of people and stories that may help bring the infographic to life.

I first started thinking about communities in the mid 90’s, using online bulletin boards to network with thought leaders to help build conferences around specific technology topics. We used a couple of pool computers to access the boards and were frequently in line waiting to use the dial-up modems to access the boards. During these early years, I was fortunate to meet Vanessa DiMauro. She was (and continues to be) on the forefront of community and was generous with her time for a newbie. Check out her “Back to the Future of Online Community” for an exhaustive look back.

Several years later I first read The Cluetrain Manifesto and was energized by the promise of community. I jumped at the chance to interview David Weinberger at the first Community 2.0 Conference in 2007. Unfortunately, the audio from that podcast is missing in action. Suffice it to say that David shared his knowledge and experiences openly for all that were willing to listen.

Throughout the 2000’s, Jim Cashel and Bill Johnston at Forum One were instrumental in bringing together community practitioners at their annual unconference in Sonoma, CA. More retreat than conference, it was always a fascinating group of people who came together to help one another uncover the secrets of community building. Bill was also responsible for publishing the first community manager salary report, which we sought to update eight years later.

Rich Millington aka Feverbee shares what he learns about community building through his blog and frequently engages in thoughtful discussion on Twitter. He’s a deep thinker in the community space, seeking to find scientific backing for the strategies and tactics we use in the space.

Since launching The Community Roundtable in 2009, we’ve been fortunate to have a long list of amazing community practitioners stop by to share what they’ve learned with our members. I’ll highlight a few below (in no particular order).

John Hagel joined us to talk about his book Net Gain: Expanding Markets Through Virtual Communities

Burr Settles shared what he learned growing and supporting fellow musicians on FAWM.org

Harold Jarche stopped by to talk about how communities can facilitate culture change.

Rachel Makool explored work/life balance and community managers. Side note: I met Rachel at the first Community 2.0 Conference when she was at eBay, running one of the largest/most active communities in existence at the time. We recorded an incredible podcast with her, alas it’s also lost to the ether.

Nancy White joined us to talk about using storytelling in community building. Side note: Nancy’s been studying (and sharing) online facilitation for decades. Her Online Community Toolkit is a great resource for all community managers.

Jeremiah Owyang shared his views on the evolving role of community managers several times with our members. He also wrote an introduction to our State of Community Management research and founded Community Manager Appreciation Day (CMAD), which is still celebrated today.

Liz Strauss shared the secrets she’d gleaned in writing one of the oldest (and most successful) blogs on the internet.

Erika Kuhl, one of the true pioneers of online community, shared member engagement tips she’d learned managing the Salesforce.com community.

Sean O’Driscoll shared tips on building a successful advocacy program, which he learned managing Microsoft’s MVP Program.

I could do this all day. We’ve been very fortunate to know and learn from an incredible array of really smart people. At The Community Roundtable, we’ve tried to be a good community citizen by sharing much of what we learn through our research, models, and frameworks and will continue to do so going forward. This is a collaborative, inclusive group of people that have been sharing and learning from one another for over thirty years. Don’t let anyone tell you different.

Explore this list of resources and more (and send us your contributions) at History of Community Management Resources

A (Not So Brief) History of Community Management Resources

August 21, 2017 By Jim Storer

True story – when my brother was 14 he came into my room and said, “Shannon! Have you ever heard of the band Led Zepplin?!”

It was 1999.

With a completely straight face, I replied, “No! Are they any good?” He then went on to sing their praises (and rightly so, Fool in the Rain is in my top five songs of all time, but that’s another post for another blog…) and recommend highlights from their catalog.

My point is not to embarrass my brother (although that’s always a bonus), but to show that it’s so easy to feel like you’ve discovered the latest thing you love. While it seems like community management is just coming into its own, the reality is there have been passionate online community managers as long as there have been online communities – basically as long as there has been an “online.” (Want a great primer on the history of online communities? Check out Vanessa DiMauro‘s comprehensive deck Back to the Future of Online Community.)

