The Community Roundtable

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

Christopher Barger on the “Immerse and Disperse” Method

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The Community Roundtable has partnered with Voce Communications to produce a new podcast series, “Conversations with Community Managers.” In this series, TheCR’s Jim Storer joins forces with Voce’s Doug Haslam to speak with people from a variety of industries about their efforts with community and social media management. Our podcast series, Conversations with Community Managers (a co-production with The Community Roundtable), continues with episode #16, featuring Christopher Barger, Global Director of Social Media at General Motors. Highlights include:
  • The “immerse and disperse” method of cross-training social media staff; immersing them via a consistent training program, then dispersing them to represent different divisions of the company
  • Using internal communities to identify creative thinkers who might not otherwise surface
  • Why a Fortune 500 company would bother sponsoring small events
  • Measuring results, both long- and short-term, using GM’s participation in SXSW as an example

MUSIC CREDIT: “Bleuacide” by graphiqsgroove.

PHOTO CREDIT: Becky Johns

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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

Megan Murray on Managing Multiple Internal Communities

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The Community Roundtable has partnered with Voce Communications to produce a new podcast series, “Conversations with Community Managers.” In this series, TheCR’s Jim Storer joins forces with Voce’s Doug Haslam to speak with people from a variety of industries about their efforts with community and social media management. Our podcast series, Conversations with Community Managers (a co-production with The Community Roundtable), continues with episode #15, featuring Megan Murray, community Manager and Project Coordinator for Booz Allen Hamilton. Highlights include:
  • Managing internal communities within a large company, and managing to culture towards adoption
  • The challenge of overseeing a total of 535 communities
  • Integrating community participation into employee workflows
  • Privacy, confidentiality, and other HR issues as they apply to community
  • Build vs. buy, in terms of tools

MUSIC CREDIT: “Bleuacide” by graphiqsgroove.

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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

Ray Gans on Defining an “Active Community Member”

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The Community Roundtable has partnered with Voce Communications to produce a new podcast series, “Conversations with Community Managers.” In this series, TheCR’s Jim Storer joins forces with Voce’s Doug Haslam to speak with people from a variety of industries about their efforts with community and social media management. After an extended vacation, we’re back! Episode #12 features Ray Gans, Community Manager at Actuate (a Voce client). Highlights include:
  • A description and history of the BIRT  Exchange, a business intelligence community run by Actuate
  • Building an effective community with a passionate group of developers
  • Measurement- what to measure, why and how
  • What defines an “active community member?”
  • The importance of (international) face-to-face user groups in augmenting community

MUSIC CREDIT: “Bleuacide” by graphiqsgroove.

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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

5 Awesome Ideas for Community Engagement from Burr Settles

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Don’t know Burr Settles? He’s the force behind February Album Writing Month, otherwise know as FAWM. Like many community managers, he stumbled into the role because of his passion for independent music and an inspiration from National Novel Writing Month. What started as a fun thing to do in 2004 among a few friends has grown into a community of over 3,000 people who create, collaborate, and publish together.  We had Burr join us for a member call this week to discuss the FAWM project and what he had learned about community management over the years. Burr has four best practices that guide him:

  • Don’t Promote
  • Embrace Constraints
  • Keep it Ripe
  • Communication Over Aggregation

There is a great write up about those concepts here.  What I found to be one of the more interesting parts of our conversation with Burr was around the topic of constraints and how to use them creatively to drive engagement. Rather than lock people down, constraints offer a spark and a jumping off point for people to innovate and create. Burr talked about different ways constraints were created – centrally, self-imposed, and community generated – which all took the form of creative challenges.  My 5 favorite ideas were:

    1. Feasting – have people create as much as you can in one sitting (1-5 hours)
    2. Skirmishes – provide a topic/title/concept at a given time every week and give everyone one hour to complete the task
    3. Concept challenges – use an existing sets of things to inspire responses (U.S. presidents, periodic table of elements, deck of cards, etc)
    4. Daily/weekly inspiration – select a word, phrase, or piece of content for members to riff off of
    5. Brainstorming tools – Burr created these and I’ve used these in the past

      When you think about your community programming, consider incorporating some of these ideas – it will change things up, add an element of fun and competition, and get people talking.  At The Community Roundtable we’re running TheCR Summer Camp for our members – a fun way to learn more about social tools and methods while getting to know each other. It offers a different type of programming than we do the rest of the year, which breaks things up and offers some variety… plus it’s fun for us and that rubs off.

