community manager Archives

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?

Community Jobs Round-up – 04/07/17

April 7, 2017 By Jim Storer

job board

Every week we share a list of new community management jobs – usually everything from community coordinators all the way up to director level positions (depends on what we can find each week).

This week as a special bonus posting we’re featuring an open role with TheCR team – a part-time Sales and Marketing Coordinator. Working with TheCR is great (I might be biased…) as we are flexible, fun and hard-working. If you happen to love community management that is certainly a bonus! Check out the open role here.

Know of a great community opening that we’ve missed? Let us know and we’ll add it to the list!

Online Community Manager – Dell – Bedford, MA
Online Community Manager – SoCal ISAO – Los Angeles, CA
Social Media Manager – Affinity Resources – Miami, FL
Community Manager Freelance – Orci – Santa Monica, CA
Digital Content & Engagement Manager – The Kavli Foundation – Los Angeles, CA
Community Manager, LGBT Brand – Rescue Agency – Los Angeles, CA
Player Engagement Manager – KIXEYE – San Francisco, CA
Director of Business & Community Development – Dept of Commerce – Shawnee

County, KS
Market Research Communications Manager – MY-TAKE – Waltham, MA
Community Manager-Dickinson – MetroPlains LLC – Dickinson, ND
Digital Marketing Manager at Summit Automotive Partners – Summit Automotive Partners – Denver, CO
Community Partner Growth Manager, Google Cloud – Google – Mountain View, CA
Community Engagement Manager – Skedaddle – New York, NY
Graphic Designer & Community Manager – Printed Village, Marcus Lemonis Fashion Group – New York, NY
Sr. Customer Success Manager – Praetorian Digital – Plano, TX
Manager, Corporate Communications – YP – Tucker, GA
Part-Time TAP Community & Partner Program Manager – Inviso at Microsoft – Bellevue, WA
Social Media Community Manager – Sounds True – Louisville, CO
Community Manager – Barkley – Kansas City, MO

Best practices for getting a community management job

How Do I Find a Community Manager Job? – Community management is a profession of relationships – use your network to discover your next role. Most community jobs are not currently found through traditional job listings.
50 Skills of Community Management – The Community Skills Framework represents the five skill families and top 50 skills that are required to build a successful community program.

How To Win That Community Manager Job – As organizations begin to increasingly recognize and reward the value of good community management the market for jobs has begun to heat up. While at any given moment there are literally dozens of interesting community jobs open around the country (and truly, the world) the competition for these roles is getting stiffer. How can you set yourself apart?

8 Tips for Being a Successful Remote Worker – With so many work-from-home/remote community jobs out there, we’ve shared some helpful tips to succeed in this environment. It’s not as easy and glamorous as you’d think!
For TheCR Network Eyes Only: Community Careers and Development Group – Are you a member of TheCR Network? Check out this group inside TheCR Network where members share job postings, hiring advice and best practices for landing the community jobs of your dreams!

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!

How do I connect with community members around the globe?

January 16, 2017 By Jim Storer

It goes without saying that managing an online community – whether you are internally or externally community jobs around the world focused, means you spend a lot of your time online. While the majority of your community programming and activities might take place online many of our members have reported that live, face-to-face events also help contribute to the success of their communities. But what if you simply can’t get your members together in real life? Maybe your community members live in locations around the world.

We’ve all heard that face-to-face meetings are important for relationships, but what if we can’t all get together? We have three best practices for building a vibrant and successful community when you just can’t round up all your members and get together in person.

1. Refute your assumptions.

While it’s true that face-to-face events are great ways to help members connect, the data shows that online and offline events are almost equally effective at improving community engagement rates. The State of Community Management 2014 research showed that communities that host offline events have a lurker rate at 56%, and communities that host regular online events have a lurker rate of 57%. The idea of regular programming might be more powerful than being face-to-face.

2. Don’t over-complicate.

Events are great opportunities for community members to get to know other members (and the community’s managers) in real time. However, they do not need to be complicated or complex – especially to start – and it is more important that they be regular to establish a pattern of behavior. Some easy ideas:

– Weekly free-form happy hour chats

– Scheduled AMA (Ask Me Anything) discussions with executives or subject matter experts

– Monday morning roll call and top three priorities for the week

3. Experiment.

Try a few different types of events to see what works for your community. Also keep in mind that sometimes you will have to have patience before events stick and become popular – so don’t cycle through experiments too quickly. In TheCR Network, our community manager Hillary launched a Happy Hour chat program that meets every Thursday, and serves as an informal way for members to connect both with TheCR team, and with each other. The program started off slowly – some weeks only one or two people showed up, but over the course of the first year word spread and now Thursday Happy Hours have become one of the primary ways Hillary connects with members and provides a consistent place for members to chat, vent and ask questions.

