The Community Roundtable

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

Sarah Rapp on Ambassador Programs

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Sarah Rapp on Ambassador Programs

Episode Six features Sarah Rapp, Director, Alumni & People Engagement at JA Worldwide.

She and Anne discuss JA Worldwide uses ambassador programs to drive long-term engagement. Sarah shares best practices for starting an ambassador program, how JA Worldwide identifies super-passionate “fire-starters” in all their global locations, and the power of mentorship in community advocacy programs.

If you haven’t downloaded your free copy of The NEW Community Manager Handbook you can get it here.

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About Sarah Rapp

Sarah is based in Vienna, Austria where she is the Director of Alumni and People Engagement at JA Worldwide. Sarah is a JA Worldwide alumni, having actually participated herself in the program while she was in school. She has been part of the JA Worldwide community for 13 years in various positions, She volunteered, heading up the European alumni network and for the last 4.5 years it has been her full-time job. Sarah leads JA Worldwide’s global alumni networks around the world.

About JA Worldwide

As one of the world’s largest and most impactful youth-serving NGOs, JA delivers hands-on, immersive learning in work readiness, financial health, entrepreneurship, sustainability, STEM, economics, and more. Reaching more than 10 million young people each year, JA Worldwide is one of few organizations with the scale, experience, and passion to build a brighter future for the next generation of innovators, entrepreneurs, and leaders.

About The NEW Community Manager Handbook

The NEW Community Manager Handbook features 21 profiles of community leaders sharing advice and ideas on everything from accessibility, hiring, strategy, gamification, defining the digital workplace, technology, and more. Each profile is paired with research from the State of Community Management reports and includes tactical advice for implementing what you’ve learned.

Learn from community management experts at Easterseals, Glencore, Microsoft, UKG, the World Bank Group, Analog Devices, Inc., AAMC, Zapier, Doctors Without Borders, and more.

Download the New Community Manager Handbook

Want more resources about ambassador programs?

You can find more resources for building community advocacy programs here.

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Using Rewards Programs to Drive Engagement

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Rewards Programs

As organizations increasingly use community-led programs to connect with their customers, their online ecosystems expand. What may have started as one centralized community can extend into many brand- or solution-specific online hubs. Specialized communities can attract more engaged and enthusiastic participants, but whole ecosystem discovery can be challenging.

The Blue Prism Community is large — spread over several domains — and its users had this tendency to “stay close to home” without venturing to other areas of the Community.

Kevin Barnes, and the Blue Prism Community Team, used rewards programs to encourage a higher level of engagement from all their users which resulted in creating a more vibrant and interactive Community ecosystem.

Read the Blue Prism Story

About Blue Prism

Unifying workforces. Digital first. People enriched.

In the same way offshore workers changed the makeup of workforces 30 years ago, today Blue Prism intelligent automation is redefining the workforce and the work they do, helping customers realize the benefits of a digital first, human enriched operation. Imagine a world where people, intelligent digital workers in the form of software robots, and ever-changing systems come together seamlessly as a single, unified workforce. Businesses intelligently deploy the right workers to the right process at the right moment, around the clock. Transforming the enterprise into a carefully orchestrated, always-on machine. Easily managing unanticipated issues or circumstances. Handling workforce surges when needed throughout the year. And completely re-thinking traditional business models and job descriptions, across a connected enterprise – from operations to finance to HR to customers. All the while, businesses are creating better operational agility, productivity, competitiveness, and customer delight. They’re also creating happier people, that continue to grow and add greater value to the business. With Blue Prism, that world is here today.

Read more Community Case Studies

Interested in more online community management case studies? Learn how top community programs at organizations like Aetna, The Pragmatic Institute, Heifer International, The World Bank Group, and more use community-led programs to increase engagement, boost customer loyalty, improve the employee experience, encourage innovation, and more.

Building a Content Strategy in 5 Steps

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Building a Content Strategy

Content marketing sounds like a straightforward term, but a surprising number of marketers and community managers don’t get it. But no worries, because we love content marketing and are here to help in building a content strategy.

What is content marketing?

Glad you asked! Content marketing is so much more than just adding the right keywords to your copy. It’s looking at your content as a “living” (nonstatic) being, and focusing on the creation, aggregation, governance, and expiration of all your content — yes, all — and ensuring the best content is readily available when and where your audience needs it.

But how do you get started, and ensure you’re set up for success?

