executive engagement Archives

Lauren Klein on Community Leadership

May 4, 2020 By Jim Storer

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

Episode #70 features Lauren Klein.

In this episode of the podcast, Lauren shares ideas on how to cultivate a strong leadership presence in your online community, empowering young women through mentorship, and ways to make an impact in your communities.

Listen Now:

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Links from the Episode:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thelaurenklein

https://www.girlmade.co

Listen to more episodes of Conversations with Community Managers

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.

Matthew Radford on Executive Engagement

January 18, 2018 By Jim Storer

Welcome to the latest episode in our community management podcast series, “Conversations with Community Managers.”

Join TheCR’s Jim Storer and Shannon Abram as they chat with community managers from a variety of industries about their community journey. They ask the community questions you want to know the answers to, including:

What’s your best advice for someone just starting out in Community Management?
What are your best practices for increasing community engagement?
How would you survive the zombie apocalypse? (Ok – they might not ALL be community questions…)

Episode #50 features Matthew Radford, Manager, Internal Communications at Ontario Medical Association.

In this episode, we chat about how to manage community through a re-org, engaging executives, his community wish list, and more!

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Don’t miss the whole series of Conversations with Community Managers featuring community professionals from GM, Sony, Mastercard and more!

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Did you know you can subscribe to “Conversations with Community Managers” iTunes? You can!

Why don’t executives take part in community?

June 14, 2017 By Ted McEnroe

Executive engagement has long been considered a critical element of community growth.

But getting executives to be truly involved in communities has been a tremendous challenge for community managers.

So what’s keeping executives from jumping in, even when they think community is a critical opportunity? We asked the respondents to this year’s State of Community Management survey, and found the biggest obstacle was time.

Executives in 2017 say they just don’t have the time to get involved. 39 percent of our respondents said it was the most common excuse used by executives who weren’t taking part in community.

What can you do about it?

TheCR has found two approaches can often address the time concern. The first is for the community professional to highlight the ways that community can replace current management tasks, rather than add to them.

For example, in a culture where meetings can occupy hours of the day, showing a manager how the community could replace status meetings with updates in the community might raise an eyebrow of interest.

The second approach is to make community participation as time-efficient as possible, by starting with community approaches for which you can create templates, or can build into specific short times during the executive’s schedule.

The other regularly mentioned reason for a lack of executive engagement is a lack of knowledge about how to best utilize the community. This is where you have to start small and simple, giving the executive easy ways to start using the community as a tool for listening, finding information or gathering intelligence that gets them into the lower levels of the Community Engagement Framework.

So, if you’re trying to get an executive engaged, find out what is holding them back and target that limitation in your strategy to move them forward, by saving them time, giving them skills, and showing them the value of community.

The data show it’s worth a little extra effort.

Haven’t downloaded your copy of the SOCM 2017 yet? Get it now!

Throwback Thursday – The Social Executive, or Easy Executive Engagement

August 25, 2016 By Jim Storer

By Shannon Abram, The Community Roundtable

We hear from too many community pros that they work tirelessly on programs, spend countless hours interacting and engaging with their community members, and even working to define and strategize around community strategy and roadmaps – only to be met with blank stares, or worse – road blocks as they present their achievements to executives. We believe community initiatives have a place at every level of the organization – which is why we’re highlighting best practices for executive engagement in this week’s #throwbackthursday post.

This cartoon from Grundfos pretty much sums it up for too many community managers…

This week’s #throwbackthursday focuses on the social executive – ways to get your executive stakeholders on board with community.

The Social Executive: The Imperative to Succeed in Social Business – When I was at IDC and newly researching the social media space, I reported on a world of possibility that was opening up to us and radically changing the way we communicated and the way we organized ourselves for collaboration. But connecting dots in a theoretical way and actually working in a new and different way are two entirely different things.
Executive Engagement in Three Venn Diagrams – I admit it, I’m a bit wonky. I really love Venn Diagrams, in part because I think most of the interesting things in life happen at intersections. When I was asked to speak to a group of women about my online presence last week, I found myself using three Venn Diagrams to explain how I thought about it.
Selling the Value of Community Management to the C-Suite – Far from being a discipline thrust on the most junior member of the marketing team, community management is the future of all management. The ability to inspire and generate value from networks is what will enable organizations to truly take advantage of a digitally connected, global population. More than anything, community management transforms our organizations from entities primary constructed to control and limit risk to ones constructed to inspire and realize potential. It is THE work of the 21st century.
The Social Executive: A Basis for ReThinking Business – Today everyone has a technology tool or solution. You are either the recipient of a social business strategic imperative or you are driving the so called “change.” No one knows yet how they will measure the success – is it clicks, likes or some secret ROI model? And it is one of the most interesting times in business as there are more conversations taking place about tools and technologies than people and adoption. There is confusion around business value.
For TheCR Network Eyes Only: Executive Engagement Template – Are you a member of TheCR Network? Check out this exclusive discussion thread inside the Network on ways to engage your executive audience, including great advice on how to make your community stakeholders have their “ah-ha” moments around community.

