The Community Roundtable

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

Community Starts with P

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By Ted McEnroe, Head of Research at The Community Roundtable.

That’s P as in people. Anyone with a history in community can tell you that investing in people can have a major impact on your community performance. But when you look at the data from the State of Community Management 2015 survey, it’s a message that hasn’t been universally received.

The top level numbers are promising, though. 88% of out best-in-class communities, and 72% of respondents overall have a full-time community manager. And of the remaining 28%, only a handful had no one managing the community at all (the rest had part-time staff). That does mean a not insignificant number of communities are still paying tens of thousands of dollars for community platforms and then not investing in getting people who run them – but it is a sign that we are getting past the “if you build it, they will come” stage of community investment.

SOCM2015 Community Staffing

But there’s a second level to investing in those who run your community – and that’s investing in training and development of your community professionals. Again, a wide majority of communities invest in training for their community teams, but a quarter of communities with full-time community managers said they paid for no community manager training in the past year. That number was surprisingly consistent for communities across platforms, use cases, community sizes and industry, meaning massive customer communities on expensive, powerful platforms were about as likely to go through the year without training as those in smaller, less platform intensive communities.

There were two notable exceptions. Communities with formal advocacy programs were also more likely to provide training for the community team. And Stage 3 communities were far more likely to invest in training their community team than Stage 1 communities – 85% to 48%. Want to get your community to grow and mature? The research suggests investing in your community team is a powerful way to go.

Want to invest in your community’s potential? TheCR Network provides professional development opportunities for hundreds of community professionals year-round. Learn more at https://communityroundtable.com/TheCRNetwork.

Want to get new community members off to a good start? Be human.

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By Ted McEnroe, The Community Roundtable

A few weeks ago, I had the chance to talk with members of TheCR Network about Best Practices in New Member Programs. It was a great, member-driven sharing of ideas and approaches to using welcome programs as an opportunity to begin getting members involved and contributing to your community.

The discussion was for TheCR Network members only, but in preparation for it, I took a look again at the data we collected for the State of Community Management 2015 report, where we singled out new member programs as one of the “quick wins” you could take advantage of to improve engagement in your community.

Screen Shot 2015-07-10 at 3.30.21 PMIn the SOCM, we note that not only do communities that have new member programs get higher engagement levels than those without, we note that there are a few new member approaches that get the highest engagement levels – personal emails, video tours and welcome calls. (Click here to download the SOCM and see the charts.)

Looking at the survey responses, I noted that easily reproduced/automated items like Getting Started guides and automated welcome letters were the most common elements of welcome programs, while other items like welcome calls, video tours and personalized emails were less common.

But interestingly, I noticed something else. It was those less common tactics that correlated with a much higher rate of engagement and member content creation.

As I looked at it– it struck me that in every general instance, the more human the approach, the more successful it was. Note that human doesn’t have to mean personal. Personal is important, and personal outreach can be powerful – especially with executives and other key stakeholders whose needs and perspective are uncommon or unique. What human means is that the more the approach connects with the audience as individuals, and the better it is at presenting the community as a human entity, the greater the engagement.

Some examples:

Personal emails beat automated emails: Why? You know my name!

Personalizing an email in this day and age isn’t a heavy lift. With templates, smart email programs and more, making an email somewhat personal is very easy. Adding a human element of your own, if you can, is even better – and personalized emails outshine the automated in terms of community engagement.

Video welcome tours beat getting started guides: Why? I see your face.

The getting started guide is a great tool, and it may be necessary reference material for community members. But even the best of them aren’t likely to inspire me as a new member to say, “OMG, I totally want to be a part of that community!” What might? Seeing a human face telling me about the features of the community and what makes it a valuable place. Now, even before I get started, I can picture what a member looks like. (Also a reason why getting members to post profile pictures has good value.) Presumably, I join communities to connect with people, not use architecture, so it makes sense that seeing those people increases the likelihood I’ll engage.

Welcome calls beat welcome webinars: Why? I connect with you.

There is an asterisk here – in that a well-crafted webinar can create interaction, too. But in general, a canned webinar for new members cannot replace an actual human being calling them. There are practical reasons why this won’t work for every community, but if you think about it, there’s nothing that drives home that your community is run by actual people like letting new members speak with one of them.