Step 1: Begin with buy-in

First, you need to promote content strategy — and its importance — within your org. This helps others understand what content strategy is, and why it should be funded as a part of their department. Remember: Good content strategy helps the entire organization work more efficiently, effectively, responsibly and most important, sustainably.

Sustainably?

As Erin Kissane wrote in “A Book Apart: The Elements of Content Strategy”: 

Sustainable content is content you can create — and maintain — without going broke, without lowering quality in ways that make the content suck, and without working employees into nervous breakdowns.

Don’t know about you, but tactics to help employees avoid nervous breakdowns sound like an easy win. 

After securing buy-in on the importance of creating and maintaining content strategy, it’s time to hammer out the strategy itself.

Step 2: Create your messaging architecture

Message architecture is vital to aligning communications efforts across an organization when building a content strategy. It also reflects the organization’s common vocabulary regardless of channel. 

So how do you build message architecture? 

  • Gather the key stakeholders involved in defining your communications initiatives
  • Organize the key terminology used to describe your brand
  • Think about your organization holistically
    • Who you are
    • Who you aren’t
    • How you would like to be perceived

Sounds easy enough, but let’s look at a brief example.

Moo.com case study

British company Moo.com likes to call themselves, “cheeky.” For those who don’t understand slang from our friends across the pond, it’s essentially a way of saying “naughty” but with a wink. Everyone within the organization — especially those who communicate on Moo.com’s behalf — understands what cheeky means in this instance, and how to convey that sentiment. Beyond that, Moo wants to be perceived as responsive, customer-oriented, approachable, helpful, and accessible. 

Both their cheekiness and their customer-centric approach are clear in everything they produce from their product collection to the lingo they use, their CTAs, photography, even their typeface. They take their “cheeky” image seriously — and project a fun and engaging brand identity as a result.

Additionally, Moo.com’s message architecture guides which comments to feature or respond to, the response’s tone, etc. As a result, their content and interactions remain unwaveringly on-brand and consistent with how the company wishes to be perceived.

Architecture works!

Step 3: Conduct a content audit

Before you can even begin to consider creating new content, you need to take inventory of what currently exists and assess whether it’s worth using (as-is, slightly revised, or completely overhauled) or if it’s better being archived. As you are building a content strategy ask yourself these questions:

Questions to ask about content sections

  • Who owns this portion of the site?
  • When was it last updated?
  • What is the purpose of this portion of the site?
  • What are the different types of content found there?
  • What templates are used for these content types or pages?
  • What taxonomy/tags are used in this section?
  • Is anything missing?

Questions to ask about the content

  • Is it current?
  • Is it relevant to its section?
  • Does it fit into the message architecture?
  • Is the quality worth keeping it in rotation?
  • How does it perform? (Analytics are your friend to determine if people like it!)
  • Does it need to be simplified?
  • What is the CTA?
  • Is it tagged appropriately (or at all)?

Some people consider content audits tedious, but they’re full of valuable information — especially when it comes to your overall content health. They can even be fun when you rediscover valuable content already in existence that could just use some slight updating. Hooray for easy lift wins!

Step 4: Implement a Content Curation Process

Once your audit is complete, you’ll have a better understanding of what high-quality content already exists. Now to fill in the gaps. The best way to do that is by establishing a content curation process.

Content curation processes help content marketers or community managers answer the following questions:

  • How can I engage with the audience?
  • What five things should be read first?
  • What gets me up to speed on the news?
  • What’s most important about this topic?
  • How can I improve the work I do?

Answering these questions can help you establish the tags needed for and the areas of the site in which the content actually makes the most sense.

Step 5: Own the strategy

It seems silly, but after completing the previous four steps, many organizations falter at the final step: Determining who actually owns the content strategy.

With no clearly identified owner, your content strategy becomes passive and ineffective. In short, it failed.

Like we said earlier, content strategy is a living thing — it should grow and change as your organization responds to industry influences, customer feedback, and matures. Even if your team doesn’t have a content strategist role, you need to choose your champion so your efforts aren’t wasted. 

Remember these tips when defining and conducting your organization’s content strategy, so you’re making the most of your content while communicating your brand’s message clearly and consistently. After all, a sustainable and well-defined content strategy not only steers the creation and development of new content but can strengthen your brand identity and help make connections in your community more meaningful and engaging.

