The Community Roundtable

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

What’s the Big Idea About Community? A Look Back at The State of Community Management 2014

By

By Shannon Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.

We can hardly believe that 2014 is coming to a close. It’s been a big year here at TheCR – we released our fifth annual State of Community Management report, we launched a brand new research initiative in the Community Manager Salary Survey, and we introduced new services like the Community Performance Benchmark to help mature communities measure their value and plan for the future.

We also started sharing community content in new (and hopefully fun and engaging) ways.We launched the Community Manager Spotlight series, brought you weekly news and job roundups and shared nine fun facts from the State of Community Management via the SOCM Fact poster series. This last piece grew out of a member telling us she often prints out our research and blog posts and brings them to meetings with her to communicate the value of community with her executive team. We wanted to make it just a little bit easier for everyone to digest the big ideas in the SOCM 2014, and make it even easier to share community management data points with your colleagues.

We hope you found this poster series fun and informative. Below are all nine posters in case you’re doing a little end of the year cubicle redecorating, or wanted a nice framed gift for your community-loving boss!

SOCM FACT #01 SOCM Fact #2 SOCM FACT #03
Strategy & Your Community coaching Lurkers
SOCM 2014 Fact #7 - Community Playbook SOCM FACT #08 - Content Management System SOCM FACT #09 - Measuring Community Value

Want even more community facts? Check out the full SOCM 2014 here:

—–

Looking to take your career in community management to the next level? 92% of members agree that TheCR Network supports and advances their personal and professional goals. Learn how our research, access to peers and experts, targeted content and exclusive concierge service can help you achieve your goals.

Community Management Career Profiles from The Community Manager Salary Survey

By

By Shannon Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.


Two weeks ago we released our latest infographic “Community Management Career Profiles” sponsored by Jive Software. This is the first research released from the Community Manager Salary Survey 2014. Subtitled “The Career Path Of The Community Professional – Insights From The Community Roundtable’s Community Manager Salary Survey 2014” the infographic provides some great stats for community professionals, hiring managers and the community industry as a whole.

Without further ado, here are the initial findings from the Community Manager Salary Survey 2014.  You can view the full infographic here.

THE ROLE, COMPENSATION AND CAREER PATH OF THE COMMUNITY PROFESSIONAL.

For the purposes of the Community Manager Salary Survey 2014 infographic we focused on three of the most common community titles:

  • Community Manager
  • Community Strategist
  • Director of Community

View the Community Manager Salary Survey 2014 infographic here.

AVERAGE SALARY

Key finding: Research from the Community Manager Salary Survey 2014 showed that community professionals who work with internal employee facing communities earn more than their externally facing peers.

  • Community Manager
    • Internal Community Manager Average Salary:$69,887
    • External Community Manager Average Salary: $74,939
  • Community Strategist
    • Internal Community Strategist Average Salary: $85,075
    • External Community Strategist Average Salary: $90,400
  • Director of Community
    • Internal Director of Community Average Salary: $106,356
    • External Director of Community Average Salary: $113,263

YEARS OF EXPERIENCE

Key Finding: In the Community Manager Salary Survey 2014 we found that directors of community who work with external market facing communities have the most community management experience and the average level of work experience was over 10 years, countering the assumption that community managers are typically younger employees.

Percent of total work experience in community management:

  • Community Manager –
    • Internal Community Manager: 39%
    • External Community Manager: 30%
  • Community Strategist
    • Internal Community Strategist: 48%
    • External Community Strategist: 29%
  • Director of Community
    • Internal Director of Community: 45%
    • External Director of Community: 44%

Average years of community management experience:

  • Community Manager –
    • Internal Community Manager: 4.2 years
    • External Community Manager: 4.7 years
  • Community Strategist
    • Internal Community Strategist: 6.9 years
    • External Community Strategist:5 years
  • Director of Community
    • Internal Director of Community: 7.4 years
    • External Director of Community: 7.1 years

Average years of work experience:

  • Community Manager –
    • Internal Community Manager: 10.8 years
    • External Community Manager: 10.6 years
  • Community Strategist
    • Internal Community Strategist: 14.3 years
    • External Community Strategist: 14.3 years
  • Director of Community
    • Internal Director of Community: 16.4 years
    • External Director of Community: 16.2 years

TOP THREE PRIORITIES FOR COMMUNITY PROFESSIONALS

Key finding: Data in the Community Manager Salary Survey 2014 clearly showed that business and strategic skills become more important in senior community roles.