Not to mention that there is no better way to get to know your community members than to, umm, personally get to know your community members.

The research shows there is no magic bullet for new members – and communities should mix and match their methods to fit their needs. But in general, when thinking about how to get new members connected to the community – the approach is simple.

Put a human face on it.

Community playbooks

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By Ted McEnroe, Head of Research, The Community Roundtable

If you’ve played team sports for any period of time, you’ve probably had the need to learn plays – and with good reason. No matter how strong your individual skills, knowing what you and your fellow team members can and should be doing in a given situation gives you a leg up on your competition. Knowing your plans ahead of time means you can focus on executing.

The playbook in a community context isn’t that different. A well-thought out community playbook gives the members of your community team a sense of their options in various scenarios. How do you manage standard problems? How do you hold a consistent tone with your community? How do you handle a crisis situation? These are all critical questions, and you want the answers to be the same for every member of the team. So, it may surprise you to know that the majority of communities in the State of Community Management 2015 survey don’t have playbooks.

Just about a third of communities in the survey had playbooks, and not all playbooks are created equal. While the vast majority of all communities with playbooks were likely to include things like community objectives, metrics and measurement, general instructions and participation guidelines, our group of Best-in-class communities were not only more likely to have playbooks, but to use them to capture and share escalation policies, content management guidelines and crisis response plans.

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Does your community need a playbook? Not always, and not immediately. If you’re a lone wolf community manager, you may not have much of an audience for a playbook. And if your community is just starting and still evolving, maybe it’s not yet the right time.

But at some point, a playbook makes perfect sense. TheCR looked at playbook development as part of the State of Community Management 2014 and 2015 research, as well as in the Community Manager Handbook. You can even check out this this post to help you decide whether you need a playbook and how to get started.

Real rewards for community advocates

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By Ted McEnroe, The Community Roundtable

Where’s your college diploma?

If you’re like most people, it’s hanging on an office wall, sitting in a drawer, or stuck in the back of a closet. It’s nice to have, but the recognition that you graduated from the University of Western Maine or Generic Ivy U. in itself doesn’t do that much for you.

What works for you are the things you learned, the connections you made, the way it taught you to think – the things with real value. It’s great to be recognized as a graduate, but it’s your college experience, not your diploma, that you remember – and that makes you more likely to give back to your alma mater.

The same is true in your community.

Your top community advocates and contributors might welcome recognition and rewards, but the State of Community Management 2015 research finds that best-in-class communities do a better job of giving their advocates rewards with real business value – such as early access to products and access to the community team or executives.

That’s not to say recognition and badges don’t matter – they are a valuable way to say thank you, and let others in the community see the people you count on to contribute, giving others someone to emulate and see as the leaders you want them to be. Being an advocate takes time and effort, however, and to make advocates a valued part of the community, make sure you are giving them real value in return.

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Community advocacy programs are a major focus of the State of Community Management 2015, and a regular topic in TheCR Network. Thought about joining? Learn more at communityroundtable.com/TheCRNetwork.

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Want to contribute to our next round of research? Get involved!

Investing in new community members pays off

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By Ted McEnroe, The Community Roundtable

You walk into a restaurant. There are people dining, chatting, having a good time – and there’s an empty table, but there’s no one there to greet you, seat you or give you a menu.

Do you stay?

You might, or you might leave. Either way, it’s not a comfortable first impression.

Turns out that what holds true for restaurants holds true for online communities as well. The State of Community Management 2015 survey finds that communities with programs to welcome new community members are more likely to have lower rates of inactive users and more user-generated content than communities that don’t welcome new folks in.

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We highlighted setting up new member programs one of our quick wins for improving engagement, and giving them a more human face – through custom welcomes, calls or video, for example – can drive up new members’ future engagement even more. They don’t take a huge investment of time, and they are in most cases easily scalable.

And the payoff is noteworthy – communities with new member programs had about 20% more active members, according to our survey respondents – and they scored 10 points higher on our user engagement scale, which estimates the relative contributions of members and the organization in a community.

But enough of my talking – someone is standing in your doorway. Go say hello and show them around.

Each new member of TheCR Network gets a welcome call when they join. Learn more about TheCR Network and how it can help you advance your community by visiting communityroundtable.com/TheCRNetwork

State of Community Management 2015 Monday Fact #3: Strategic Investment

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By Ted McEnroe, The Community Roundtable

As more and more organizations join the community bandwagon, what separates the best from the rest? In part, it’s that the best communities are integrated into their organization’s overall strategy.

