The Community Roundtable

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Dos and Don’ts for Happy and Healthy Community Moderation

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Community Moderation_Icon

We all know that a community manager’s to-do list can be daunting, if not paralyzing, at times. But what about a community moderator? Community moderation can be just as demanding.

For several years, I was the one and only official member of the community “team” for a large company. Among my many responsibilities was community moderation, so I got a firsthand view of what went into successful moderation and balancing the community management workload.

And while I could have written a few hundred pieces of advice, I’ve narrowed it down to ten you need to have a happy and healthy community (and moderator).

DO welcome new members to the community.

This is especially important when launching a new community. Acknowledge new members, reiterate the purpose of the community and encourage them to participate. (Check this great new member case study.)

DO show members how to participate.

Give new members a list of three things to do. These can include: Read the guidelines for participating; like a post you value or enjoy; search for a topic of interest; respond to a post you can contribute to.

DO establish clear guidelines for participation.

Your guidelines should focus on encouraging the behavior you’d like members to exhibit in addition to discouraging the conduct that is prohibited. Be firm and consistent in applying the guidelines to all members.

Do be sure you understand the question or issue.

Before you respond to a member’s post, read the post again. Especially in a customer support community it’s important to show that you understand the question and are genuinely interested in assisting. Too often I see a member respond “That’s not what I was asking. Did you even read my post?”

DON’T be a robot.

Respond in a sincere, personal voice. Some community moderation platforms provide the functionality of selecting a prepopulated response. Avoid using “canned” responses unless volume necessitates it.

DO be empathetic.

Always remember that the member you’re responding to may be justly upset and they’re looking to you for assistance. You represent your brand in the community and sometimes the brand will have done something wrong and the consumer is looking to you for help.

DO leverage analytics to evaluate your community’s content.

Example: Check frequently searched terms to see what your members are looking for. Make sure those topics have appropriate content posted and tagged accordingly.

DO acknowledge and nurture your Super Users.

It’s amazing how much support a small group of passionate, dedicated advocates can contribute. A quick note of appreciation, thanks or congratulations can go a long way.

DO use key word filters to screen all posts.

Key word filters can be used to screen obvious issues like profanity but they can also be used to alert you of potential issues. I’ve used them to search for potentially volatile political discussions, product issues and dissatisfied clients.

DON’T feed the trolls.

Every community has them. They’re only there to stir the pot. Deal with them calmly and within the guidelines. Depending on their behavior you can ignore them, warn them or send them away. (Here’s another great post about conflict resolution in communities.)

Mastering Moderation

Community Management FAQs – What is community strategy?

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What is community strategy?

A successful community strategy 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.

We recommend using the Community Maturity Model to help in building a community strategy. Below are some of the primary tasks for building a community related to each competency of the CMM:

Strategy

  • Define the business objective
  • Articulate the community purpose, from the members’ perspective
  • Assemble research to help build your business case
  • Complete competitive audit – what competes for members’ attention?
  • Build a business case
  • Calculate and secure investment required

Leadership

  • Find or develop executive sponsors
  • Determine what executive and stakeholder education is necessary
  • Calculate and secure investment required

Culture

  • Articulate cultural limitations and opportunities
  • Assess willingness and aptitude for change
  • Determine if specific training or change management initiatives are needed
  • Calculate and secure investment required

Community Management

  • Understand the community management approach needed, based on business objective and member characteristics
  • Define roles and responsibilities
  • Calculate and secure investment required
  • Assign roles and responsibilities

Content and Programming

  • Define content and programming needed to reach the business objective
  • Determine gaps in available and required content and programming
  • Calculate and secure investment required

Policies and Governance

  • Assess current policies
  • Amend or develop policies as needed
  • Audit current governance – or lack thereof – of social media and collaboration environments
  • Develop a governance model
  • Calculate and secure investment required

Tools

  • Determine required tools – software, applications, templates, and guides
  • Audit current toolset
  • Calculate and secure investment required

Metrics and Measurement

  • Articulate primary value that will enable business goal
  • Articulate secondary value
  • Determine metrics for executives, operational management, and tactical management
  • Assess ability to capture metrics
  • Build capacity to capture metrics, as needed
  • Calculate and secure investment required

Further Reading on Community Strategy: 

Community Strategy Needs Resources

Community strategy is YOUR job

Building a Community Strategy

Community Best Practices: Architecting the Community that Meets Your Needs

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By now, countless organizations have learned the painful lesson: “If you build it, they will come,” only

Architecting Your Community Needsworks in the movies. But there’s a related lesson that is a core tenet of community management. How you build it—the shape of the community you create—drives whether the community meets your goals.