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

Six Tips for Selling Social Media and Community to the C-Suite

August 9, 2016 By Jim Storer

By Amy Turner, The Community Roundtable

Need some help convincing executives why your organization needs to be more active in social media and community? TheCR Network spoke with Jaime Punishill and discussed practical strategies for selling these important social functions to the C-Suite.

Set the Control Function Areas of the Organization Up for “Wins”

The control function areas refer to legal, compliance, fraud, risk, information security, IT, etc. These folks see everything that you are presenting to them in terms of risk and thus have trouble absorbing the opportunity sets. Therefore, Jaime’s strategy is to deal with these groups first, realizing they are perceived to be the blockage to all business so you can move forward versus continually jumping hurdles.  

Ask for Probability and Worst Case Magnitude

When dealing with these control functions, be aware that for every objection they give you, it will be framed up as a 100% probability and the worst case magnitude. A best practice in this instance is to always lead with the question: “Give me probability of magnitude.” When you actually press them on it and get to real probability and magnitude, now you have the ability to frame a business case around opportunity vs. cost vs. risk.

Translate Social Media to the Organization’s Business Objectives

Always present your case in relation to your business objectives. It is the only language that the C-Suite understands. Furthermore, when faced with presenting a crash course in social media and community to help get executives or the control functions on board, do not overwhelm them with too much information. The critical thing is to convince them that you know how to translate social media and community into business objectives.

Frame up the Risk

Sometimes, legal will ask you to put disclosures and disclaimers on everything that is the printed word. That just is not going to work, but they will push for it without even a valid argument. If this happens, tell them to frame up the size and the risk of doing it or not doing it. Then, armed with that information, you can present your case to a business head and see if they are willing to accept the risk.

Show the C-Suite What your Competitors are Doing with Social Media

Show all the things that competitors are doing wrong and that you would never do. This gives legal and the executives a sense of the broad sets of activities, and that you are responsible, careful, cautious and understanding the legal concerns. It also simultaneously shows how you are trailing behind the competition.

 Skinny Down the Ask

How do you handle the second stage of social media, i.e. to garner the funds to help the community grow? Jaime explained that the best way to do this is to get creative and “skinny down the ask” to make it small enough to do the initial experiment that proves the business case. Also, gain an understanding of how your organization manages the P&L and find a business case that people can rally around.

Remember, it takes a risk-taker to sell social media and community to the C-Suite. If that is not you, find a risk-taker in your organization who can support you. Are you that risk-taker, or do you take a team approach to selling to the C-Suite? Share your tips and insights with us!

Who’s the most valuable group for your community engagement? (It’s not your CEO.)

July 6, 2016 By Ted McEnroe

By Ted McEnroe, Director of Research and Training

Who is the person you most need involved to create a successful online community (other than a full-time community manager)?

It’s not your CEO. Or anyone else in the C-suite.

Our State of Community Management research finds that while getting C-level leaders involved is a worthy goal, the biggest difference between best-in-class communities and the average is in their ability to get those a little farther down the org chart engaged – functional leaders and subject matter experts.

In other words, it’s the not the people who call the shots who help make the community hum. It’s the people who know the answers.

So, are we saying CEO involvement doesn’t matter? Definitely not. Getting your C-suite engaged in community efforts helps you get budget, sell the community to the organization, and drives investment. C-level executives need to understand community growth and ROI patterns to understand present conditions and the future potential and scale of a community approach. Oh, and communities can give executives unparalleled value and insight into and organization and its members and customers.