Do you have best practices for fostering a dynamic community without using face-to-face events? We’d love to hear them!

Want more insights like these? Download the free State of Community Management 2014 report!

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Want to access a global network of community professionals? Learn how membership in TheCR Network can provide 24/7 365 networking, training, professional development, and education.

Throwback Thursday – Getting a Community Management Job

October 20, 2016 By Jim Storer

By Shannon Abram, The Community Roundtable

Job hunting can always be stressful. Add to that the stress of finding a job in an emerging field like community management and your stress can double. No fear! We’ve compiled best practices for finding and getting a community job. We’re also highlighting the Community Skills Framework. The Community Skills Framework showcases the 50 skills essential to community management. You can use the Framework to access your strengths and identify places for growth!

This week’s #throwbackthursday focuses on the best practices for getting a community management job.

How Do I Find a Community Manager Job? – Community management is a profession of relationships – use your network to discover your next role. Most community jobs are not currently found through traditional job listings.

50 Skills of Community Management – The Community Skills Framework represents the five skill families and top 50 skills that are required to build a successful community program.

How To Win That Community Manager Job – As organizations begin to increasingly recognize and reward the value of good community management the market for jobs has begun to heat up. While at any given moment there are literally dozens of interesting community jobs open around the country (and truly, the world) the competition for these roles is getting stiffer. How can you set yourself apart?
For TheCR Network Eyes Only: Community Careers and Development Group – Are you a member of TheCR Network? Check out this group inside TheCR Network where members share job postings, hiring advice and best practices for landing the community jobs of your dreams!

Want even more #throwbackthursday action? Check out all our throwback posts!

Throwback Thursday – All About Community Management Careers

September 15, 2016 By Jim Storer

By Shannon Abram, The Community Roundtable

It’s no secret we’re a little bit in love with community managers. But, really it goes deeper than that. We love the people that want to be community managers. We love the people that are community managers. And we love the people that have moved on to different, exciting roles after being a community manager. And boy, do community managers do interesting things with their careers!

This week we’re sharing a few posts specifically for those community folks out there thinking about their community careers. Whether you’re just getting started in the world of community, or you’re in place to be building out your very own community team this post has something for you.

This week’s #throwbackthursday focuses on the many stages of community management careers – from getting started to the executive view.

Free eBook: Defining Community Management Roles – This free ebook uses our research to target one of the pain points we most often hear from community professionals – the lack of clear role definitions in community management. This is a problem for human resources professionals and hiring managers. Standards for what defines a community manager role, versus a community strategist or director of community can be difficult to ascertain. As a result, providing proper compensation, support and professional development opportunities is difficult.
Community Career Profiles: All About Community Strategists – Engagement and people skills rank as the most important skill set for a successful community strategist. However, strategic and business skills were most important to nearly 20 percent of those in this role.
Community Career Profiles: All About Directors of Community – Directors of community bring a special skill-set – strong engagement skills, a knack for content development – to the table. But, they spend most of their time on strategic and business objectives.
Community Career Profiles: All About Community Managers – Not surprisingly, engagement and people skills are an essential part of being a community manager! Internal community managers have more strategic responsibilities related to change management in their organizations. They’re advocates for the community and are more likely to be responsible for developing executive support and coaching executives and member training.
For TheCR Network Eyes Only: Community Careers and Development Group – Are you a member of TheCR Network? Check out this group inside TheCR Network where members share job postings, hiring advice and best practices for landing the community jobs of your dreams!

Want even more #throwbackthursday action? Check out all our throwback posts!

Throwback Thursday – Community Management 101

September 1, 2016 By Jim Storer

By Shannon Abram, The Community Roundtable

Looking to get started in community management, or just need a refresher on the basics? Check out these community management 101 resources! We’re highlighting the fundamentals of community management in this week’s #throwbackthursday post – including an exclusive glossary of community management terms for members of TheCR Network!