The shape of your community will depend entirely on what success looks like for the goals you have, the complexity of those goals and where potential members are comfortable engaging. Generally speaking, the less complex the outcome (information sharing, discovery, awareness) the larger and more diverse your community can and should be— suggesting that the shape of the network is loose, only lightly connected and may cross channels and platforms.

If on the other hand, you are solving complex technical issues or negotiating business terms you will need a much smaller community that is highly interconnected and includes a high level of trust and confidence, which means it is very likely private and exclusive with no explicit links connecting it to a wider network.

Understanding what kind of community and ecosystem structure best fits your needs will help you superheroesdefine an effective community management approach. The more trust you need to execute on your goals, the better the relationship between participants will need to be.

Are you charged with starting an online community? Check out the Community Manager Handbook for more community best practices, strategy ideas and case studies.

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Want the chance to contribute to research like the Community Manager Handbook? Members of TheCR Network get exclusive professional development opportunities like this and more! Join us and let us help you grow your career as a community manager.

Throwback Thursday – Community Strategy 101

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community strategy 101By Shannon Abram, The Community Roundtable

Too often new community managers (or veteran community managers faced with a brand new community) will dive right in – because from day one, the to-do list can be daunting. We can’t urge you strongly enough: STOP! DROP! STRATEGIZE!!

To liberally paraphrase the great Ben Franklin – an ounce of stratigization is worth a pound of community success. (Our apologies to Mr. Franklin…) But seriously – time and time again our research has shown that communities that spend time thinking about their long term strategy are simply more successful. Join us for this week’s trip in the way-back machine as we explore community strategy 101.

This week’s #throwbackthursday focuses on Community Strategy 101 – getting back to basics with the fundamentals of building a community strategy.

  • The Basics of Community Strategy – Are you just getting started and looking to build your community strategy? We recommend using the Community Maturity Model to help in building a community strategy.
  • Why is a Community Roadmap Important? – A roadmap highlights your community’s objectives and how you will community strategy 101achieve them. When you have a roadmap, your conversations with stakeholders become more productive. Instead of talking about “why we should invest in community,” you can discuss where to target your investments.
  • I need to build a community strategy. Where do I start? – Whether you are starting from scratch with a new community, or taking over an existing community that could use some love there is a good chance you’ll be tasked with building a community strategy.

  • For TheCR Network Eyes Only: Community Pitch Deck – Are you a member of TheCR Network? Check out this community strategy pitch deck that a fellow member put together to make the case for their community strategy!

Want even more #throwbackthursday action? Check out all our throwback posts!

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Improving Community Sentiment: Taking a Community from Hostile to Happy

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When community sentiment is good, it often gets taken for granted. When it’s bad, it’s clear that it is one of the biggest barriers to success and value.

What’s not always clear is this: you CAN create the community environment you want.

The Community Roundtable collaborated with a well-known brand to create a welcoming and supportive community that they are proud of – and that delivers real value for both the members and the business.

In this case study, Jillian Bejtlich, Community Architect here at TheCR, covers how they did this, focusing on the following community management practices:

  1. Developing policies and guidelines
  2. Creating moderation and escalation processes
  3. Modeling behavior and coaching advocates

What this case study shows is that by investing time in defining a long-term vision of the culture you want, you can shape the overall sentiment of your community. To do so, you must connect strategic goals to day-to-day tactics.

Take moderation for example – thinking tactically you might decide, “Let’s get rid of all negative posts” – and certainly that’s not a bad goal, but it’s not a strategic one. Put on your long-term vision goggles and rethink the goal and you might say, “Let’s make sure our community a safe place to ask questions.” By looking at the same activity strategically a fairly simple moderation task becomes a strategic one – the result of which may mean leaving some negative comments that are opinions while moderating out the offensive ones. That is more likely to achieve your strategic goal of making the community a safe place to ask legitimate questions – making it easier to achieve larger business goals and improve overall sentiment.

The success of this project was far from obvious at the start and it was no easy task – but by thinking about the project strategically, and reframing the challenge into a long-term goal Jillian not only helped turn the overall community sentiment around – but helped our client create a thriving and valuable community that exceeded everyone’s expectations.

Let us know if you would like to find out how we can help turn your thorny community challenges into strategies for success.

Download the case study directly here.