Top Three Priorities For Community Managers

  • Monitoring activity and listening
  • Communication and editorial
  • Curating and sharing content

Top Three Priorities For Community Strategists

  • Monitoring activity and listening
  • Developing the community strategy
  • Measuring and reporting community performance

Top Three Priorities For Directors of Community

  • Developing the community strategy
  • Developing community policies and guidelines
  • Advocating for the community

COMMUNITY PROFESSIONALS WORKING REMOTELY

Key finding: working remotely does not hinder career progression for community professionals

  • 24% of community managers reported working remotely most of the time
  • 24% of community strategists reported working remotely most of the time
  • 41% of directors of community reported working remotely most of the time

Key finding: directors of community are 71% more likely to work remotely than managers and strategists, suggesting individuals with those skills are scarce and can negotiate for more flexibility.

WORK ENVIRONMENTS FOR COMMUNITY PROFESSIONALS

Key finding: through the Community Manager Salary Survey 2014 we found that community strategists are three times more likely to work for agencies than community managers.

  • 80% of community managers work in corporate environments.
  • 6% of community managers are freelancers.
  • 8% of community managers work at agencies.
  • 6% of community managers work in a different environment.
  • 62% of community strategists work in corporate environments.
  • 24% of community strategists work at agencies.
  • 11% of community strategists are freelancers.
  • 3% of community strategists work in a different environment.
  • 79% of directors of community work in corporate environments.
  • 5% of directors of community work at agencies.
  • 7% of directors of community are freelancers.
  • 9% of directors of community work in a different environment.

COMMUNITY PROFESSIONAL: AN EMERGENT CAREER PATH

Although Community Manager is the most common job title among professionals surveyed, other roles are emerging.

Among the survey sample of the Community Manager Salary Survey 2014:

  • 55% had the title “Community Manager”
  • 13% had the title “Community Strategist”
  • 17% had the title “Director of Community”
  • 13% had the title “Community Specialist”
  • 7% reported they had another title

Key finding: 36% of professionals surveyed in the Community Manager Salary Survey 2014 reported being promoted within community management.

LOOKING FOR A PROMOTION? WORK ON YOUR SKILLS.

In the Community Manager Salary Survey 2014 we found that advanced community professionals, including community strategists and directors of community are more likely to have these key skills:

  • Program management
  • Building a community roadmap
  • Developing executive support and coaching executives
  • Creating, purchasing or delivering training
  • Hiring and managing community team members, contractors, agencies
  • Internal consulting

LOOKING FOR A COMMUNITY JOB? GET CREATIVE ABOUT FINDING YOUR NEXT ROLE!

Through the Community Manager Salary Survey 2014 we found that the majority of community roles are not sourced through formal HR processes. In fact:

  • 39% of community professionals were approached by or introduced to the hiring manager/team
  • Only 27% of community professionals found their role through an external job posting
  • 20% of community professionals defined their own new role

View the infographic and find more community career resources at communityroundtable.com/cmss14

Brought to you by Jive Software.

Defining Community Requirements that Scale, Part 1

By

By Jim Storer, Co-Founder and Pricipal of the Community Roundtable

field-of-dreams_lg

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 of Dreams. To define community requirements that scale, organizations need to examine their user segments and account for the external factors which affect community development, both of which influence the optimal design of their communities. If you can successfully understand both your organization’s and your users’ needs in terms of these areas, you can offer the right tools to ensure successful launch and adoption for the long term.

COMPLEX HUMAN SOCIAL INTERACTIONS ARE NOT EASILY CAPTURED IN SOFTWARE

In the early stages of community (the first six to twelve months), users’ requirements are relatively simple; throwing a kitchen sink of features at them when they first join will put off most people because of the complexity and your adoption will flag.  But within that first year, most organizations will graduate to what The Community Roundtable refers to as the “One Year Club” (Thomas Vander Wal coined the term), where simplicity is no longer enough, as the community’s requirements will evolve rapidly once it begins its adoption and engagement ramp, and different user types begin to emerge.  Start by understanding your four main user types:

Pointer/Gatherers – These users point and link to areas outside of the community, gathering information and bringing it into the community for others to benefit from. This might be anyone from an employee who shares the weekly corporate softball team schedule, to a member you can count on to share interesting and relevant news stories.

Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) – These are your community’s experts whose insights are rebroadcast by the community.  SMEs rarely engage with the social tools outside of the organization because they already feel overwhelmed and don’t want to add to their workload.

