The Community Roundtable

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

Friday Roundup: Almost Fall Edition

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By Shannon Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable. Inbound-Simon Sinek

With Fall just around the corner things are back in full swing here at TheCR. This week I was lucky enough to attend a great marketing event, Inbound2014, held by Hubspot here in Boston. So many of the sessions I attended were great, but the keynotes in particular were fantastic – and really appealed not just to the marketer me, but also the community manager. One session, led by author Simon Sinek, focused on leadership – and specifically how great leaders create environments where employees can work together to thrive. The folks over at The Draw Shop put together the great graphic on the right which really captures the essence of his talk.

I hope you’ve been enjoying our month of strategy-focused posts and content. We have some exciting things planned for next week including sharing a brand-new SOCM 2014 infographic and more fun stuff!

Enjoy this week’s links from around the web, and of course more new community manager and social business jobs, and we’ll see you back here on Monday!

Meet TheCR Team: Jillian Bejtlich, Community Strategist – Like many community managers out there, I never actually set out to work in this field. By education and the first few rungs of my career ladder, I’m an engineer with a focus on architectural and civil technology. I lived and breathed physics. But after a variety of welcome twists and turns, I ended up in community.

How Do I Convince our Executives to Invest in Community? – Through the State of Community Management 2014 we identified three best practices for getting executives on-board with your community initiatives.

Lessons From the Classroom for Community Managers – At my daughter’s “back to school night,” I had the opportunity to follow her exact sequence of classes, from first period homeroom, through seventh period. A slogan on the board of her homeroom class read, “Our classroom is a community.” Mr. Braxton, her homeroom teacher, introduced himself to the assembled parents and started to speak about community.

The New Habit Challenge: Create a Better To-Do List – Tons of successful leaders laud the to-do list as the key to more organized, productive, and focused days, but is there a right way and a wrong way to do your to-do? The short answer: Yes.

Workplace Redesign: Turning your Environment into a Productivity Machine –  Corporate real estate is undergoing a revolution. Companies are tearing down their walls, and the result is that shared spaces like “huddle zones” are crowding out individual workspace – including the corner office, in some cases. Such overhauls tend to yield big cost savings in the form of rent and construction costs. What many companies fail to take into account, however, is that physical space is just one component of today’s workplace. Two other components, namely virtual interactions and management practices, also play critical roles in shaping how people work and how productive they can be.

New Community Manager and Social Media Jobs: 

  1. Community Manager, JewishBoston.com – Combined Jewish Philanthropies – Boston, MA
  2. Community Manager, Audiophile – Massdrop – San Francisco, CA 
  3. Online Community Manager – Headspring – Austin, TX 
  4. Community Manager Lead – Pace Communications – Greensboro, NC
  5. Community Manager (Intern) – Loverly – New York, NY 
  6. Community Manager – The Climate Corporation – San Francisco, CA
  7. Community Manager – Freelance – GolinHarris – Chicago, IL
  8. Open Source Technical Community Manager – edX – Boston, MA
  9. Community Manager – Orlando Sentinel Media Group – Orlando, FL
  10. International Social Media Community Manager – Integr8staff – Culver City, CA
  11. Social Customer Care & Community Manager – Intuit  – Mississauga, ON
  12. Community Manager (Co-op) – RBC – Toronto, ON
  13. Creative Marketing Manager – Seedbox Technologies – Montréal, QC
  14. Marketing and Communications Manager – LUSH Cosmetics – Vancouver, BC
  15. Community and Content Manager – Etobicoke, ON – Yellow Pages Group – Etobicoke, ON
  16. Social Media Marketing Lead – Tangerine – Canada

 

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Friday Roundup – The Strategy Kick-Off Edition

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By Shannon Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.

back to school strategyWhile we’ve heard rumors of kids heading back to school over the last month the first day of school in Boston was yesterday. We are officially back in the Fall swing of things at TheCR. This month we’re focusing on the strategy competency of the Community Maturity Model here on the blog. Our first two strategy posts highlighted best practices for Building a Community Strategy and Engaging Lurkers. We can’t wait to bring you more strategy-focused posts over the next few weeks – plus some fun surprises.

And now – onto some of our favorite articles from around the web this week:

Moving through life like the Dalai Lama – A month ago, I saw an extraordinary post about a way to change your air travel experience, and it included a line I kept thinking about: “Arrive early and move through the airport like the Dalai Lama. You are in no rush. All obstacles are taken in stride, patiently, with a smile.”

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. This can be both daunting and exciting. 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.

Community Engagement: Mixed Reviews – This is third blog post in ComBlu’s series on Community Vibrancy. Our research on how communities are measuring up is based on studying the four primary areas of vibrancy best practices: engagement, content experience, gamification and community management, and comes from a study we conducted recently on behalf of Lithium Technologies.

Don’t Leave Money on the Table: How to Negotiate Your Next Community Job Offer – Negotiation certainly wasn’t something I learned when I started out as a community manager in 2006. Back then, I was just excited to get paid to talk about the TV show LOST in an online forum for 10 or 15 hours per week. However, as Community Management shifted from a fun side-gig to the career I pursued, I knew I had to get more serious about my work and my value. I had to learn to negotiate.

