SOCM 2014 Archives

What community metrics are most important to track?

March 24, 2015 By Jim Storer

By Shannon Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.

One of the most daunting tasks for many community managers is dealing with community metrics. A member recently approached us with the following question: “I’m getting started with tracking metrics for my community and looking for guidance – where do I begin? What metrics are most important to track?”

Like so many community issues there is no one-size fits all solution (probably not the response you wanted to hear!) We can tell you that through the State of Community Management 2014 report we found that 85% of best-in-class communities can measure the value of their community, so clearly measurement worthy goal. We’ve put together three best practices for getting a metrics and measurement program off the ground:

1. Ensure you have a clear and measurable strategy.

Almost 80% of best-in-class communities have a measurable community strategy. Why? That – more than anything else – will give you clear guidance on what to track by articulating the business goals and behavior change you hope to see.

2. Identify a consistent reporting timeframe.

About 60% of survey respondents prepare reports monthly. Reporting more often is likely a waste of time because behavior change takes time, but reporting monthly is often enough to get the feedback everyone needs to make adjustments to tactics.

3. Determine reporting audiences.

Think about who will be viewing your progress and goals. What story are you trying to tell them? Choose metrics that support the goals of your community and can be easily understood.

We also recommend both preparing monthly reports to track activity and sharing results with stakeholders and aligning your reporting with your community’s objectives to best engage your community stakeholders.

Do you consistently report on community metrics to your team? How did you decide what to report on, and how do you present this data in a meaningful way to your stakeholders?

Want more insights like these? Download the free State of Community Management 2014 report, and keep an eye out for the State of Community Management 2015, due out this spring!

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3 Best Practices for Creating Community Rules of Engagement

March 18, 2015 By Jim Storer

By Shannon Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.

Whether you’re starting from scratch with a brand new community, or working with a mature community that doesn’t have well defined programs and processes defining and managing community rules of engagement can be a struggle. We often get asked for a cheat sheet when creating these community rules.

While it’s hard to prescribe a single set of rules for engagement that make sense for different organizations, we put together three best practices for creating rules for engagement that make sense for any type of organization:

1. Define what success looks like.

Make an exhaustive list of everything you don’t want to see in the community – and everything you do want to see, including who participates and how. Be as specific as possible and include stakeholders in this brainstorming. Don’t be afraid to share this guide with your members!

2. Involve community members.

Communities with playbooks and mature policies are more likely to include members in strategic, tactical and policy related decisions. While the relationship between the two things is cyclical – getting members involved early can help drive policy maturity.

3. Develop enabling policies that encourage desired behavior.

Of the communities surveyed that can measure value, 67% have enabling policies. Think of these kinds of policies as a “to-do” list vs. just a list of restricted behaviors. Research shows that it doesn’t take years to develop mature policies and guidelines. 44% of communities that are only a year old have policies that promote positive behavior – and developing these policies early helps you shape and define your community culture before unwanted behaviors take hold.

Do you have a formal set of rules for engagement in your community? How did you go about defining these rules, and how do you actively share and manage these rules inside your community?

Want more insights like these? Download the free State of Community Management 2014 report, and learn more about how community managers approached this issue in The Community Manager Handbook: 20 Lessons from Community Superheroes.

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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.

Community Management Case Study: The Evolution of a Community Advocacy Program

February 3, 2015 By Jim Storer

One of the perks of being a member of TheCR Network is access to fresh community management programming every week. Our community manager, Hillary Boucher, does an amazing job of tracking down interesting and engaging case studies from every stage of the community journey.

This past year Hillary and members of TheCR Network sat down with Erica Kuhl and Matt Brown from Salesforce to discuss a case study of Salesforce’s MVP program. While I can’t share the whole Roundtable call with you here, there are three key best practices I wanted to share for building out a community advocacy or leadership program.

Note: Matt is also one of the case study participants in the Community Manager Handbook, which was released February 4.