It would be near impossible to mention every single person that has made a significant contribution to the world of community management, so I’m not even going to try that. Instead, let’s take a trip through highlights* from the first 30 years of amazing resources that have helped community professionals around the world. (*I am 100% confident that there are amazing resources that we failed to include on this infographic. Please, do not be offended – take action and submit the resources to our ever-growing list!)

Please feel free to share this infographic far and wide – the more community love the better!

Have a milestone resource we missed? Check out our History of Community Management Resources page and see if it’s there. If not – send it to us!

Community Triage: 5 Common Community Management Problems

July 18, 2017 By Georgina Cannie

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 and sent them to the appropriate area of the hospital, based on their most likely diagnoses. Some patients with quick-fixes were “fast-tracked”, others were sent to the ER Doctor and still others were transferred to specialty departments in other areas of the building.

While waiting to be treated it occurred to me that so much of what TheCR team does is Community Triage. Community Practitioners come to us and share the challenges their networks are experiencing. From there we identify the most likely diagnosis and point them in the right direction for help – whether it be connecting them with key members of TheCR Network, visiting their organization to host a workshop, or offering them one of our hundreds of professional resources.

Here are the top five most common symptoms our team sees, along with potential causes.

No Engagement

Think of this symptom like the common cold. Every community lives through it at some point. Learn to identify the risk factors:

The Shared Purpose of The Community Does Not Resonate. If the purpose of your community was dictated by your organization, and does not reflect user buy in, members have no reason to participate.
Stage Fright. When members feel self doubt about their contributions, they are likely to just skip them altogether.
No Community Manager. Ships without a captain never get far. Communities with no community manager, or a community manager who has a dozen other job responsibilities outside of the community, are unlikely to be lively.

Lost Engagement

So you are cruising along with steady engagement and then it drops off. What happened?

The Content or Programming has Become Stale. Do you want to eat the same thing for dinner every night? Neither does your community. Engagement may drop if you do not adapt your content to shifting needs and interests.
Dissatisfaction or Distrust. Did someone break the “What happens in community, stays in community” rule? Did your organization remove a beloved member? If so, your members could be giving you the cold shoulder because you lost their trust.
Competing Channels. The cool kids might be sitting at a different lunch table. New, competing ways to achieve the shared purpose and value of the community group will often divert engagement.

Unanswered Questions

When you have engagement in your community, members are comfortable asking questions, but no one will answer them… it’s about as irksome as a fresh paper cut. Here’s what could be happening:

No SME’s. Communities need members with varied areas of interest and expertise. This way, everyone becomes both a question-asker and a Subject Matter Expert in their own way.
Jargon. Have you ever had a Doctor tell you you are suffering from “Dyspepsia”? It means you have an upset stomach. So why didn’t they just say so?! If your members are asking questions full of jargon, the terminology may be confusing others who would have otherwise been able to answer.
Consumption Culture. If you have touted community solely as a place to receive value, members may have been conditioned to take from the community, and less inclined to add to it.

Faceless Community

Can we keep this anonymous? If your community is devoid of profile pictures and bios, it may be a sign of a few issues:

Lack of Connection. In many communities, members view the space as a resource hub, not as a place to make connections with others.
Lack of Trust. No one wants to be spotted in the rough part of town. If your community has picked up a reputation as being a poor use of work time no one will want to show their face there.
Lack of Investment. Do your members consider themselves members? Are you sure? Users who want to “just drop by” are unlikely to commit with a profile picture.

Unorganized Content

Messy communities distract from your shared purpose and frustrate members who are looking for a particular item. There are a few reasons your surgical field could be tough to keep sterile.

Poor Architecture. If your site isn’t intuitive, it is no wonder things never get put away correctly.
Too Many Sub Groups. Too many choices make for bad choices. Your members might be logging content in the wrong places due to confusion.
No Community Manager. Or an under-resourced community manager. If you don’t have someone to dictate taxonomy and guide content into the correct channels, don’t be surprised when things get cluttered.

What are the most common symptoms your community comes down with? How do you diagnose and fix them? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Need to take the temperature of your community? Learn how a Community Benchmark can help!