SOCM 2014 Community Fact #06 – How can I get lurkers to participate? – 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.

10 Elements of a Winning Member Engagement Strategy – Even though these numbers are meant to guess at online participation as a whole and not specifically address engagement in online customer or member communities, they still seem pretty dismal. It’s difficult not to get discouraged by such speculation when your member engagement is so critical to the success of your online community and association as a whole.

Over and above architecture: Bridges that are going places – When we humans see a massive river or a gorge between us and where we want to get to go, it’s human instinct to want to build a socking great bridge over the gap. Despite what politicians might make some of us think we want, the one urge we truly have is to be connected to everyone else. Bridges are the symbolic glue that binds us together.

New community and social media jobs:

  1. Social Media Community Manager – Prepfoleo – New York, NY
  2. Community Manager & Customer Support – Bowery – New York, NY
  3. Open Source Technical Community Manager – edX – Cambridge, MA
  4. Community Manager – US – EyeEm – San Francisco, CA
  5. Community Manager – VaynerMedia LLC – Los Angeles, CA
  6. Community Manager – Office – Irvine Company – San Diego, CA
  7. Customer Success Associate / Community Manager – Entelo – San Francisco, CA
  8. Associate Community Manager – WeWork – Washington, DC
  9. Social Media Community Manager – KIND LLC – New York, NY 10018 (Clinton area)
  10. Community Manager – Holiday Retirement – Everett, WA
  11. Internship: Technical Community Manager Job – SanDisk – Milpitas, CA
  12. Community Manager – Entertainment and Media Industry – Tribune Publishing – Allentown, PA
  13. Stylist Community Manager – Stella & Dot – San Bruno, CA
  14. Director Mobility Digital Customer Experience Execution– AT&T – Bothell, Washington
  15. Director Digital Customer Service Chat – AT&T – Austin, TX
  16. Director Digital Operations – AT&T – Dallas, TX
  17. Community Specialist – AT&T – Bothell, Washington
  18. Public Relations Outreach Manager – Complete Solar – San Mateo, CA 94404
  19. Community Administrator – Ipsos North America – Cincinnati, OH
  20. MakerBot Community Manager – MakerBot Industries – Brooklyn, NY
  21. Community Manager, MTV – Always On – Viacom – New York, NY
  22. Social Media Manager – Wunderland – Evanston, IL
  23. Community Manager – Think Passenger – New York, NY
  24. Community Manager – CBS Interactive – San Francisco, CA
  25. Social Media Community Manager – Weber Shandwick – Los Angeles, CA
  26. Director of Content & Community – Mobile Apps & Online Gaming – San Jose, CA
  27. Hyperlocal Community Manager – Action PM – Los Angeles, California
  28. Community Manager – Conperio Technology Solutions – St. Louis, MO 63103 (Downtown West area)
  29. Social Media Community Manager – The BOSS Group – Baltimore, MD
  30. Idea Engineer – GumboLive – New Orleans, LA
  31. Social Media Community Manager – Intern – Sociallybuzz, Inc – Hollywood, FL 33021

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Want access to exclusive case studies, templates, research and expert advice? Learn how TheCR Network can help boost your productivity and increase member engagement in your community or join today.

 

Do I Need a Community Strategy?

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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.

strategy

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.

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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.

Is Having a Community Strategy Important?

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

This year’s State of Community Management research showed what we’re suspected for along time: ​the foundation of a successful community is a well-defined strategy that integrates social tools and methods with business goals and processes. It follows that a community’s strategy also aligns an organization’s goals with their member’s needs.

​Another prevalent idea that was confirmed by our research is that overall community strategies are maturing. Of course this makes sense – as more companies define and grow their practice of community management the industry becomes increasingly developed. This brings us to our community management fact of the week. We found that 72% of communities have an approved community strategy, signaling that organizations increasingly understand how to justify a community approach. That’s the good news! We also found that of that 72%, only 40% of those strategies are operational and measurable.

Fewer than 50% of communities with an approved strategy have an approved and resourced roadmap, suggesting a significant gap between community ambition and the ability to execute on it. This gap in understanding what is required to fully realize a community strategy is a barrier to community success. Best-in-class communities have a smaller gap between those with an approved strategy and those with a fully resourced roadmap – only about 25% of those with an approved strategy lack a roadmap.

SOCM Fact #4

 

Looking for more insights into community strategy? Download the State of Community Management 2014 report and check out the section on strategy – starting on page 26.

Does your community have an approved strategy? We’d love to hear more  in the comments!

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 see the first three posts here: Fact #01, Fact #02 and Fact #03 or downloadthe whole report today.

 

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Did you know that 95% of TheCR Network members agree that the content and peer input improves the quality of their work? It’s true! Membership in TheCR Network saves community and social business leaders time and improves the quality of their work by connecting them quickly with peers, experts and curated information. Learn how joining TheCR Network can improve the work you do.

Building Reputation: Becoming a Social Strategist

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By Shannon DiGregorio, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.