If you don’t current have any formal community advocacy or leadership programs, they are something to consider for your to-do list: community advocacy and leadership programs correlate to overall community maturity, the number of full-time community managers, the ability to measure value, higher levels of executive participation, higher levels of product team and subject matter participation, more user-generated content, higher levels of conversation vs. content sharing and more robust community tools

1. When building a community advocacy or leadership program, avoid over-governing the program with too many policies at the beginning. In this case, Salesforce wanted to grow the program with their MVPs. As they started to grow and enlist new MVPs, they added policies, guidelines and expectations in tandem with the growth.

2. Understand from the onset of the program the plan to leverage your advocates. This is critical in order to guard against the advocates feeling used or abused. It also contributes to a successful transition from an informal to a formalized program.

3. Ensure the organization elicits the feedback of the top advocates in the creation of the program. If this group likes the program and has an opportunity to refine it, it will be accepted by the greater population of advocates.

Do you have a formal community advocacy or leadership program in your community? What tips would you add for someone starting on the ground floor with a new program?

We recently had a great discussion over at #ESNchat about how to make the most of community champion programs. You can check out the Storify from the chat here, or review the mini-deck for highlights from the five questions we discussed, which included:

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Looking for more case studies like this? Members of TheCR Network have access to weekly community management programming and our complete archive of over 200 expert-led sessions. Learn more about being a member in TheCR Network.

What’s the Big Idea About Community? A Look Back at The State of Community Management 2014

December 4, 2014 By Jim Storer

By Shannon Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.

We can hardly believe that 2014 is coming to a close. It’s been a big year here at TheCR – we released our fifth annual State of Community Management report, we launched a brand new research initiative in the Community Manager Salary Survey, and we introduced new services like the Community Performance Benchmark to help mature communities measure their value and plan for the future.

We also started sharing community content in new (and hopefully fun and engaging) ways.We launched the Community Manager Spotlight series, brought you weekly news and job roundups and shared nine fun facts from the State of Community Management via the SOCM Fact poster series. This last piece grew out of a member telling us she often prints out our research and blog posts and brings them to meetings with her to communicate the value of community with her executive team. We wanted to make it just a little bit easier for everyone to digest the big ideas in the SOCM 2014, and make it even easier to share community management data points with your colleagues.

We hope you found this poster series fun and informative. Below are all nine posters in case you’re doing a little end of the year cubicle redecorating, or wanted a nice framed gift for your community-loving boss!

Want even more community facts? Check out the full SOCM 2014 here:

The State of Community Management 2014 from The Community Roundtable

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Looking to take your career in community management to the next level? 92% of members agree that TheCR Network supports and advances their personal and professional goals. Learn how our research, access to peers and experts, targeted content and exclusive concierge service can help you achieve your goals.

Building a Community Roadmap

November 12, 2014 By Jim Storer

By Shannon Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.

We are excited to share with you a free eBook based on the findings in the State of Community Management 2014 report – Building a Community Roadmap. The State of Community Management 2014 research found that the best–in-class communities are more likely to be able to translate an approved strategy into realistic planning. As a result, 85 percent of them can measure their value, however building a roadmap can be a daunting task for any community manager. This new eBook answers the questions:

Why are community roadmaps important? First, we take a look at what a community roadmap is and its place in your community program. We’ll review how a community roadmap sets your community up for success, along with actionable advice about aligning priorities, communicating value and organizing planning in your community programs.
What is the Community Maturity Model?
Next, we’ll review the Community Maturity Model as a framework for productive communities. We also consider the elements of a productive community in order to help you start, build and grow a productive online community
How do I build a roadmap using the Community Maturity Model?
Lastly, we’ll give you some examples, templates and instructions for building a roadmap for your community. You’ll be able to use these provided resources to get started on drafting your community’s roadmap today.

This eBook, Building a Community Roadmap, is sponsored by Enterprise Hive. You can download the eBook for free today!

Building-Community-Roadmap-ebook Download

Do I need a community playbook?

October 16, 2014 By Jim Storer

By Shannon Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.

If you’re just getting started in community management you might find your self asking “why isn’t there a how-to manual I can consult?” Of course there are tons of great resources on the internet (from places like CMX Hub, FeverBee, SocialFish and of course right here at TheCR) – but sometimes it would be nice to just reach over and grab a community playbook.

For most best-in-class communities this isn’t just a dream. Through the State of Community Management 2014 research we found that 85% of best-in-class communities have a community playbook already.