Mastering Moderation

Community Strategy Needs Resources

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By Ted McEnroe, The Community Roundtable

We’ve said many times in this space that having a community strategy is a critical part of getting your community to succeed. Strategy is critical, but it’s just the first step in the process of building a successful community. It needs to be coupled with a roadmap and the resources to execute on that roadmap for your community to succeed.

Seems logical, right? Your strategy is like your map laid out before you that shows you where you want to go. Your roadmap more specifically plots the route you will take to get there, and the resources provide the fuel to move the community ahead.

So why is it so rare to have all three? 65% of the communities in The State of Community Management 2015 say they have an approved community strategy. But of those, barely a third have a resourced roadmap to get them there. Best-in-class communities take a different approach – but they aren’t perfect. All of our best-in-class communities have approved community strategies, however, more than 4 in 10 of them lack the resourced roadmap they need to deliver on that strategic plan.

So if you’re thinking about your community strategy – great! Don’t stop. But don’t forget to give yourself (or ask for) what you need to turn that strategic vision into a strategic reality.

The Community Roundtable has produced a number of resources, including an eBook, Building a Community Roadmap, devoted to roadmap development. Learn more about it and all of our other research at communityroundtable.com/research. 

Engagement and Community Architecture

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By Rachel Happe, Co-Founder of The Community Roundtable

Most of us who drive cars stick to driving on roads. Why? They helps us get where we are going faster – even though the route is rarely a straight line between where we start and our destination. We could try and take a more direct route but at a minimum it would involve driving over uneven ground – at worst we would have to remove barriers like trees, houses, rocks, animals, etc. That would be slightly, um, crazy – even if there were someone that was encouraging us to do so and helping.

My point? Infrastructure matters – a lot.

The online community space is still relatively immature and because of that, we are still blazing trails and paving roads – but like the cow paths that have determined much of the street layout in cities like Boston – we are not always doing so with much forethought or planning. The result is that community managers have to invest a lot of effort to help people get where they want to go because the infrastructure is not helping.

But we actually know a lot about how the shape of networks influence relationships, conversations and outcomes. Experts in the social network analysis space – Valdis Krebs, Robert Cross, Marc Smith, Patti Anklam – have been researching and analyzing the shape of networks long before social technologies became popular.

Recently there has been a little more awareness about network structure and its impact – including the following articles:

However, far too many organizations do little to evaluate and architect their technologies in a way that works with their existing environment and business objectives. Because of that, new social network deployments tend to ignore the existing network of relationships and communication patterns in an organization while adding a new social network architecture on top of it that is often at odds with the network that already exists. For example, an organization that is highly hierarchical in information flows might deploy a open stream-based solution to break down silos. While the intent and goal are understandable it ignores the existing patterns of behavior, which get cut off and punished when they don’t respect the hierarchy. Implementing a boundary spanning solution will likely not go very far because it runs counter to what’s rewarded and restricted in the culture. A better solution might be to look at a group-based solution that still keeps conversations in their hierarchical context, while getting people comfortable communicating in a networked way. Once that behavior is established, smaller efforts to connect similar groups can help broaden and evolve the network.

For the user, deploying a tool that disregards the current network flow adds conflicting extrinsic motivators that can completely stall adoption and use. It is then left to the community manager (if one exists at all) to try and understand how to encourage and reward behaviors that the alignment between the existing and new network structures does not make easy. Sometimes, it’s as if they are asking users to drive right through a building – and because the barriers are virtual and relational they are not visible to the organization, the community manager or to the user no can see what is going on.

Most organizations and community professionals don’t even see this problem because it is such an implicit assumption of the software. Most platforms, in turn, have relatively defined network architectures because it is easier to understand and deploy. But in making the software deployment easy, they have sacrificed the flexibility to create a network architecture that can be adapted to different environments and different business objectives. It’s also what makes some current platforms better than others for different use cases – the stream dominated tools are better for connecting across boundaries and identifying opportunity but strain to serve as collaboration solutions. Group and space dominated tools are better for collaboration but can easily create more silos. As organizations move toward enterprise solutions they need platforms that can do both – in a way that creates information and relationship flows where they are needed and cut off flows where it’s not helpful or creates too much noise.

So what can community program owners and community managers do to better align their infrastructure?

  • Educate themselves about social network analysis and how network shape affects outcomes
  • Define what their ideal network structure would be given their current culture, business objectives and member needs
  • Analyze their current network architecture and identify where it supports and where it hinders information and relationship flows – and how that effects the value generated for the business and for users
  • Evaluate the UX and feature sets available and how they might be adapted to better serve business objectives and member needs

While in many cases, community professionals will not be able to change the fundamental community architecture of their network, by understanding how it’s impacting behavior and engagement they can mitigate unintended consequences through adapting the UX, creating training or running community programs that help reduce barriers. And hopefully, they can stop asking members to drive through buildings.