Need more content strategy and content planning tips? Check out:

Building Effective Content Programs for Your Online Community
5 ways to plan effective content and programming for your online community
https://communityroundtable.com/best-practices/community-faq-how-can-i-build-effective-content-and-programs-for-my-online-community/
Archive: Five Tips for Planning Effective Content and Programming

5 ways to plan effective content and programming for your online community

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Our State of Community Management research has shown that 69% of community programs count content and programming in their community metrics, but only 6% of their budgets go to online community content and programming. Content and programs are the lifeblood of a successful community program. Content gives people a reason to visit (and return to) a community, while programs create opportunities for members to connect with one another. Content and programs need to reflect the shared value of community, and a program plan tied more closely to strategy can generate the most valuable engagement behaviors.

Despite the importance of consistent content and programs in a community strategy, a staggering 60% of respondents report at best they have “an informal schedule” for content and programs in their community. While responsiveness to short-term member needs is important, we recommend being intentional about your content and program plan and connecting it to your community strategy and annual roadmap.

Here are five ways to plan effective content and programming for your online community:

1 – It’s All About The Planning Our #1 advice? Create (and use!) editorial calendars. They don’t need to be complex, but even a simple editorial calendar helps to create a routine. Choose different options like content mediums, cadence, times, structures. This keeps things fresh but also helps you understand what works best for your community

Leave room for freeform content and programming. Sometimes people make spur-of-the-moment suggestions or an event is put together last minute. It’s important to leave room in your calendar for these so you’re not feeling overwhelmed and the community isn’t feeling crowded. It’s okay to have some empty days or weeks! In fact, we recommend it.

2 – Try, Adapt, And Try Again Be flexible with your ideas (easier said than done, we know!) You may love something but your members might not – and that’s ok. Don’t take a lack of interest personally, and be ready and willing to try something, edit your plan, try it again, and so on. Something not working at first doesn’t mean it’s a total loss – it’s just not the right fit at the time. Don’t give up, it often takes more than one try to get something to work, so keep trying

The hardest part of putting about a program you love but doesn’t get traction? Accepting defeat Not every programming idea will work, be okay with every community. Your ”failures” aren’t failures at all, but learning experiences to help you figure out what does and doesn’t work with your members.

3 – Meet Your Members Where They Are – This seems obvious, but we have to say it, “Talk to you members. And when they talk, LISTEN!” You (probably) are not psychic, so there is nothing wrong with asking them what they want. Make time for regular opportunities or touchpoints for members to request content or programs or make suggestions

When listening, keep accessibility in mind. No one knows who your members are and where they’re coming from (literally and figuratively) better than you. Are you working with a global community? Make sure you vary programming time zones understand holidays in different countries. Every community should consider accessibility for differently-abled members. Make sure you consider design for screen readers, sub-titles on videos, and transcripts as part of your content and programming planning.

4 – Show Me The Data – Almost every community platform has metrics for even the newest data consumer. Use this community data to guide tactical decisions. You may think didn’t work anecdotally, but make sure data backs that up It may surprise you and show you something that you didn’t know. An example would be a live program that low attendance, but high downloads or asynchronous views.

You should also use overall metrics to inform your content and programming ideas. What topics are your members focusing on? Use community metrics to glean insight into what would resonate with your members right now. If people are searching for “new member programs”, then creating content/programming around new member programs would be smart.

5 – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – The four points above are a lot. When getting started small steps are ok. Maybe you don’t need to have a full editorial calendar, so start with a quarterly outline. It’s important to make sure what you’re doing is scalable, so find others who can help!

Another easy win is finding ways to repurpose your own and SME’s content. Did someone lead a webinar? Post the recording in full and then edit it into clips that you can feature as standalone videos, blog post content, and in newsletters or on social. When you’re creating new content try to make sure at least some of your content is evergreen This means it won’t get stale or outdated and can be updated easily if needed. You want to have content you’ll be able to reuse at key moments/events or use repeatedly.

Our research shows community programs cultivate new behaviors that streamline workflows, connect members around the world, improve sentiment, and change the culture. They support broad communication and behaviors that apply to every individual and function across myriad use cases. Finding the right content and programming mix for your community may seem overwhelming, but you can use the five ideas above to plan effective content and programs that align with your strategic community goals.

Five Ways New Member Programs Impact Long-Term Engagement in Your Community

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One of the most consistent findings in our State of Community Management research is on the impact of new member programs in getting increased long-term engagement. It makes sense – having someone welcome you, give you some ground rules on behaviors, give you a tour of the community, etc., makes new members more comfortable, and you’re more likely to dip a toe in a new community if you have ideas for how to do it.

One of the hardest things to remember is that while the new member process can seem boring and rote to the person conducting it, to the new member it’s all brand new.