Community playbooks are hallmarks of mature community programs.

In addition to enabling policies, best-in-class communities are more likely to document organizational standards for community management in community playbooks. Best-in-class communities are more than twice as likely to have playbooks as the average community. We have found that comprehensive community playbooks act as enablers to scale community management responsibilities.

Creating a Community Playbook

If you don’t already have a community playbook it can seem like a daunting undertaking. Our friends at Enterprise Hive shared five great tips for getting started. Tips include understanding that the playbook is meant to be an organic document and ensuring that the playbook structure has flexibility. Check out the whole post here for a great outline on how to get started.

You can review more findings related to community maturity in the State of Community Management 2014. This post is part of a series highlighting some of the most thought-provoking data from the SOCM 2014 – brought to you via a fun poster – perfect for sharing on Twitter, hanging at your desk, or printing out and waving around your next community strategy meeting.

Want even more community facts? Check out the full SOCM 2014 here:

The State of Community Management 2014 from The Community Roundtable

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Infographic: Drive Success with Basic Executive Coaching

September 22, 2014 By Jim Storer

This is a guest post by Dennis Shiao, our partner at DNN Software. You can learn more about DNN here.

According to the State of Community Management 2014 report from The Community Roundtable, members are more engaged in communities with executive participation. In fact, communities with executive participation see 42% of members actively participate, while those without executive participation see only 37% active.

EXECUTIVES ARE NATURAL COMMUNICATORS

Think about typical executives: they’re transparent, they’re strong communicators and they lead by example. Sounds like a killer combination for a community member, right? Yes. That being said, just like the CEO who needs some “101 training” before she joins Twitter, executives will need coaching on rules, conventions and guidelines for online community participation.

Have your community manager(s) sit down with executives to provide coaching around the following.

1) SHARE CONTENT AND PROVIDE FEEDBACK

Executives are used to commanding the ship and speaking to large audiences. Their first inclination may be to write lengthy posts, to share their thoughts with the community. While there’s certainly a time and place for that, the first step is to navigate through the various areas of the community and provide feedback.

The analogy is the President who walks through a neighborhood and shakes everyone’s hand. Executives should actively share content they find interesting. They should also provide feedback in the form of liking posts and up-voting ideas.

2) BLEND IN WITH THE CROWD

At an in-person gathering, it may be difficult for the company CEO to blend in with the crowd. It’s easier in an online community. Executive participation is more effective when executives are perceived to be “one of us” and engage naturally and organically with other members. By engaging naturally, executives will gain the respect of community members and they’ll encourage non-active members to become active.

3) PERFORM ACTIVE LISTENING

Some executives have an open door policy. Others hold “town hall meetings” to engage with employees. Executives value employee feedback. An online community brings together the best elements of an open door policy and a town hall meeting. But for it to work well, executives need to visit the community often and do a good job of active listening.

4) PROVIDE AN OFFICIAL COMMENT WHEN NEEDED

An executive has the authority to provide an official answer (from the organization) when needed. In an employee community, perhaps there’s angst over rumored layoffs. An executive can issue an official statement about that. In a customer community, member unrest may unfold over a pricing increase. An executive can publish a blog post to explain the company’s reasoning behind the pricing change.

AN INFOGRAPHIC ON COACHING EXECUTIVES FOR ENGAGEMENT

The Community Roundtable created an infographic. It includes interesting statistics on the benefits of executive participation. You’ll also find tips on how to coach executives around online community participation.

Infographic-Executives and Online Communities_Final

This post was originally published at https://www.dnnsoftware.com/blog/executive-participation-in-online-communities-drive-success-with-basic-coaching-infographic.

How can I get lurkers to participate?

September 4, 2014 By Jim Storer

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

No matter how much strategy building and content planning you do there are still going to be lurkers hanging out in your community, not contributing. The big question is: how do I convert those lurkers into engaged community participants? While there are no silver bullets for community engagement, the SOCM 2014 did uncover a number of strategies for increasing engagement and reducing the percentage of lurkers.

For example: we found that community advocacy and leadership programs had one of the most significant positive correlations with community engagement in this research– lurker rates for communities with multi-tiered leadership programs were 54%, compared to the survey average of 63%. Of course developing, launching and maintaining an advocacy program is a serious (though very worthwhile) undertaking.