This week’s #throwbackthursday focuses on Community Management 101 – getting back to basics with some fundamental community definitions.

Defining Community – The challenge with the word “community” is people mean a lot of different things when they say it, but there are few definitions. Joshua Paul at Socious took a crack at this issue and provided some great suggestions on how to differentiate between several meanings of the word, highlighting the preposition that comes before it. Is it ‘The community’, ‘our community’ or ‘a community’?
Differentiating Between Social Media and Community Management – As someone who works with social media managers and community managers, it seems the line between the two types of positions is not terribly clear – and maybe doesn’t need to be – but I think it would be helpful to distinguish between the two. Why?
Community Types and Terms Defined – There still seems to be a lot of confusion and disconnects when people are talking about their community or talking with The Community Roundtable about how being a member of TheCR Network can help them. And it’s not surprising. Much of the lingo and concepts are still very new in organizations and understanding what lens you view community practices through is important.
Connection, Friend, Member – Who’s In Your Company’s Online Ecosystem? – We came across this article last week about defining your online community to higher ups, and it resonated because people mean a lot of different things when they use the word community. As the article so aptly states, it is hard sometimes to understand if you are “referring to the online community at large, the community of people that your organization interacts with online, or an online community where your customers, employees, or partners can engage one another and support your customers or members.”
For TheCR Network Eyes Only: Community Management Glossary – Are you a member of TheCR Network? Check out this exclusive glossary of dozens of community management terms – and add the ones you think need to be there!

Want even more #throwbackthursday action? Check out all our throwback posts!

How do community managers spend their days? An SOCM2016 Preview

May 2, 2016 By Ted McEnroe

By Ted McEnroe, Director of Research and Training, The Community Roundtable

“How we spend our days, of course, is how we spend our lives.”

-Annie Dillard

Ask an overworked community manager what they wish they had more of – and you’re likely to get one of two answers: resources or time. How a community pro spends his or her time matters greatly to their communities, but how much? We asked our participants to share how they and their teams spent their time – and saw some interesting trends.

More advanced community managers emphasize content less, and strategic and business matters more, than their peers.

There was an interesting shift as we looked at communities across our community maturity scoring. Community managers in less mature communities said content skills were most important for them. But those in more mature communities highlighted strategic and business skills. (Everyone said engagement was at or near the top of their skill priority list.)

Despite that, engagement and content take up the majority of community professionals’ time.

Even in more advanced communities, community professionals still have content and engagement on their plates a majority of the time. The difference, though, is that more advanced communities typically put more emphasis on creating engagement – items like planning programs, asking questions and connecting members, rather than creating content for the community.

What goes on in the community platform is just half the job.

In the past, we’ve talked about the iceberg effect of community management – and the data this year drives that home. The average community manager in this year’s survey spent slightly over half their community time working within their community platform, and the rest connecting with the community on email, on the phone, and in person.

Of course, “in the platform” does not equate to “visible in the community”, either – a reminder again both that much of your important work can go unseen by members, and that “working out loud” is a great way to bring visibility to work (yours and others’) that makes a robust community possible.

One other note – community managers in best-in-class (The top 20% highest scoring) communities divided their time almost exactly the same ways as the average among platforms. It’s not where you spend your days that determines your community success. It’s strategically leveraging that time to meet your community goals.

We hope you’ll set aside some time for The State of Community Management 2016. It’s set to come out on May 18! Want to be notified when the SOCM 2016 is released? Sign up below!

(Are you a member of TheCR Network? As always the research will be available for direct download inside the Network immediately upon release – no need to sign up here!)

Three Reasons You Should Register for Community Program Essentials

April 12, 2016 By Jim Storer

By Shannon Abram, The Community Roundtable

As community management emerges as a true discipline and not just a job, community pros can start to think about their career path – and how to get from where they are to where they want to be. Our research has shown that investing in your community skill set is a surefire way to advance your career.

Ready to increase your skill set? Here are three reasons you should register for our Community Program Essentials course!

REASON #1 – YOU’LL GROW YOUR SKILLS

Our Community Program Essentials course will help you grow your community program management skills, and focuses on creating the strategic, operational and technical elements to make communities succeed within the larger organizational context. Our Essentials training explores the elements of making community a more powerful part of an organization and helps you learn to think strategically about your community.