But when you think about it, the value of subject-matter experts relative to C-suite makes a lot of sense in a number of contexts. Words from top executives define an organization’s culture, highlight beliefs and goals, and provide a guiding vision. Those are perfect to be shared in a community context. But subject matter experts and VPs are relevant to the daily work of the organization. In the 2016 SOCM we talk about how answered questions are at the core of community ROI for an organization – and we’ll talk more about that in other posts. In most organizations, the answers to the daily questions at the heart of the organization’s operations are far more likely to be generated by subject matter experts than C-level executives.

Communities with subject-matter expert involvement may not be more engaged from a volume standpoint (at least the 2016 data didn’t find that), but there’s value generated in their interactions, and it’s that value that helps communities move forward.

The State of Community Management 2016 from The Community Roundtable

We can’t wait to hear what you think – tag your thoughts with #SOCM2016 to join the conversation!

Are you a member of TheCR Network? Download the research inside the Network here.

My community is great! Why is it failing?

April 5, 2016 By Ted McEnroe

One possible reason? Because you’re working in isolation. Learn to connect your community with your organization with Community Program Essentials!

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

You’ve probably been there at some point. You run (or are a member of) a great community, good engagement, and everything seems awesome on the inside. For a while. But something’s not quite clicking – maybe it’s not getting new members, or recognition inside the organization, or it just starts to feel like it’s an island in the ocean.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Sounds like you have a community – but you’re not integrating that community with its environment. A community in this scenario is like a flower in a small pot. It can survive, and even grow a little, but eventually if it is to grow to its fullest potential it needs to be able to spread its roots.

The Community Roundtable is pleased to kick off its class of Community Program Essentials, a course designed to help you better integrate communities into an organization. While our Community Management Fundamentals courses focus on how you manage within your community, Community Program Essentials focuses more on how you effectively integrate communities into the larger organization. Among the topics we’ll cover:

Building Your Community Business Case
Getting Executives Engaged
Developing a Community Playbook
Developing an Approach to Training
Community Assessment and Benchmarking

…and more, as they say. The course is available as a self-directed course. You’ll watch a 10-minute video lesson, take a short quiz, and use worksheets to help you take the lessons in each video and apply them to your own use case.

Being “the community guy” or “the community gal” in your organization can feel isolating – with this course, we want to inspire you with new ideas and connect you with peers you can interact with well after the course ends.

Executive Engagement in Three Venn Diagrams

March 15, 2016 By Jim Storer

By Rachel Happe, Principal at TheCR

I admit it, I’m a bit wonky. I really love Venn Diagrams, in part because I think most of the interesting things in life happen at intersections. When I was asked to speak to a group of women about my online presence last week, I found myself using three Venn Diagrams to explain how I thought about it.

They were struggling with some common issues I hear from executives about engagement:

Here is my take on each of these topics and what I’ve found that works for me.

Digital Authenticity

How do you engage online in a way that shares the work you care about and connects with people in a personal way?

Sharing a stream of corporate content is unlikely to do that. So is a stream full of your strong political views or your obsession with a sports team.

To be human online is to share your complexity – but in a way that respects your audience’s need for boundaries. Talking about perspectives and issues that are too private makes others uncomfortable and speaking like a PR bot is completely uninteresting.

Finding the middle ground is key. That means mixing some personal and some professional observations and not going too deep into either – that’s best left for in-person conversations.

My father was a minister and I grew up naturally understanding this mix. Our church was our community – and I had to be myself to build relationships but I also couldn’t share too much because everything I did was a reflection on my father – or an opportunity for someone to use personal information for political maneuvering. Having what I call the ‘third voice’ makes engaging online natural for me. Practice and develop your ‘third voice’.

What to Talk About

Your work is important to you. You have lots of other things that are also important to you. Finding a way to share your personal passions and use them as a lens on your work is where you can find interesting opportunities to connect and share your unique gifts and insight.

People are complex – your stream should be a mix of what you care about. That means you should share *some* work news, *some* of your political perspectives (if you have them) and *some* of your enthusiasm for your favorite sports teams (if you have one). You should also share questions, observations about what you are learning, interesting people you encounter and what you are thinking about.