For a more immediate impact try hosting a regular events series – online or offline. We found communities that host offline events have a lurker rate of 56%, and communities that host regular online events have a lurker rate of 57%. Not only did both types improve on the survey average of 63%, but regular events also boost active participation, increase networking and contribute to an overall feeling of goodwill in the community. You might start small with a regular chat, happy hour, new member meet-and-greet or a program more specifically tailored to your community. It’s not the type of events you pick that matter, as long as you’re picking the types of events that make sense for your community.

Do you currently run regularly scheduled online or offline events? We’d love to hear what works for you!

Want even more community facts? Check out the full SOCM 2014 here:

The State of Community Management 2014 from The Community Roundtable

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Industry Interview: Vicki Tambellini, Enterprise Hive

July 14, 2014 By Jim Storer

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

As part of our ongoing series of expert interviews we’re excited to bring you excerpts from a chat wehad recently with Vicki Tambellini – President and CEO (and Founder!) of Enterprise Hive. Vicki shares some background on what’s happening at Enterprise Hive, shares some passionate words about her role and some inspiring advice. Let’s get started!

Tell us about Enterprise Hive. How do you fit in the overall community market space?

Enterprise Hive is a technology leader in social business software that serves higher education and the business/corporate markets with a social community platform. Our mission at Enterprise Hive is to be innovative in order to help institutions and organizations focus on improving communications and engagement with internal and external stakeholders in order to achieve their goals. These goals can be anywhere from improving student retention to delivering improved customer service.

To “fit” in the community market space, we knew that we needed to deliver a software as a service social community platform that reduced the burden of IT support which is why the functionality of HiveSocial, our social business platform is 100% configurable.

We also knew that we needed a full suite of dynamic collaboration tools and apps. HiveSocial is complete with all of the social collaboration tools you would expect in an online community. So we developed a full suite of collaboration and communication apps such as blogs, forums, chat, activity streams, wikis, document management as well as a gamficiation platform that can boost participation, as well as track and reward activities. And we wrapped it all up with a library of API’s.

HiveSocial now in its 5th major release is available as a cloud-based saas solution for a number of business processes where “social” significantly contributes to student outcomes as well as improving business workflows. We offer solutions for higher education that transforms an institution into a social campus. HiveSocial for Higher Education is the engagement platform for any college or university that needs to improve workflows, boost rates for attracting, recruiting and retaining both online and on campus students as well as engaging and improving communications among faculty and staff. In addition, we also have solutions for Customer Service, Sales and Marketing and Innovation which we call Product Lifecycle Management.

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

Actually we like to refer to our customers as partners because they traditionally have the same goals that match our mission. They are innovative and want to improve the communications with all of their stakeholders in order to transform business processes and services .

The number one reason we refer to our customers as partners is because we measure our success based upon their success not just by meeting the launch date but after- in the post launch stage. We work with each of our customers one-on-one to provide them with best practices and guidance so that their communities become as the 2014 report refers the “best in class” internal and external communities.

We have customers who are using HiveSocial for customer support with peer-to-peer collaboration and to deepen company/customer relations. . We have other customers who are using HiveSocial as a membership engagement platform to keep their members connected. We also have customers who use HiveSocial to manage projects and software implementations across geographically disbursed campuses.

Do you support internal and/or external communities? Both?

To truly transform into a social business or social campus, the organization or institution must embrace internal and external communities while still providing a single user experience. That is why when we developed HiveSocial, we designed our platform with the security and authentication protocols that would support both internal and external communities.

Our approach was to design the platform so that the management of hundreds of thousands of users and the complexity of access roles a user might have within different groups or internal and external communities would be simple, streamlined, easy to manage and deliver a consistent look and feel.

We totally agree about companies embracing all types of community while optimizing user experience! How does Enterprise Hive support community or social business professionals? Through products? Services? Events?

As community managers of our own site, edu1world.org, we not only recognize but have a deep appreciation for the role of a community manager and social business professionals. Without these critical roles many social communities would not be in existence today. For some of our customers the role of community manager or even project manager of a HiveSocial implementation is new. Therefore, we include consulting and share best practices in our implementation services as well as ongoing consultation after a community has gone live. We also look for other ways to support social business professionals such as becoming a sponsor of The Community Roundtable.