Gardeners – Some curators “garden” by discovering information, insights and content and then “plant” it where it will be most likely to be easily located by those who will benefit most from it. These members also tend to be good connectors – both of people and of ideas.

Doubters – These members are always questioning and challenging assumptions of the community.  They are particularly useful in innovation systems as they are adept at identifying capability gaps.

Make sure the structure you create balances those who do the questioning with those who contribute.  The framework should be designed with an understanding of the different stages at which these groups interact; don’t try to force-fit the community to the tool.  Don’t forget though:  individuals may play one role in one group and a different role in a different group.  Make sure they have the capabilities available to them to switch between roles as needed.

In addition to these roles, users will also come in at varying depths of use and contribution:

Outsider with no accountability –lurkers who consume the content generated by the community but don’t contribute.  Once they create a profile or account they transition from a non-contributing user to a non-contributing member and begin developing an understanding of the breadth of offerings of the service.

Realizing the service has a selective interface – At this stage, users see that they can self-select a way to consume the content in the community and explore their areas of interest.

Light Contributor – This phase begins with high-level contributions to the community such as commenting.  Users in this stage are not yet contributing content to the community, but rather are responding to content posted by others.

Heavy contributor – At this stage, the person actively curates content from the outside to share with the community.

A well-designed community will help people feel comfortable moving along the journey from anonymous lurker to full heavy-contributor.  The more users you can get to graduate to the sharing and curation stage, the more likely you will realize your ultimate goal of a vibrant, self-sustaining community that benefits both your organization and your users.

How far along the path to maturity is your community?  Have you run into similar challenges as a member of the One Year Club or are you still in the initial or planning stage?   We’d love to hear about your successes and struggles in mapping out your own requirements for a successful community.

 

—–

Note: ChecEnterprise Hivek out Part Two of this post over on Enterprise Hive’s blog. There we discuss two other critical factors for designing communities that scale: the importance of outside influences and mapping community to your organization’s culture.

 

Executive Engagement Matters

By

By Shannon DiGregorio Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.

We’ve heard a lot of talk in the last few weeks about the link between executive support and community success  It seems like executive adoption is on the mind of many community practitioners, and with good reason. In our State of Community Management 2014 research we saw that communities with CXO participation are more likely to have a fully-funded community roadmap.  We also found (and were a little surprised) by how much executive participation increased general engagement, particularly when the CIO participated.

In best-in-class communities, 58% include CEO participation vs. average CEO participation rates of 36% – those are the same communities that are most likely to be able to measure value, have a fully-funded roadmap and have advanced community leadership programs. This brings us to Community Fact #03 – executive engagement matters.

SOCM Fact #03

 

You can review more findings related to community maturity in the State of Community Management 2014. This post is the third in a 10-part series highlighting some of the most thought-provoking data from the SOCM 2014 – brought to you via a fun poster – perfect for sharing on Twitter, hanging at your desk, or printing out and waving around your next community strategy meeting.

You can view Fact #01 and Fact #02 or download the whole report today.

​

—–

Looking to take your career in community management to the next level? 92% of members agree that TheCR Network supports and advances their personal and professional goals. Learn how our research, access to peers and experts, targeted content and exclusive concierge service can help you achieve your goals.

 

Faces of Community Management: Jamileh Delcambre

By

By Shannon DiGregorio Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable. The last monday of the month always means a new Faces of Community Management profile – you can check out previous ones here and here. This month we’re excited to introduce you to Jamileh Delcambre. Jam is a community manger at  Thomson Reuters and has been an active member of TheCR Network since 2011. 

“Jam is one of those community members that makes TheCR Network so valuable. She inherently understands community and she’s generous with her (great) ideas and expertise. One of my favorite things about Jam is that she exudes authenticity. I’ve read some of her communications with her community members and she does an amazing job of balancing the professional tone of her company with her authentic and very real voice. I count myself lucky to work with her!” -Hillary, Community Manager at TheCR Network

FacesCM_Jam

Download Jam’s profile here: Faces of Community Management – Jam

—– Did you know that TheCR Network members work with all kinds of communities? In fact, about 25% work in either internal or external communities and 50% work with both! No matter what kind of community you work with membership in TheCR Network will save you time and improve the quality of your work by connecting you with peers, experts and curated information. Learn how joining TheCR Network can improve the work you do.