Years ago, we had a client that was new to Twitter. His stream was full of corporate information. It was an area that I actually cared about so his stream was not entirely irrelevant. However, I actively wanted to interact with him on Twitter and could not find anything to say to him – he was not sharing anything personal or even anything work-related that was open to discussion. It was just news about his company and its market. I gave him that feedback and it changed the way he engaged online and helped him connect with other people in a way he just couldn’t before that.

Find your mix. Experiment with different types of content – news, questions, observations, responses to others. You’ll find what feels comfortable to you and connects with others.

How to Engage

My four-year-old came home one day with this drawing of friendship. As you might imagine, it melted my little analyst heart. I also thought it was a profound truth about relationships – they develop through conversations. One of the issues I’ve always had with ‘listening’ programs is that listening does not imply engagement or developing relationships to me – it’s one sided. Relationships require an exchange – the passing of information and leadership back and forth.

I’ve been writing about the Language of Engagement and digital body language for some time and both are critical elements of making authentic connections. Knowing how to ask and respond to others in a way that makes them feel supported and that challenges them to think differently creates the best relationships. The way you speak and the language you use is critical to creating the trust that allows for that type of exchange. Declarative sentences, judgmental language, subtle invalidators all shut down engagement. Respectful questions, caveats and supportive language encourage connection.

Unfortunately, in school and organizations, the language that is most often rewarded is not the language that drives engagement. Unlearning it can be one of the bigger challenges in connecting online. One of the best ways to practice the language of engagement is through asking more and better questions.

One of the biggest ahas for me when I started to engage digitally is that I didn’t have to promote myself, which I felt uncomfortable doing, to deeply connect with people. I simply had to share what I cared about and in the end that was actually a much better way to engage people – because I found the people who cared about the same things I did. Share what you care about and why you care about it and you will find your tribe.

When did you first start engaging online? What did you learn in those early days?

Three truths of successful communities – the SOCM2014 in review

February 22, 2016 By Ted McEnroe

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

The State of Community Management 2014 marked a major step in the evolution of the quantitative ways we were able to assess what worked in community management – and in successful communities. The prior year, the State of Community Management 2013 gave us a quantitative understanding of what community management looked like – but by 2014, we were ready to measure the indicators of what made a community mature.

It was the culmination of something we had already begun to do with our members in TheCR Network – use the Community Maturity Model as a framework with which to benchmark community maturity. Our ability to understand and identify the artifacts of community maturity led to the introduction of something new – our “best-in-class” segment. We were able to highlight the 20 percent of communities who scored the highest overall in the survey, and highlight those elements that really made them stand out relative to the overall survey population.

The findings from SOCM2014 included several research-backed findings that hold up just as well today as they did then. Among them:

Community maturity delivers business value. Our “best-in-class” communities were much more likely to be able to measure their value to the business.

Advocacy programs increase engagement. Community leadership and advocacy programs correlated with higher engagement, the ability to measure value and executive engagement, suggesting empowering informal community leaders were a powerful tool for strengthening community

Executive participation impacts success. Getting formal leaders – executives – to take part helped communities secure resources, improve engagement and take a more strategic approach to community, including resourced roadmaps for community development.

For the first time, too, we were able to see measurable evidence of something that until then was known but unproven. Communities that scored well in one competency usually scored well in other areas. For example – communities with well-developed strategies didn’t just score well in strategy. These successful communities usually engaged leaders more effectively, empowered and supported community managers and developed the policies and governance structures to help communities succeed, too. If they didn’t, it was a sign of untapped opportunities to grow – and a clearer direction to pursue.

By 2015 – we were able to take the next step.

This post is part of a series summarizing The Community Roundtable’s annual State of Community Management reports. The full reports are available on our website, and you can take the State of Community Management 2016 survey through March 18 at https://the.cr/socm2016survey

Maximilian Ebnother on Managing Cultural Differences

February 2, 2016 By Jim Storer

Welcome to the latest episode in our community podcast series, “Conversations with Community Managers.”

Join TheCR’s Jim Storer and Shannon Abram as they chat with community managers from a variety of industries about

What’s your best advice for someone just starting out in Community Management?
What are your best practices for increasing community engagement?
How can you survive the zombie apocalypse? (Ok – they might not ALL be community questions…)

Episode #38 features Maximilian Ebnother, Enterprise Community Manager at a global technology company. Join us as we chat about the impact of executive engagement, best practices for managing cultural differences worldwide, and how Max got the nickname “The Connector”!

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