Of the eight community maturity competencies, which resonates with you as being most crucial?

When I look at the community maturity competencies, I see each competency as equal in importance. To remove one would be a domino effect and a disaster for community success. Each of the competencies is valuable and necessary and builds upon each other.

I love that answer – we have a hard time picking, too. It’s like choosing our favorite child! We’d love to hear your take on some of the findings from the SOCM 2014 – what research surprised you the most?

What I found the most interesting in the findings in SOCM 2014 report was that the competencies matched key components that Enterprise Hive has been addressing with our customers since we launched our first community in 2010. Specifically it takes more than just a solid, feature rich platform which Enterprise Hive has but also the support and commitment of the C-Level executive, a roadmap and of course the community manager or manager(s) . These are the critical components to become a “best in class” online community.

I was also pleased to see the growth in online communities that are reporting that they are able to show measurable value. This has been a roadblock for the acceptance of many online communities.

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

Enterprise Hive values the contributions of each member of our team. The core team is comprised of highly experienced software and service professionals who are not afraid to roll up their sleeves to get a job done, Especially when it comes to responding to customer requests and delivering the highest quality software. I am always so proud to boast how our product does not have a list of outstanding defects.

We’d love to hear a case study about a client that uses Enterprise Hive to solve a community challenge.

We are just getting ready for IDC to release a case study on one such customer and I don’t want to upset my VP of Marketing by giving away any information at this time! LOL We will send it to you as soon as it comes out and you can share it with the TheCR community.

Sounds great – we’ll look forward to it. If you weren’t working at Enterprise Hive what would you be doing?

I am right where I want to be and it is impossible to think about being anywhere else. I have been on this mission since I left PeopleSoft to help people in their jobs and personal lives ( which as we see with social media is quickly becoming difficult to separate.) My passion is to make a significant impact on the way that individuals communicate and share information and with Enterprise Hive the door of opportunity is opening wide.

It’s very inspiring to hear you talk about your job with such passion! Now it’s your turn to inspire us: what’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given? It doesn’t need to be community related.

Do the right thing, even if nobody is watching.

Ok, final question, and a TheCR favorite: what’s your superpower?

I don’t like to think of myself as having superpowers but if I had to come up with something, I believe that it is about being able to create an environment where people with different skills and experience can come together to work for a common or greater good. I see this in my team at Enterprise Hive and all of the great things we are accomplishing.

Oh, I love that – maybe your superhero name is EmpowermentWoman?! Thanks so much for taking the time to chat with us about Enterprise Hive and all the interesting work you’re doing.

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Have you taken the Community Manager Salary Survey 2014 yet? Your insights into your role are invaluable as we document and define community manager best practices across industries. The survey is short (15 minutes) and we’d love to hear from you. Take the survey now.

Do I Need a Community Strategy?

July 10, 2014 By Jim Storer

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

You’ve heard that practice makes perfect, but what about planning? In our State of Community Management 2014 research we found that the foundation of a successful community really is the presence of a well-defined strategy- one that integrates social tools and methods with business goals and processes. A good community strategy also aligns an organization’s goals with member needs setting you up to succeed in both keep engagement high and provide ROI.

72% of communities surveyed indicated that they have an approved community strategy, a sure sign that organizations understand how to justify a community approach. However, of that 72%, only 40% of those strategies are operational and measurable. In best-in-class communities, 100% have an approved strategy and 79% have strategies that are operational and measurable – an indicator of why best-in-class communities are twice as likely to be able to measure value.

You can review more findings related to community maturity in the State of Community Management 2014. This post is the fourth in a 10-part series highlighting some of the most thought-provoking data from the SOCM 2014 – brought to you via a fun poster – perfect for sharing on Twitter, hanging at your desk, or printing out and waving around your next community strategy meeting.

You can view Fact #01, Fact #02 and Fact #03 or download the whole report today. If you are particularly interested in community strategy insights jump to page 26 of the Report.

The State of Community Management 2014 from The Community Roundtable

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