If you run a community, don’t think like a website on metrics

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By Ted McEnroe, The Community Roundtable

As we continue to slice and dice the data from more than 200 communities for the State of Community Management 2015, we know that one of the most viewed pieces of the report will be the engagement profiles – the percentage of members who are lurking, contributing, creating and collaborating in the community. It’s a natural thing, especially for new communities, to want to look at engagement and growth metrics early as a way to show to people the success of the community.

Jousting at Hever Castle, Kent (5) - geograph.org.uk - 1453366

Is this constructive engagement?

When you focus on engagement and growth, though, it defines your tactics in ways that may not benefit the long-term health of the community. In the recently published Community Manager Handbook: 20 Lessons from Community Superheroes, we highlighted some alternatives to basic engagement and growth metrics we are drawn toward – the kinds of metrics that might get more effectively at how your community will perform long term.

Think about these kinds of metrics:

Engagement depth – Can you demonstrate that members asking good questions and having real discussions? Many “engagement tactics” lead to one-and-done kinds of engagement, which boost your numbers now, but will come back to haunt you later.

Member satisfaction – Satisfied members are much more likely to come back than those who come, engage, and depart unsatisfied. Surprisingly, new communities often don’t prioritize finding out if members are satisfied. You shouldn’t reshape your strategy for every complaint and question, but knowing how people are feeling about the community is crucial in moving forward.

Membership referrals and renewals – If your members are renewing and referring new members – they must like what you do. If your members are becoming advocates – you’re doing something right! Getting member referrals and renewals tells you that your members don’t just have to be there, they want to be there.

Signs of changing behavior – By the time you begin, you should have a sense of the behaviors you expect from members. Are they moving toward your behavioral goals? If not, it’s easier to change behaviors in a small community than a large one, so now is the time.

These metrics are sometimes more difficult to measure, but using your community goals to drive the metrics you use, rather than just “doing the basics” can help ensure you’re looking at what defines a valuable community, as opposed to a popular website.

Five Things the Boston Marathon Can Teach You about Community Programs

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By Ted McEnroe, The Community Roundtable

Monday is the 119th running of a remarkable tradition – the Boston Marathon. For decades, the Marathon has been a Greater Boston institution, a must do for people to either run, attend or watch on TV. People from across the region whose closest thing to a marathon over the past 12 months was running to the store drop whatever they are doing, brave the traffic and cheer on famous Kenyans and unknown Americans.

Photo by Peter Farlow / Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0

Photo by Peter Farlow / Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0

Over the course of the years, the Boston Marathon has used an annual running event to create a program that goes far beyond an athletic event. And it’s not the only one – The Kentucky Derby, The Indianapolis 500 and other iconic events raise up sports beyond their normal fan bases and engage people who wouldn’t otherwise watch runners, horses or Indy cars.

Wouldn’t it be great to capture some small essence of that in your community? Creating great community programs is one way to do it. And in some ways, it’s its own marathon.

So what lessons can you take from the Boston Marathon about creating community programs?

Regular scheduling matters: The difference between content and programming is simple. Content attracts members, while programs create opportunities for member engagement. Good programs become a part of a community calendar. Imagine if instead of on Patriots Day, the Marathon was run at a different time when the best runners in the world could make it. It would be great content, but it wouldn’t engage the community in the same way.

Tip: Doing community programs? Find times you can commit to, so your members know when to expect something to happen.

Create an opportunity to participate: A great piece of the Marathon is what happens long after the winners cross the finish line and collect their wreaths and prize money. Behind them, thousands of others – many of whom have never run a marathon before, stream up and down the same hills. They all have reasons to run, lessons to share and stories to tell. The marathon affords them the opportunity in a public space – although no one really wants to talk to you at Mile 21. It also gives them a new skill set – marathoner.

Tip: Some of the most powerful community programs are driven by members themselves – either as experts or idea generators. Give them that opportunity to learn, grow and develop new skills.

Capitalize on shared experience: A powerful piece of community programs and live events in a community goes beyond the content to the shared opportunity to experience that content. Whether that’s on the phone or web in a webinar, in person at a conference, the ability to engage in real time has an impact that is difficult to replicate asynchronously.