The State of Community Management 2015 report finds that best-in-class communities demonstrate a commitment to making community more than just a tool in the toolbox – they make strategic investments in community that align with broader business goals.

SOCM2015_FunFact3_BICStrategicInvestment

Among the evidence:

  • Best-in-class communities were more than twice as likely to have developed a measurable community strategy (85% to 37% overall)
  • 90 percent of best-in-class communities track activity as it relates to the community strategy (versus 53% overall)
  • More than 70 percent of best-in-class communities align their content strategy and/or program calendars with their community strategy – fewer than half of communities overall did that.

Proving the value of your community to the larger organization gets much easier when you take an intentional approach to integrating the community strategy with larger business objectives, and when you collaborate with key stakeholders. You are more likely to find alignment opportunities, and it makes it easier for you to put your community successes in a context that resonates with the broader business.

Need strategies for integrating your community approach to other pieces of your organization? TheCR Network and its member resources are a good place to start! Learn more about membership here.

The State of Community Management 2015 – What’s Next?

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By Ted McEnroe, The Community Roundtable

SOCM 2015It’s been a busy three weeks since we released The State of Community Management 2015. We are pleased with the reaction we’ve gotten to the research – already thousands of people have shared and downloaded it. (If you aren’t one of them, you can fix that by downloading it here.) But while we see this report as an annual milestone, we also see it as a stepping off point for much more. For us, it helps shape the activities we plan for the next 12 months by highlighting the areas of growth and opportunity for the field of community management. Members of TheCR Network tell us that they highlight, dog-ear and re-read it because it is a critical piece of research for them, too. They use this research to:

  • Gain strategic perspective on their work
  • Prioritize their time and resources
  • Identify tactical gaps
  • Plan for and make the case to invest in more strategic initiatives
  • Validate their progress and plans with stakeholders

Today, we held the first in a series of programs we are planning inside TheCR Network – on topics ranging from building stronger welcome processes to advocacy program development to exploring how to define the shared value of community not just in individual communities but across them in an organization. We’d love to have you join TheCR Network and get access to those conversations. But it’s just one of the ways you can continue using the research.

In addition to reading the report, these additional resources will help you distill the research and see what others have found interesting:

There is more to come – you’re already seeing what will be three months of Monday Facts from the report to highlight some key findings, and there will be other posts as well. And get ready – the next iteration of the Community Manager Salary Survey is right around the corner!

Haven’t taken the State of Community Management 2015 survey? it’s not too late! If you would like to compare yourself to the research, you can get get your scores for the eight competencies by taking the survey here. It should take you about 20 minutes.

Community Empowerment

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By Ted McEnroe, The Community Roundtable

In The State of Community Management reports, we refer frequently to “Best in Class” communities. From a statistical standpoint, we are referring to the communities that scored in the top 20% overall in the State of Community Management survey (which you can still take here to get your score).

Looking at the data, we found the best communities had a number of common features that help make them more successful. We highlight some of those general elements in the report, and note them in our Monday facts.

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How do best-in-class communities achieve community empowerment? Three examples:

  • They prioritize new members: Nearly 90% of best-in-class communities have new member welcome programs, versus just 54% of communities overall.
  • They empower member advocates: Nearly half of best-in-class communities have multitiered advocacy programs, meaning they place a high priority on identifying and serving their most active constituencies, often with programs that give these informal leaders access to information and executives in exchange for their efforts on behalf of the community.
  • They involve members in planning: More than 80% of best-in-class communities get members involved in their community planning, helping to ensure that the community represents the values of the organization and the members – a key part of community maturity.

The result is more vibrant communities with greater member engagement – the best-in-class group has more active members, and a greater level of member contributions, a sign that members feel ownership over the community.

Once upon a time, the thought was that if you built it, they would come. best-in-class communities know they will come, but only when you welcome them, include them in running the community and help them realize real rewards for their efforts in the community.

Looking for ways to learn best practices in community management in a safe, open environment that reflects those practices? We’d love to have you join TheCR Network, our professional network for the best community professionals. Learn more at https://www.communityroundtable.com/TheCRNetwork.