Interview with a Community Veteran – Nigel Fortlage

By

By Shannon Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable

Nigel FortlageToday I’m excited to share another veteran community professional’s thoughts on the last five years in the community world. Nigel Fortlage has been a member of TheCR Network since 2009 – and has provided invaluable support and leadership along the way.  Nigel is the Vice President, Information Technology (CIO) at GHY International and has the very special distinction of being our very first international member in TheCR Network!

1. If you could go back and give yourself advice five years ago what would you say?

  • Trust your instinct, it is a better judge than that of a paid consultant who doesn’t know my business.
  • Learn from everyone, and share with just as many, by sharing your learn more.
  • Value relationships of all kinds, connect with everyone, you never know where the next great answer will come from.
  • Follow Matthew McConaughey’s advice, find someone to look up to, look forward to, and to chase.

2. Where do you see yourself in five years?

Given what I see today, I believe that the future for me may lie in a combination CIO/CMO role within our organization. The emergence of community/social business is escalating and reaffirms that we are on the right directions in developing our business. I also see synergy with a combined role as many aspects that are respectful of the other can be helpful and what a better way for IT to add value than through the eyes of our clients. Developing community and marketing skills allows me to see the clients view on things that are resulting in better delivery of initiatives.

3. Did you have any community management mentors along the way? Any specific advice they gave you that stood out to you?

I have had a few coaches that have helped me and are helping me. I have SEO specialists helping under the science behind SEO and being found online. I have marketing leaders who have helped me understand the language. I have business mentors who continue to help shape my view on the lifetime value of a client. Last but not least is the innocent relationship that began with a tweet and a response from Rachel that lead to me becoming an early member of The CR, where through Jim and Rachel’s advice I have gained understanding and application knowledge that still serves me today. I look forward to evolving my role through continued learning and participation with TheCR members.

—–

Looking to take your career in community management to the next level? 92% of members agree that TheCR Network supports and advances their personal and professional goals. Learn how our research, access to peers and experts, targeted content and exclusive concierge service can help you achieve your goals. 

 

Meet TheCR Team: Rachel Happe

By

By Rachel Happe, Co-Founder of The Community Roundtable.

Rachel HappeIf you had asked me a decade ago whether I wanted to start a company, the answer would have been a resounding no. But a funny thing happened on the way to the circus – technology, communications and organizational development collided in a way where my experiences gave me unique insight – some of which is personal and some of it through my previous work.

I am a minister’s daughter and not just any minister, one who worked in a church where the congregation was responsible for hiring and firing their leaders. And as a child I had an odd fascination with church meetings and listening to people resolve issues collectively. I also watched as my father had to balance factions in an intense culture (in the midst of Cambridge, MA where people do not lack for opinions). It was its own education in people, relationships and power dynamics.

Rachel Happe - RowingLater on, I had the opportunity to row on a crew team and first experienced the concept of swing, which profoundly impacted how I thought of group performance. I was never the best student (or the best athlete) but I realized that I could be an important member of the best team and that together, when there is swing, groups can do profound things.

Professionally, I’ve had almost nine lives; as a research assistant looking at health care systems, working in government, as an analyst assessing operational strategies, managing software products, managing start-up teams and as a technology market analyst. I’ve had experience working with the implications of organizational structures, with the application of cutting edge technologies (I was building SaaS-based ideation and partner portals in the late 90s), and from my youth I understood how you manage in environments you can’t control.

Rachel Happe - Eating FrogsSo now I’m eating frogs – our team’s term for getting critical but not necessarily inspiring things done – and helping to lead The Community Roundtable. I believe passionately that new communications environments enable individuals to be rewarded proportionately to what they contribute because those contributions can now be seen by everyone in an online community. For me, this means more equality and more access for more people – without the traditional barriers that limited talented people from succeeding; like the school you went to, your family’s social circles or where you live. It also gives individuals the responsibility and the opportunity to determine their own contribution balance. For organizations, it means lowering the transaction costs of creating and distributing value. My job at TheCR is to help organizational leaders understand how to execute on this opportunity by applying what we call community management instead of traditional management approaches. In the end, my hope is that I can improve lives by improving people’s control over the work they do.

One of the things that I am most proud of is that as an organization we collaborate with our members and clients to create value that neither one of us could deliver on our own. Recently for me, that meant working closely with a client to build a training program for internal community managers. The training program consists of short videos paired with worksheets that allow participants to immediately translate what they learn into actionable plans. While we had the content, our client pushed us to create a format that allowed part-time community managers to immediately put best practices to use. It’s a great example of how to create value that is a win for the client, a win for us and ultimately a win for other clients who need similar programs to make their social business initiatives a success.