REASON #2 – YOU CAN WORK AT YOUR OWN PACE

Our Spring Session of Community Program Essentials course is the best of both traditional and online learning. The training sessions will be a social learning experience that takes place in a private setting where participants will progress through the modules as a group. We’ll provide prompts and light facilitation in the group forums and host weekly office hours to help participants block time on their calendar to participate.

REASON #3 – BUSINESS, STRATEGIC AND TECHNICAL SKILLS ARE REWARDED – KA-CHING!

Community professionals who place high value on business, strategic and technical skills make more money than their peers. Strong business and strategic skills were more likely to be found among community strategists and directors – but technical skills were scattered across roles, suggesting a technical specialty is a way to increase earning without taking on managerial responsibilities. Improving your community programs skills is a great step toward achieving your community career goals.

The Spring Session of Community Program Essentials kicks off on April 26th and runs for eight weeks. Enrollment is limited for an intimate learning experience. Learn more or register now to get started!

8 Tips for Being a Successful Remote Worker

March 21, 2016 By Jim Storer

By Georgina Cannie, Community Manager at The Community Roundtable

Or…How to Commute From Your Bed to Your Couch!

Good news community managers – The Community Careers and Compensation research conducted by TheCR found that nearly 45% of all polled community professionals work remotely. Not only does this mean less commuting in the industry, it also means the discipline has the flexibility to hire the best talent, regardless of geographic location.

But what about once you have the gig of your dreams and you are a remote worker? How do you make the arrangement work for you? Here are my best tips on how to successfully commute from your bed to the couch:

THE CLASSICS
These babies are the common tips you will find in a speedy Google search. However, they are still worth noting and will help you set up for success.

Have A Set Working Space. ….Or Don’t.
I see this tip all the time: “Have a specific place in your home where you go to work”. While this can be very effective for some (because it teaches your brain what to expect when you are in the specific space) I find it can also be draining. Sometimes I need to mix it up and sit somewhere different to get a new wave of inspiration or motivation.
Turn Off After Hours
This sage wisdom is another one to take with a grain of salt. All those work apps on your phone? It’s probably not the best idea to obsess over them at the bar. However, if you have a big upcoming project or want to leave work early on Monday, there is nothing wrong with working on a Sunday night.
Get Dressed.
This tip is also about training your brain what to expect when you put it in a specific routine. That said, this is probably the most common tip about working from home. And while yes, you should get up and get dressed daily, I have a few additions –
- First, dressing means shoes! Put on your favorite shoes. It helps, I promise.
- Second, take a look in the mirror. Stray pen mark on your face? Crazy hair? There is nothing worse than being invited to a surprise video call and looking the walking dead.
- Finally, if you put together a professional outfit for yourself on a Monday, do not by any means wear it repeatedly on Tuesday and Wednesday. The rationale that “No one saw it yesterday so it doesn’t count” is not valid. You know that you have been in the same clothes all week.

FROM EXPERIENCE
These are some of the tidbits I have collected along the way that make my work life easier and more successful.

GO OUT:
Seriously. Leave your home. Pick a coffee shop, or a bookstore, the library, a co-working space – whatever suits you. The change of pace is nice and also limits any distractions you have at your house (AKA, that growing pile of laundry that needs to be folded).

Invest In Headphones:
My favorite are Bose earbuds. These little guys will serve you well. Not only will they improve your audio quality on any calls you join, they will help block out your roommate, spouse or that annoying guy in the coffee shop when you are working quietly.

Embrace Casual Fridays:
Wanna work in your bed under the covers all day long? Feeling like maybe you should skip wearing pants today? Awesome. Do it on a Friday. I always allow myself to skip my routine and break the rules on Friday. This way, you reap the socially-perceived perks of working from home without sacrificing your regularly scheduled productivity.

Consider Video Calls
Preferably on days when you do have pants on. Video calls can work wonders for you in a number of ways – they help cut down on endless email chains, allow you to understand a co-worker’s tone of voice, and help remind everyone involved that you work with real people … not disembodied screens.

Allow Idle Chit Chat
You know all those personal conversations co-workers bond over between meetings and around the office coffee pot? You don’t get the same opportunity to have those. So when idle chat does pop up, let it breathe for a few extra minutes before rushing on to work topics. It might feel unproductive but don’t be fooled, it does wonders for team building and solidarity.

The biggest tip? You do you. This what works for me – but I’d love to hear what works for you.

Do you work from home? Please share any other tips you have picked up along the way!