      Also, I hear from SchneiderMike (who recommended we have Burr in to speak as well – thanks Mike!) that the FAWM compilation CDs are excellent – check them out here.

      Interested in joining us for conversations like this one?  Find out more about membership in TheCR here.

      Alex Plant on B2B Social Media

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      The Community Roundtable has partnered with Voce Communications to produce a new podcast series, “Conversations with Community Managers.” In this series, TheCR’s Jim Storer joins forces with Voce’s Doug Haslam to speak with people from a variety of industries about their efforts with community and social media management.

      Episode #11 features Alex Plant, head of social media for NetApp. Among his overall social media duties, Alex oversees a video studio and a staff of videographers and editors.

      Podcast highlights include:

      • The effective use of video for social media content in a B2B setting
      • While the technical audience for B2B social media is strong, the real growth is expected in the business-level audience
      • The intersection of social media and traditional marketing; including calls to action as a crucial part of engagement
      • Measurement- tying awareness building measurements such as share of voice and sentiment to traffic generation
      • Blogs are very powerful tools for capturing people’s attention (still!)
      • The effectiveness of feeding ideas to bloggers and other influencers to keep a constant flow of external content
      • Determining whether or not to have separate subject channels for separate audience to maintain high levels of relevance, interest and engagement, while maintaining control over the overall content direction
      • Internal culture; the value of support from the top

      MUSIC CREDIT: “Bleuacide” by graphiqsgroove.

      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.

      Lisa Beatty on Brand-Focused Communities

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      The Community Roundtable has partnered with Voce Communications to produce a new podcast series, “Conversations with Community Managers.” In this series, TheCR’s Jim Storer joins forces with Voce’s Doug Haslam to speak with people from a variety of industries about their efforts with community and social media management.
       

      Episode #10 features Lisa Beatty, “Chief Jane Advocate” for Jane Nation, one of the first online communities for women to share their opinions and ideas about brands, and information among themselves and with brands about the uniqueness of their community.

      Podcast highlights include:

      • Running a community that is a hybrid of centrally-produced and controlled content, and more self-moderated forums
      • The relationship between a community about brands and the brands themselves, including the need to comply with disclosure guidelines, and how to include the brands as part of the community (with examples from the Mayo Clinic and General Motors)
      • Approaching community monetization without ads, with approaches such as sponsored content and access to community members for private conversations
      • The challenges of managing a community including people at different stages of their lives (age, careers, parenthood, etc)
      • Reconciling running a brand-focused community with a career as an advertising executive, as Beatty does

      MUSIC CREDIT: “Bleuacide” by graphiqsgroove.

      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.

      Podcast: Play in new window | Download

      Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

      Dave Olson on Pre-Social Media Communities

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      The Community Roundtable has partnered with Voce Communications to produce a new podcast series, “Conversations with Community Managers.” In this series, TheCR’s Jim Storer joins forces with Voce’s Doug Haslam to speak with people from a variety of industries about their efforts with community and social media management.
      Episode #9 features Dave Olson, Marketing Director for HootSuite, which helps people and companies track, monitor and manage their Twitter communities.