Luckily, automation has come a long way in the last few years, allowing even the smallest community team (we see you, lone wolves) to have a big impact on the way new members start their community journey with you.

Here are five ways you can make sure your new member onboarding process helps your audience feel connected to your community and set them up for long-term engagement.

1 – Create a member journey: Start at the very beginning by designing a welcome campaign for new members. What do you want them to know about your community? How do members typically engage with each other? What are the most common questions new members ask? You can use these questions to draft a series of emails that are easy to digest and help your new members get acclimated to the details of your community. Delivering the information in small, easy to act on, pieces makes sure they don’t get overwhelmed and give up.

Another easy way to help members learn the norms of your community is to create a sandbox or learning space within the community. Once you identify what behaviors you want to encourage in your community, you can design ways for new members to engage in low-stakes ways as they get started. This could include introduction threads, quick-start guides for filling out profile details, or gamified touchpoints for exploring the community itself.

2 – Personalize the experience: Even the largest communities can provide personalized experiences for new members. You can use automated emails to introduce yourself (and/or your community team) and make sure new members how they can get in touch with you. Smaller communities or communities with a low volume of new members can even offer personal calls. If it’s larger, offer group calls at regular intervals. Next: throw out the canned emails. While automation is your friend, the template emails that come with a lot of platforms don’t convey the tone and culture of your specific community. You can use platform templates, but make sure you rewrite them to match the tone and voice of your community. The goal is to make all emails and automated messages to feel like they’re coming from a real person: you!

3 – Nurture member growth Just because you planted the seeds doesn’t mean these new members will sprout into active, engagement users. One way to stay connected is through drip campaigns in email, the platform, or elsewhere to keep in touch with new members. Use these regular touchpoints to encourage key behaviors, engagement in certain content and programming, or give access to new areas as they progress through their community journey.

Alongside that automation, make sure you’re personally checking in. Make time (even if it’s just 15 minutes a week) to monitor and measure their engagement and reach out at regular intervals. We’ve found it’s helpful to set up a reoccurring 15-minute (or longer) block of time on your calendar to do personal outreach each week.

4 – Celebrate and feature new members It can be tempting (and often easier) to recognize long-term community members for their contributions, but highlighting new members is equally important. Consider content that will spotlight new members to the rest of the community so they can get to know each other. Another easy way to get new members in front of the whole community is to tag them in regular programming, like a weekly work-out-loud thread.

Another way to engage and encourage new members is to celebrate their “firsts” – first posts, first questions, first events, etc. You can use their ”firsts” as opportunities to connect, reinforce behaviors, and get feedback – and this can often be automated within your community platform.

5 – Involve your community in onboarding Use your advocates, champions, or veteran members as a “Welcome Wagon” that can reach out and connect with new members. This creates connections as well as identifies members who can help each other as peers. Make sure you, and your welcome wagon members are modeling the behavior you want to encourage. Have veteran members welcome, like, ask questions, share, etc. around new members and feature/encourage that behavior to model the ideal engagement in your community.

This is the one area where automation will be least helpful. You may need to backchannel and prompt members to help or connect with a new member. If a new member shares a question and people aren’t answering right away, reach out to a veteran member who you know will have a great answer and ask them to respond and tag another member to get a conversation started.

The goal of all new member programs is to set your members up for success in your community, and that is going to look very different depending on your use case, the size of your community, and your ideal engagement goals. You want new members to have good first experiences and see how to engage and get valuable interactions to make their time in your community rewarding.

Community Conversations – Episode #78: Stephanie Weiner

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Community Conversations is a long-running podcast highlighting community success stories from a wide variety of online community management professionals.

Episode #78 of Community Conversations features Stephanie Weiner Director, Digital Strategy & Engagement at the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).

We chat about converting digital skeptics, using a playbook to scale community initiatives, and replacing email with community programs to create evergreen knowledge bases online.

Listen now:

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Building Effective Content Programs for Your Online Community

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Content and programs are the lifeblood of a successful online community program. They are often seen as one collective entity, but they serve two different roles for communities. Content gives people a reason to visit (and return to) an online community, while programs create opportunities for members to connect with one another.

In previous editions of our State of Community Management research, we’ve noted that aligning your content and programs with your online community strategy is critical to becoming a best-in-class online community. Content and programs need to reflect the shared value of community, and a program plan tied more closely to your online community strategy can generate the most valuable member engagement behaviors.