Tip: We like to make sure in our community programs that there is some real-time element – smaller programs are live calls where members can ask questions and stay connected. Larger programs and presentations have a backchannel chat that allows members to talk and connect during presentations, share resources and links.

Capture the value: Part of what makes the Marathon live on year to year is the stories that grow from it – positive and sometimes negative. It’s a thoroughly chronicled event (mostly by participants) and the past records can inspire new generations.

Tip: No matter how well you schedule, not everyone will be able to make your programs. Capturing notes or recording audio, and making them available after the fact both makes them part of the community’s research database and allows new members and those who couldn’t make the call a chance to gain from the experience (and see what they missed).

Have the patience to develop: Nothing about a marathon is easy. That one’s sort of obvious. But growing the Boston Marathon wasn’t that easy, either. The first Marathon had 18 runners and 15 finishers. It grew to 100 by 1906, but had fewer than 200 participants as late as 1960. By 1968, though, it hit 1,000, topped 2,000 in 1975, and nearly 8,000 in 1978. Today, the field is capped at over 30,000 and thousands of runners are turned away. Programs can feel slow to develop – they don’t really “go viral” like content. But for those with patience and determination, they can provide powerful engine for community.

Tip: Set realistic goals, and recognize that when starting programs, just as when starting communities, it can actually be beneficial to have smaller events that allow you to set expectations and provide better value for those who attend.

For any community, finding the right balance of content and programs is key to success. Content gets members to the community, but the programs you offer should be a key element of your strategy to keep them there.

The content and programs of TheCR Network provide members from more than 100 organizations with valuable insights and connections to start, build and grow their communities. Become a member today!

The Community Performance Benchmark: Five Reasons Why It Matters Now

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By Rachel Happe, Co-Founder of The Community Roundtable.

benchmarkIt’s an exciting day for us here at The Community Roundtable. We’re doing something we don’t often do – we’re rolling out a new service. Today, we introduce the Community Performance Benchmark, which you can think of as “GPS for Your Community Strategy.”

I love this analogy, because it fits so well with a lot of the conversations we already have with community managers and strategists. We talk about (and believe strongly in) articulating goals, developing roadmaps, and plotting your community journey. But just like a trip – knowing your destination isn’t all that valuable if you don’t know where you are today. Benchmarking is a tool to do just that – tell you where you are so you can figure out how to get where you need to go.

Why now? The idea of benchmarking isn’t new – but here are five reasons why the time for the Community Performance Benchmark has come.

1. The discipline of community management has matured

The practice of community management has been around in some form for decades, but until recently the practice has required experiential learning and it’s been treated as more of an art than a science. Now, social science research and our own research and work have helped to document and refine the core practices of community management.

2. We have the critical mass of strategic data to do it

 Working with the members of TheCR Network over the past five years, we’ve been able to structure and refine practices to the point where we have objective markers of good community management. Whether from our annual State of Community Management research, our private roundtable calls with members or our advisory work with leading organizations, we now have foundational data to drive this new service.

3. Community management is the future of management

As networked communications environments spread across all aspects of organizations – from marketing, to collaboration and innovation – community management will become the de facto approach to general management because of its ability to generate more value for both individuals and organizations. Because of this, it is a strategic skill for organizations to develop now.

4. As technology accelerates, organizations can lose sight of the management changes required

Adopting technology without assessing how organizations are managed is a risky investment. Too often, organizations buy the tools and later figure out through trial and error how to best use them or, in the worst case, find the management and process change too challenging and abandon the platform. Often they become lured by the promise of the next new technology, hoping it will address issues, but discover instead that it just compounds them. Benchmarking management processes is a critical link that aligns technology adoption with required management changes.

5. Benchmarking data adds conviction and confidence to planning efforts. Which case would you rather make?

  • “I need more community help. I’m feeling overwhelmed.”
  • “I need more community help. We are managing our communities with about half of the staff of our competitors and we are behind in addressing executive adoption, both of which are leading to low engagement rates. We can improve community engagement by investing in community management staff and an executive coaching program.”

Benchmarking data makes it possible for you to make cases based on independent third-party analysis and comparison to best-in-class communities. More critically, it changes the conversation with stakeholders from “Why should I invest?” to “What do we want and how will we get there?” – a much more constructive and productive discussion – that is more likely to lead to approved budget requests.

We are excited to offer the Community Performance Benchmark service. It is a powerful tool for those we serve – community leaders. It helps them be successful where it matters – in getting the resources they need to create thriving, productive communities.

You can learn more about our Community Performance Benchmark in the Services section of the communityroundtable.com, or by clicking here.