 

—–

Did you know that 95% of TheCR Network members agree that the content and peer input improves the quality of their work? It’s true!

Membership in TheCR Network saves community and social business leaders time and improves the quality of their work by connecting them quickly with peers, experts and curated information. Learn how joining TheCR Network can improve the work you do.

Preview of Preliminary 2014 State of Community Management Results

By

By Maggie Tunning, Learning and Culture Manager at The Community Roundtable.

Fun fact: this is actually a picture of our team tabulating results. (No. Not it's not.)

Fun fact: this is actually a picture of our team tabulating results. (No. No, it’s not.)

 

We launched the 2014 State of Community Management survey a few weeks ago and can’t help ourselves to start sifting through the results. Last week we hosted a workshop for members of TheCR Network’s Community Maturity Assessment Working Group to talk about what’s interesting and/or surprising about the early data set, as well as how we want to approach segmenting and presenting it later.

A few highlights about what we’re learning and thinking about:

Community leader/advocate programs: About 34 percent of communities have formal advocate programs (with a defined application and renewal process), and 39 percent have informal programs. What can we learn from the more mature communities to strengthen the informal programs and build new ones?

Community culture: When looking at the traits of communities surveyed, they’re on average balanced between content and conversation, formal and user-generated content and being reactive and proactive to issues. Do these traits change when the data set is segmented by types of communities (the categories of internal and external communities profiled)?

Community management: About 75 percent of communities surveyed have at least one full-time community manager on staff. Almost 29 percent have more than one full-time community manager. Does the number of community management resources affect the development of other community maturity indicators – like community playbooks, editorial calendars, crisis plans?

Interested in being a part of this research? There’s still time to participate — take the survey here through the end of February. As a thank you, we’re offering a discount off a new individual membership in TheCR Network (that includes the opportunity to collaborate with our smart working group members) – so if you’re thinking about joining now is the time!

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

The Community Roundtable is committed to advancing the business of community. We are dedicated to the success of community and social business leaders and offer a range of information and training services. We facilitate TheCR Network – a trusted environment in which to discuss and share daily challenges and triumphs with proven leaders. Our weekly programming, access to experts, curated content, and vibrant discussions make TheCR Network the network of the smartest social business leaders. Join today.

Friday Roundup – Building Value for 2014

By

Image via SmilingTreeToys at Etsy.com

Image via SmilingTreeToys at Etsy.com

As we head into the new year we’re paying special attention to building  value in our communities in 2014. Over the last week week we looked at resources you can use when you’re building a social or community program, the value of social business and how to articulate the power of community management.  We’re already looking forward to next week when we’ll tackle the idea of building reputation in community management.

Our favorite links this week include two exciting social jobs, a lively discussion on community participation and some great advice from an industry expert. We’re also excited for some upcoming events and would love to hear where you plan on learning and networking in 2014.

As always have a safe and happy weekend. We’ll see you on Monday with some fun blog content from expert guests!

Building Value: Articulating the Power of Community Management

By

Over and over we hear from members and peers that articulating the value of a thoughtful and well-executed community program is one of the hardest parts of their job. Sure – wrangling tough community members isn’t a walk in the park, and no one likes a troll, but condensing the power of community management into a few sentences is often very tough – even for experienced community practitioners. If you’re building out a community program at your company, you’ve likely faced the same challenge.

In the document below – our 2013 State of Community Management report, we focus specifically on the value of community management. Highlights include discussion around what business communities look like – and the value of this type of program, as well as an in-depth look at the role of a community manager and the value they bring. Resources like this report can really provide the concrete research and case studies that non-believers are looking for.


2013 SOCM: The Value of Community Management from The Community Roundtable

Check out all of our State of Community Management research here – including the evolution of the social business industry and analysis of organizational patterns and lessons learned from industry leaders and practitioners, and see how you can leverage the insights within to better articulate the power of the work you do. We know the value of expert community management – help the rest of your company see it, too.

———————————————-
The Community Roundtable Toolkits are designed to help individuals map out the next challenges in their community journey. The Toolkits provide actionable templates, guides and resources whether you are laying the foundation for a successful program to organizing, assessing and reporting on their community efforts to truly transforming your organization into a networked business to gaining the knowledge needed to effectively coach executives in social.

Learn more.