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More Signal, Less Noise – The State of Community Management 2024

November 13, 2024 By Jim Storer

Welcome to the 15th edition of the State of Community Management research, brought to you by The Community Roundtable! We are thrilled to share this year’s research report – the State of Community Management 2024 with you.

When we first published the State of Community Management research in 2010 online communities were broadly used by internet pioneers, but community management was still an emerging discipline within organizations. This research and the related Community Maturity Model™ served as a framework for those nascent community professionals.

Fifteen years later, The Community Roundtable and the State of Community Management endure, supporting community practitioners with the insights, case studies, and recommendations they need to be successful in their community initiatives. We share trends from all respondents and a “best-in-class” cohort”, in order to help all programs level up.

state of community management 2024

There is considerable noise in the market and on the internet in general. This report aims to provide a strong signal for community practitioners, equipping them with the data and insights they need to secure support and resources for continued success.

Take your time with the report, making note of where your program differs from the survey average and/or the best-in-class, and use this information to inform your 2025 planning. Consider joining us in

The Network, where your community peers come together to support one another on their community journeys.

Download your copy for the State of Community Management 2024 here.

The State of Community Management 2020 Webinar Archive

June 15, 2020 By Jim Storer

The State of Community Management 2020 is the 11th edition of The State of Community Management research, the longest-running, and most comprehensive industry report for online community professionals. This webinar will explore top trends and key findings from the 2020 report.This year, online communities and digital engagement are taking on dramatic new relevance. We have made considerable progress in translating the generative business model of communities into financial benchmarks, which are critical for organizations as they consider using community approaches to transform their organizations. We can now communicate the generative creation of value in financial terms.This year’s three key findings:

  1. Advanced Communities Create Generative Value
  2. External Communities Elevate the Customer Experience
  3. Internal Communities Reveal Untapped Potential

This year we have added more comparison segments, which have revealed new insights and allow us to report how external, customer community programs are differentiating themselves and maturing more quickly than internal, employee community programs.

Note: Members of TheCR Network can watch the archive here.

Sign up to receive the webinar archive:

The State of Community Management 2018 Report: Communities Accelerate Organizational Transformation

May 22, 2018 By Rachel Happe

The State of Community Management 2018 is here and we could not be happier to share it with you. This ninth State of Community Management report includes data from 383 companies that represent a variety of industries as well as both internal and external communities.

This year’s research documents the success community programs are having and identifies a critical disconnect between that success and securing needed resources to realize the potential of community approaches.

Communities are key mechanisms that accelerate organizational transformation.

The impact of communities is broad and deep, addressing strategic, functional, and individual performance by making knowledge transparent and easy to access. Our research confirmed things we have seen anecdotally but have never been able to measure, namely:

  • Communities are change agents: Community programs impact multiple business objectives, functions, and individuals in organizations. They have immense potential to be agents of change by efficiently dispersing knowledge and information across organizations and their markets.
  • Communities create transformational value: Community programs show an average ROI that exceeds 2,000%. They enable behavior changes that directly impact profitability and revenue generation, while also having an overwhelmingly positive impact on brand and cultural sentiment.
  • Community teams are underfunded: Community professionals are burned out due to increasing success and responsibilities without the accompanying increase in resources and support. This has created strategic risk and limits the potential impact of communities.

Download the full report here.

Industry Interview: Dennis Shiao, DNN

May 21, 2014 By Jim Storer

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

dennis-shiao-headshot-croppedWe were able to publish the State of Community Management 2014 through the generous support of our sponsors. We are lucky enough to work with a number of partners in the community space that are helping advance the business of community, including DNN. Today I’d like to share an interview with Dennis Shiao, DNN‘s Director of Content Marketing .

Dennis is a contributing author to the book 42 Rules of Product Marketing and is Editor of the DNN blog. Feel free to reach out to Dennis via email, dennis.shiao@dnnsoftware.com or find him on Twitter, @dshiao.

Hi Dennis, can you start us off by telling me a little about DNN. How do you fit in the overall community market space?

We’re a marketing solutions (software) company based in the Bay Area, California. Our products and technology are the foundation for 750,000+ websites worldwide. In the online community market, what makes us unique is the tight integration between our Content Management System (CMS) and our online community solution.

Evoq Content (our CMS) and Evoq Social (our online community solution) sit atop the DNN Platform. When customers run our “suite” (Evoq Content+Social), their online community doesn’t need to sit on a separate subdomain. Instead, the online community and the website are one and the same. One user experience, one login (for end users) and one integration point to your back-end systems, such as CRM and marketing automation.

As a sponsor of the State of Community Management 2014, you clearly care about community. How do your customers typically use DNN to support their community business?