Why Build an Editorial Calendar for your Community?

April 12, 2017 By Jim Storer

One of the most common questions we get from members is, “How do I increase the value and the volume of member engagement?” This challenge persists across all community types, sizes and use cases. One way we’ve found to increase audience engagement, in terms of both quality and quantity, is to implement an editorial calendar for your community programming.

Earlier this year Georgina Cannie shared some best practices for creating an editorial calendar with members of TheCR Network. In addition to the practical tips she outlined, she also gave a great overview of the benefits of building and maintaining and editorial calendar. I wanted to share her great advice here, for any community managers considering the process.

Stability + Freshness

When you implement an editorial calendar you formally introduce a cyclical timeframe into your community program. These program and content anchors provide increased familiarity and stability to your members. Now, they know what’s going on, what to expect and when to expect it. Since the topic of each cycle is shifting and different collaborators are used, you can create a space for fresh content without confusion. Consider the success of widespread reoccurring events – like the popular Throwback Thursday (#tbt) on social media.

Don’t Reinvent the Wheel

By maintaining the same time and program structure in each editorial cycle, your community team (or you!) doesn’t have to create fresh content plans each week. A program template has been designed and content is plugged into it, which allows the community manager to focus on the value and the curation of the content itself.

Listening + Response Channels

By implementing this structure, the behavior of catering to passing member interests is no longer detrimental to the community effort or the community manager time due to positive reactivity. The shifting topic cycle is the perfect excuse for a community manager to act on community listening and plug-in what members are asking for without disrupting the entire framework. While it might seem like a lot of work in the beginning, an editorial calendar actually frees up your time in the long run to provide better content to your members.

Do you currently use an editorial calendar in your community program planning? What benefits have you found to introducing this structure into your day-to-day community work?

Tools for Community Management: Trello, Canva, Slack.

February 22, 2017 By Georgina Cannie

The recent Atlassian acquisition of Trello, got me thinking about some of my favorite community manager planning, design and communication tools. Turns out my top three go-to tools for community management were not designed specifically with community management work in mind. Nonetheless, I couldn’t live without them.

Trello

“I have the simplest job!” …said no Community Manager ever. As anyone in community will tell you, no day looks the same and very few projects are one-and-done. Trello helps you manage all the moving parts.

Trello is a list management tool that allows you to categorize your thoughts in a highly customizable way. I kid you not when I say I could not live without it; I currently keep everything from my Editorial Calendar, to my Playbook, to my daily to-do list on Trello. On top of list making, the App allows you to color code, mark check lists, set due dates, toggle to calendar view, and tag team members.

Need to manage a list of users? Trello helps you label them by engagement status. Want to keep an eye on a co-worker’s project? Trello subscribes you to their list activity. Top that off with a sleek interface and endless app integration options and you’ll wonder why you ever wrote your checklist on a scrap of paper.

Canva

This tool is my secret weapon. So much so, that I hesitate to tell anyone about it. Why? I can easily create high-quality graphics that trick people into thinking that I am a graphic design genius with high level coding skills.

As Community Managers, we inevitably end up wearing many hats and often have limited budget with which to work our magic. Canva is your best friend on days when you are asked to step to the fringes of your job description. Design a community logo, event image, or gamification badge – this cloud-based image design app has you covered.

Slack

I’m pretty sure the only email I have ever received from my boss was a letter of employment. That’s because my team communicates exclusively on Slack.

Slack is AIM for grown ups – a real-time messaging app designed for team collaboration. Communicate with coworkers in public, private or direct message channels. The result of using Slack aligns perfectly with the spirit of Community: when questions and answers are worked through publicly, the entire team benefits. Add to that the searchable archive of any term or user, and you are living well beyond the confines of email chains.

Want to bring even more community into Slack? Try it out as a chat space for your users in supplement to your platform.
True Story: I drafted this blog post in Trello (using a checklist to organize my ideas), designed the title image in Canva, and pasted the entire thing into Slack for a coworker to review. Ta-da!

What tools are you using to make your community management easier? I would love to hear about your favorites – the more the merrier!