       

      Podcast highlights include:
      • How the traditional title of “Marketing Director” translates to online marketing, customer service and social engagement
      • Turning metrics into meaning by realizing the personalities behind the community members
      • Tips on community: making members feel like they belong and are contributing, and that they are being heard and acknowledged
      • Stories about communities in the 1970s, enabled by “ditto machines” and other pre social media technology (the roots of Dave’s current personal projects are found at https://www.uncleweed.com/)
      • An example of a company (SubPop records) that started their community building in the pre-social media era (pre-Internet, even), and evolved it into the age of Twitter
      • Adding value, context and storytelling vs simply “attracting a crowd”

      MUSIC CREDIT: “Bleuacide” by graphiqsgroove.

      PHOTO CREDIT: kris krüg

      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.

      Podcast: Play in new window | Download

      Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

      Jodi Gersh on “Old School” Journalism and New Media Channels

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      The Community Roundtable has partnered with Voce Communications to produce a new podcast series, “Conversations with Community Managers.” In this series, TheCR’s Jim Storer joins forces with Voce’s Doug Haslam to speak with people from a variety of industries about their efforts with community and social media management.
       
      Episode #8 features Jodi Gersh, Social Media Content Manager at the Gannett Company, where she helps Gannett’s 80+ newspapers and 20+ TV stations with their social media needs and strategies.
       

      Highlights include:

      • Meshing “old school” journalism with new media channels
      • How Gannett coordinates social media learnings and tactics among more than 100 separate entities.
      • The importance of internal communications in keeping employees at all levels- and in all markets- engaged in using social media, including the use of “old school” methods like email
      • Upcoming trends: you guessed it, location and mobile
      • Melding “citizen journalism” with professional investigative journalism

      MUSIC CREDIT: “Bleuacide” by graphiqsgroove.

      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.

      Podcast: Play in new window | Download

      Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

      The Fish & The Sharks

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      Last week was full of fascinating conversations at the Social Media & Community 2.0 Strategies conference and the MarketingProfs B2B Forum and I’m just starting to digest it all but one of the concepts that really hit home for me was Adam Zawel‘s analogy for community members.  He noted that in most communities there are two key groups to consider when structuring and planning the community – the fish and the sharks.  Once a group of any type of people are aggregated into an active community (the fish), other groups will necessarily find that an attractive audience (the sharks).  I have always considered part of the role of community management is to protect members – it’s one of the reasons I find private communities often more compelling than public ones but the fish/shark analogy helped clarify my thinking.

      Recently, a few members of TheCR have been struggling with the issue of keeping internal marketing groups from pushing direct marketing at community members. They are having a hard time educating their peers that the community dynamic does not succeed if members constantly feel pursued.  The internal sharks can be just as dangerous as external ones.  What happens if you allow the sharks too much access is one of the following things:

      Over-fishing:  Fish disappear and stop engaging because they are afraid of being targeted or harassed.  This pretty effectively kills the community.

      Migration:  Fish will go somewhere more hospitable if they feel they are at risk – this is the worst thing that can happen because you can effectively send your community members into the arms of your competitors if they have a better managed community.

      Do you have this issue in your community? Who are your sharks? How do you give the sharks an appropriate level of access but keep them from sabotaging the community?

      Brian Simpson on Combining Online and Offline Relations in Hospitality

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      The Community Roundtable has partnered with Voce Communications to produce a new podcast series, “Conversations with Community Managers.” In this series, TheCR’s Jim Storer joins forces with Voce’s Doug Haslam to speak with people from a variety of industries about their efforts with community and social media management.
      Our sixth episode features Brian Simpson, Director of Social Hospitality at the Roger Smith Hotel in New York City.
       

      Highlights include:

      • How online extends and combines with the vital offline relations and events in the hospitality industry
      • A discussion of whether or not being a nimble small business is an advantage over being a big chain when it comes to using social media
      • How hard metrics and the more “touchy-feely” side of social media mesh
      • A critique of Roger Smith Life and the value of showing an off-product side of your business; “It’s got to be interesting.”

      MUSIC CREDIT: “Bleuacide” by graphiqsgroove.

      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.