Our customers typically use our online community solution to solve a problem or to meet a business need. The specific use cases are varied. To start with, we often see customer communities, support communities and product communities (e.g. a community for a product’s end users to ask questions, solve problems and recommend product enhancements). We also have customers using Evoq Social for member communications (e.g. associations) and employee communications (e.g. sales intranet or sales extranet).

That’s a lot of use cases! It sounds like you support both internal and external communities?

Correct!

The SOCM 2014 shares insights through the framework of the Community Maturity Model. Of the eight community maturity competencies, which resonates with you as being most crucial?

Community Maturity Model

I view the eight competencies much like a parent sees their children: you try not to play favorites (and thankfully, I have less than eight children). But if you’re going to make me pick, I’m going to put my content marketing hat back on and select Content & Programming.

Sometimes with online communities, it becomes all too convenient to think that “user-generated content” will fuel the flames (of engagement) over the long term. Well, sometimes those flames start to die out and a little bit of kindling is needed to resuscitate it. That’s the role of content, as organized by the community manager. I wrote about this topic in a CMSWire article, “Online Communities Need a Spark? Turn to Original Content.”

We’d love to hear your take on some of the findings from the SOCM 2014 – what research surprised you the most?

The fact that internal communities have 33% more full-time community managers (on average) than external communities. I’ve always thought of internal communities as those that “managed themselves,” or were shepherded by a set of internal champions.

I’ve thought of external communities, on the other hand, as growing children who need a fair amount of supervision, direction and hand holding. Your research seems to show that the exact opposite is true: that external communities may be more effective at “self-management” (by its members), whereas the internal communities are ones that need a bit more hands-on management.

You mentioned that DNN provides a platform, a CMS and a community solution. How would you say DNN specifically supports community and social business professionals and helps them achieve their goals?

I’m responsible for content marketing at DNN, so my first answer is going to be “content.” In the past nine months, we’ve created a lot of content for community managers, in the form of blog posts, SlideShares, webinars, e-books and playbooks. Last year, we collaborated with TOPO on an Online Community Playbook, which was a popular resource for community managers.

At the same time, our products and services are well suited to community managers and business professionals. In the latest release of our online community software, we created a “Community Manager Experience,” a set of analytics dashboards that were uniquely designed for the community manager.

Last (but not least), we partner with leading organizations (like The Community Roundtable!) to collaborate around community management topics and research. We participate in online and face-to-face events as attendees, speakers and sponsors.

We talk a lot about company culture – what is something about DNN that makes it a unique place to work?

It’s the way in which disparate groups work and socialize so naturally with one another here. During my first month at DNN, we were at a social outing. I glance across the room and see our CTO and Co-Founder (Shaun Walker) casually chatting with three sales execs. At many companies, inter-group conversations don’t happen as naturally as they do here.

Also, we’re distributed geographically. Our main offices are in the Bay Area (headquarters) and in Langley, British Columbia (Engineering and Customer Success). But that doesn’t stop us from keeping everyone informed, because we use an internal community. We call our internal community “Catalyst.” My colleague Clint Patterson wrote about how it improved our internal communication.

We’d love to hear a case study about a client that uses DNN.

Microdesk, a leading information technology and software consulting provider, runs an online customer support community using Evoq Social. In the community, Microdesk customers are able to help one another. When needed, a member of Microdesk’s consulting team will jump in to help. Microdesk sees the community as not only a customer support channel, but one that builds thought leadership for its expert consulting team. It also drives higher customer retention.

Visit our website for more details from Microdesk.

If you were’t working at DNN what would you be doing?

I’d be the starting center fielder for the New York Yankees. Short of that, I’d be the Yankees beat writer for a New York newspaper.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given? It doesn’t need to be community related.

I had a third grade teacher (Mrs. Brannick) who encouraged us to go the extra mile. She did this by instituting an “Extra Credit Award,” which was given out a few times a year. Participation was optional. But I just HAD to win this award! So I worked hard and made sure to always do more extra credit than anyone else. Classmates started to ask me if I’d let them win just once. That early exposure (to working hard) helps drive me to go the extra mile, even today.

That’s such a great story! I bet Mrs. Brannick would be proud of you! One last question – we joke a lot that successful community professionals are like super heros. So, what’s your super power?

I have an unheralded sense of humor. You might spend an entire week with me and never see it, but then it’ll catch you during the moment you least expect it. Please laugh when it happens.

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We are also very excited to be co-hosting a webinar with Dennis and the DNN team focused on highlights from the State of Community Management 2014. Learn more:

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The Community Roundtable is pleased to work with some of the best names in community and social business. Interested in working with us? We’re always looking for unique partners across the community ecosystem. Drop us a line if you’d like to explore partnership opportunities.

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