CMGR Best Practices: The Best of Throwback Thursday

December 19, 2016 By Jim Storer

My apologies to the team at TAL and WBEZ Chicago!

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 – Throwback Thursday. For each post we pick a theme and share articles, webinars, podcasts and more on that theme (we maybe took a little inspiration from Ira Glass…)

Looking back over the last year we’ve curated a lot of amazing content – so for a super-meta Throwback Thursday Thursday (TBTT?!) I’ve put all the links to each topic in one place – think of it as a greatest hits for your community management work. As we look forward to 2017 I’d love to hear what you’re looking for that you can’t find – either we can dig it up from the archives or create something brand new to help you on your community journey.

Best Practices for Community Management – The Throwback Thursday Archive 2016

TheCR Connect 2016 – By The Numbers Recap

November 30, 2016 By Jim Storer

It’s no secret we’re sort of data nerds over here – I mean have you seen the SOCM lately? Here’s something you might not know though – numbers aren’t my favorite thing – but I’ve never met an infographic I didn’t like. (Longtime readers might remember our brief infatuation with #infographicthursday!). That’s why recapping our latest community manager event – TheCR Connect – through the lens of an infographic seemed perfect to me.

Here’s a little peek into our two day community workshop last month. If you were there I’d love to hear your favorite stat – maybe we’ll even update the infographic with the best ones!

Social Media is Broken…Communities Can Help

November 15, 2016 By Rachel Happe

Social media is broken – you need only look at political discussions on Twitter, gamer gate, or online bullying.

In 2015, organic reach on Facebook page posts was 2.6%. Social media is, at its heart, a media model that thrives off of more; more content, more clicks, more attention. Because of that, social media sites wants more content and more engagement – not necessarily better content or better engagement.

This media frenzy, designed to trigger our emotions, assaults and overwhelms our fight or flight response system – increasing our anxiety, depression and anger. “Individuals with higher levels of emotional reactivity may be prone to anxiety and aggression, which illustrates the implications of appropriate emotional reaction in the fight or flight response.” It also fractures our society into splinters – making us retreat to our corners to feel safe.

The tail is wagging the dog.

What went wrong?

Remember a decade ago and the promise of social media? It was going to connect the world and offer boundless opportunity. That’s nothing close to what you are likely seeing on your Facebook wall in relation to the election. That’s not bringing us closer together…

We mistook what was easy for what was meaningful – either to our organizations or to individuals. We reduced ‘engagement’ to a switch – either people are engaged, or they are not.

In reality, engagement is a huge spectrum of behaviors – some more valuable and meaningful than others. But there are few standards or definitions around what engagement is.

Community managers have been unpacking engagement for decades and unlocking its secrets. We’ve turned what community professionals know about engagement into TheCR’s Work Out Loud model, which categorizes different types of engagement based on their core value – validate to increase comfort, share to increase connection, ask & answer to increase trust and explore to increase partnership.

This more sophisticated understanding of engagement allows community managers to measure the culture of a community and, more critically, to orchestrate higher levels of higher value engagement. It also helps stakeholders understand the value of different types of engagement and, with it, the value of strategic community management.

Communities can do that because they create contextualized, trusted dialog that brings people together – reducing segmentation and extremism, as shown in this Harvard Business School case study of the Wikipedia community.

We’ve been working on a community ROI model at The Community Roundtable that is focused on the value of answers and the networked value of answers – because answers form the core of any relationship and all knowledge workflows.

Communities – by providing a trusted peer environment – create a business model that scales the most expensive workflows in organizations; sales, product development and innovation, team collaboration and learning and development.

In this simplified example below, you can see how a community approach can reduce the cycle time and increase the profitability of your marketing and sales process.

Social media has proven superficial – and because of that weak. Communities generate more tangible value without as many risks.

If you are interested in more, here are my slides from a presentation I delivered at Inbound 2016

Social Media is Broken… Communities are Your Duct Tape from The Community Roundtable

Want even more? Follow Rachel and The Community Roundtable on Twitter and join our Facebook group.