Here are three ways you can use content and programs to improve your online community:

Integrate content and programs into your strategic online community plan

Despite the importance of consistent content and programs in a community strategy, a staggering 60% of respondents report at best they have “an informal schedule” for content and programs in their community. In the four years since we last asked this question the needle has barely moved in this area when 59% of respondents reported the same level of content and program planning. While responsiveness to short-term member needs is important, we recommend being intentional about your content and program plan and connecting it to your community strategy and annual roadmap.

Don’t go it alone – deputize your members, advocates, and peers!

One of the most consistent responses in the State of Community Management 2021 is that community managers need more resources. While we don’t doubt that this is the case in general, we’re enthused by their response to the challenge. They’re enlisting others, both in and outside the organization, to help with their community programs. While we’d love to see this happening more broadly, leaning on members, advocates, and peers in your organization to assist in producing or facilitating community programs is a best practice that needs to become more widespread. The fact that nearly 25% of respondents report no activity in this area suggests we still have a long way to go before this is a standard approach for community practitioners.

The beginning is a very good place to start


For the last few years, we’ve talked about the importance of new member onboarding programs and it sounds like you’ve listened. Respondents report that this is their top community program, with nearly 60% including them in the mix. Newsletters, virtual discussions, and virtual workshops and training (not surprising based on the pandemic) are also relatively common in this year’s sample. It’s interesting to look back to the last time we asked this question (2017) and compare the results.

We see no real increase in the prevalence of these programs in the collected responses, which shouldn’t be surprising given content and program planning clearly isn’t a priority for the majority of respondents (see above). But it is surprising given community programs are the single best way to introduce members to one another, develop trust, and participate in high-value engagement behaviors. We recommend you review this list of common community programs and consider adding them to your plan if they’re aligned with your overall strategy.

Need more ideas on how to improve your online community using content and programs? Check out this webinar with community leader Kelly Schott.

Want more strategies for global community building? Download the State of Community Management 2021.

Building effective content and programs for online communities

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If your technology is the venue, and your members are the party goers, then content and programming are definitely the snacks, music, and games that keep your online community party rolling.

In this webinar Kelly Schott shares five lessons we’ve learned from TheCR Network members about planning and managing effective content and programming in your online community.

Kelly’s five lessons include:

  • It’s All About The Planning​
  • Try, Adapt, And Try Again​
  • Meet Your Members Where They Are​
  • Show Me The Data​
  • Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Watch the archive here:

Find more community management webinars.

Peter Broadley on Effective Community Programs

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Conversations with Community Managers – Peter Broadley

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:

  1. What’s your best advice for someone just starting out in Community Management?
  2. What are your best practices for increasing community engagement?
  3. How to start a running club wherever you go!

Episode #52 features Peter Broadley, Manager, Community Development and Engagement at CSA Group.

Podcast: Conversations with Community Managers – Peter Broadley
Podcast: Conversations with Community Managers – Peter Broadley
Peter + TheCR Connect Run Club

Listen in as we chat about how Peter uses in-person events to drive online participation, how joining a working group has impacted his community and the innate ability of community managers to create meaningful interactions wherever they go. Oh, and if you’re in the Toronto area drop Peter a line and join his co-working group!

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Community Management Skills That Matter: Content

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Content: Ensuring the community is generating value

Community Managers place the highest relative value on content skills, although all three key roles give writing and communication high marks. Community managers’ content skills are focused on the development and production of community content and programs. At higher levels, those skills are less utilized, while being able to develop narratives and take a higher-level approach to how content fits
the overall story of the community becomes more relevant.

TRAINING OPPORTUNITY

Top training needs underscore the subtle but important difference between how managers, strategists, and directors of community view their work through the lens of content. Managers find communication planning, such as the management of content calendars, their most critical skill set for development. Strategists and directors say they most need training in developing the community narrative, which gives members and those in the organization an understanding of the community’s role and value through data and storytelling. More tactical skills like multimedia storytelling, graphic design, and SEO optimization had appeal across roles. They may be incredibly valuable for some team members but are not needed by everyone in a community team.

CLIMBING THE LADDER

Our research shows that if you can’t communicate, your future in community (and your present) is in serious jeopardy. But moving up from a manager role can take one of two routes. Developing a specialty in a specific skill, such as multimedia or SEO can make you a valuable (and hard to replace) team member and can be a selling point for someone seeking or moving into a strategist or community content expert role. Growing into a director role can mean not just understanding how to tell stories, but how to weave those stories together into a compelling narrative that demonstrates the value of and need to invest in a community program.

Want to learn more about critical skills for community managers?

Check out our Community Skills Framework and download our Community Careers and Compensation report.