state of community management Archives

Friday Roundup: Community Manager Appreciation, Respect, and Job Searching

January 23, 2015 By Ted McEnroe

By Ted McEnroe, The Community Roundtable

In case you haven’t heard – Monday, January 26 is Community Manager Appreciation Day. We’ve talked a lot about our CMAD events in Boston, New York, Atlanta, Milwaukee and Washington, DC, and if you still want to get in before the tickets are all gone, you should probably click on this link to claim one. (It will open in a new window. We’ll wait.)

Having done that, you should know that there is a lot more to CMAD than just T-shirts, balloons, stickers and food and drink. There is the annual 24-hour Hangout, which includes an hour hosted by our own Hillary Boucher, who will be joined by TheCR Network members Patrick Hellen, Kirsten Laaspere and Melissa Potvin, as well as yours truly, to discuss The Power of Programs to Drive Engagement in Your Community. It’s a topic Hillary and I have discussed with each other on a number of occasions, and it is the focus of her section of The Community Manager Handbook: 20 Lessons from Community Superheroes, which comes out in another week (although we will have excerpts at our CMAD events.) Content and programs are like the fuel and air mixture in a car engine – without the right mix, you just won’t get going.

We have a lot of other CMAD elements to mention – the launch of this year’s State of Community Management research, the release of the Handbook – but we’ll get to those Monday.

Our other major element of the week was a bit of a headache – we had some major website issues that basically drove us to a new host by Wednesday night – so you may have missed a couple of other posts. I followed up on Rachel’s CMSWire article, Customer Communities: Strategy or Tactic, with a more personal account one here about one industry that seems not fully ready to understand in this day and age that the relationship now comes before the transaction – and how that affects how you treat customers.

And Shannon provided another piece of research from the Community Manager Salary Survey, which reminds us that another important set of relationships – your professional ones – are far more valuable than your ability to find and respond to ads if you’re seeking that next Community Manager job.

Now on to some other great reading.

Some Other Interesting Readings This Week

Why Online Community Managers Don’t Get the Respect They Deserve (And What You Can Do About It) – It is important to point out that no one is denying the enormous impact having a community manager in place has on creating healthy and growing online communities. In their annual report on, “The State of Community Management,” The Community Roundtable found that having a dedicated community manager clearly led to higher community maturity. So, in an age when community managers are growing in demand, how can you prove your value? The answer is rooted in understanding that online communities must serve a bigger purpose for a company than simply bringing people together.

Can Forum Communities Compete with Facebook and Twitter? – In the heyday of ‘online discussion boards’ – when you really could just build it and they would come – the humble forum stood unchallenged when it came to social networking. Then suddenly, along came a whole new concept in online networking led by Facebook, the new kid on the block that everyone wanted to be friends with.

The Never Ending Quest to Dethrone Email – Build a better mousetrap, as the cliché has it, and the world will beat a path to your door. That line of thinking has even been applied to the most rudimentary corners of the technology world: standards and protocols that have stuck around for decades, yet viewed as creaky and badly in need of replacement. But few old-guard standards have seen as many pretenders to the throne as the SMTP/POP3/IMAP email triumvirate has. If only someone could come up with an alternative that did everything email did but better, more securely, and with less hassle, wouldn’t it be worth it?

New Community and Social Media Jobs

Community Management Fellow (Paid) – The Community Roundtable, remote

Research Fellow (Paid) – The Community Roundtable, remote

Sales/Marketing Fellow (Paid) – The Community Roundtable, remote

Director of Content Strategy – Electronic Arts, Redwood City, CA

Digital Community Manager – Collabera, New York, NY

Community Manager – Sysomos, San Jose, CA

Communications Officer, Community Management – Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, WA

Community Manager – Kabbage, Atlanta, GA

Startup Community Manager – MassChallenge, Boston, MA

Community Manager – BSC Solutions, Neenah, WI

Community Manager – BMW Impact Ventures, Woodcliff Lake, NJ

B2C Social Media Content Manager – Move, Inc., San Jose, CA

Community Manager and Marketing – SeeClickFix, New Haven, CT

Communications and Community Manager – Children of Domestic Violence, New York, NY

Community Managers Matter

December 18, 2014 By Jim Storer

By Shannon Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.

If 2014 had a theme at TheCR it might have been “Community Managers are important.” I know – it seems obvious, and if you are reading here then chances are you too think that community managers are important, but time and time again this year we’ve uncovered research, or heard a case study that once again proves the value of community management and good community managers.

Despite progress in understanding the discipline of community management over the years, far too many communities are still without any dedicated community management resources. However, the truth is, community managers matter – they impact the engagement, ability to measure value and the maturity of the community. For anyone hoping to get business value from a community, appropriately resourcing community management staff should be a priority.

Do you work in a community that prioritizes the importance of dedicated community management? Have you found that dedicated community managers make it easier to measure the value of your organization’s community? We’d love to hear from you!

You can review more findings related to community management 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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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

Industry Interview: Dennis Shiao, DNN

May 21, 2014 By Jim Storer

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

We 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?

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.

Infographic: 2014 SOCM Sneak Peek – April 1st

April 1, 2014 By Jim Storer

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

After sharing our sneak peek podcast yesterday I knew that I had to give you an early look at the numbers. Rachel mentioned some key findings in the podcast – I’m not going to share those, but I am excited to share a little more about what the 2014 research said about community managers.

Download the infographic to share: 2014 SOCM Infographic- April 1st

Happy April 1st everyone! We’ll be releasing the actual State of Community Management research report later this month – stay tuned and have a great day!

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Call for Research Participants: 2014 State of Community Management

January 21, 2014 By Maggie Tunning

It’s that time of year again! Today we’re excited to kick off the 2014 State of Community Management research – our annual research initiative which focuses on community maturity assessment and will explore the questions:

How are communities performing?
What are the standards and strengths of online communities today?
What opportunities should community managers focus on to grow their programs?

This year’s research was developed in collaboration with TheCR Network’s Community Maturity Assessment Working Group, a set of experienced community managers and practitioners. Data will determine how communities are performing in the eight competencies in TheCR’s Community Maturity Model.

The 2014 SOCM is designed to help participants and Community Audit clients build roadmaps like the one below. Framing current and desired performance by competency enables constructive dialog with stakeholders about strategic, budget and resource decisions – and helps you gain the support and resources you need to be successful.

Want to participate? We’re looking for community managers, community strategists, community program leaders and volunteers who have community management responsibilities to tell us more about their communities in this online survey through February 28, 2014. The survey will take you 15-20 minutes to complete.

We are interested in learning more about communities at all levels of maturity, so your response is important to us even if your community is in the early stages of development.

As a thank you for participating, you will receive a promotion code for a discount of $500 that you can apply to a new individual membership in TheCR Network in 2014. We’re also launching a new Community Audit service and offering special pricing to the first five interested participants.

Click here to take the survey now!