For many social media and community practitioners being viewed as an expert in something that everyone thinks they are great at (social media) can be a real challenge. Just because someone loves Instagram or has 500 friends on facebook doesn’t mean they truly understand that intricacies of managing a comprehensive social or community program. How do you build your reputation as a social strategist – a true expert on social media and community initiatives?

The role of the corporate social and/or community strategist is unique from that of a community manager although the two roles are often done by the same person in smaller organizations. Check out Rachel’s presentation below for an in-depth look at the social and community strategist roles, and how you can build a reputation as a knowledgeable and trusted social expert.

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Interested in learning more about training to help further your career in social media, communications, community management or marketing? The slides above are a small portion of the Community Strategist training course offered by The Community Roundtable, WOMMA & ComBlue. If you are interested in that class, you can find more info here: https://community-roundtable.com/what-we-do/training/ and find other classes and online training courses and certifications for Community Managers that might be of interest.

Building your Community Approach

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By Shannon DiGregorio, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.

Here on The Community Roundtable blog we’ve decided to try something new for 2014. Each month we’ll pick an aspect of community management and tackle it from many angles, providing commentary, resources and expert opinions. Planning and building seem like  natural themes for January – as we all look ahead to the next 12 months it’s especially important to make sure a solid foundation is in place for your community plans and how you build your community approach.

“Build” is also one of the three main maturity transitions we’ve identified as part of the community maturity model. This is a great tool to assess where you are on your journey – go ahead, we’ll wait while you check it out. In short, Build is the transition where you start to formalize and incorporate what you have learned in phase one when a lot of time is spent experimenting. During the build process governance, resources and metrics to benchmark your work are developed. This short Build checklist should help you decide if you’re in this phase:

Screen shot 2013-12-31 at 12.22.06 PM

If you’re approaching the Build stage of your journey these existing resources will help you accelerate your planning for 2014: 

Over the next month we’ll share content focused on all aspects of building community that can help if you in the Build stage or if you are going back to re-asses your governance, staffing or metrics approaches. We’re focusing on building value, building reputation, building connections and building programs – with expert advice and some fun surprises thrown in. If you have any great resources that have helped you build your approach please reach out – we’d love to hear from you!

 
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If you’re looking to build your community program there is no better resource than the TheCR Network. TheCR Network is a membership network that provides exclusive strategic, tactical and professional development programming for community and social business leaders. The network enables members to connect and form lasting relationships with experts and peers as well as get access to vetted content.

TheCR Network is the place to learn from social business practitioners. Join today.

Becky Carroll on Using Educational Content and Idea Exchanges

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The Community Roundtable has partnered with Voce Communications to produce a podcast series, “Conversations with Community Managers.” In this series, TheCR’s Jim Storer joins forces with Voce’s Doug Haslam to speak with people from a variety of industries about their efforts with community and social media management. Our series continues with episode #26, featuring Becky Carroll, Community Program Manager at Verizon. Podcast highlights include:
  • Using educational content rather than product-focused content, to cater to customer lifestyle rather than a  hard sell in the “Room to Learn” community.
  • Using an idea exchange; workflows, processes and partnership with product team
  • Advice for getting started in community management

MUSIC CREDIT: “Bleuacide” by graphiqsgroove

About Conversations with Community Managers*
To better reflect the diverse conversations our podcast covers we’ve changed the name of our long-running series to Community Conversations.
Community Conversations highlights short conversations with some of the smartest minds in the online community and social business space, exploring what they’re working on, why they do what they do, and what advice they have for you.
These episodes are a great way to begin to understand the nuances of community strategy and management.
Each episode is short (usually less than 30 minutes) and focuses on one community management professional.

Jay Batson on Open-Source Communities

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The Community Roundtable has partnered with Voce Communications to produce a podcast series, “Conversations with Community Managers.” In this series, TheCR’s Jim Storer joins forces with Voce’s Doug Haslam to speak with people from a variety of industries about their efforts with community and social media management. Our series continues with episode #24, featuring Jay Batson, VP and Founder at Acquia, a provider of commercial services around the Drupal open-source web platform.

Podcast highlights include:

  • Considering long-term health of an open-source community hen launching a commercial enterprise from within it
  • The kinds of companies adopting open-source community platforms
  • Can developer communities provide examples for other types of communities

Download this episode

Subscribe to this podcast series

MUSIC CREDIT: “Bleuacide” by graphiqsgroove

About Conversations with Community Managers*
To better reflect the diverse conversations our podcast covers we’ve changed the name of our long-running series to Community Conversations.
Community Conversations highlights short conversations with some of the smartest minds in the online community and social business space, exploring what they’re working on, why they do what they do, and what advice they have for you.
These episodes are a great way to begin to understand the nuances of community strategy and management.
Each episode is short (usually less than 30 minutes) and focuses on one community management professional.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

Shannon Paul on Protected Health Information and Privacy in Communities

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The Community Roundtable has partnered with Voce Communications to produce a podcast series, “Conversations with Community Managers.” In this series, TheCR’s Jim Storer joins forces with Voce’s Doug Haslam to speak with people from a variety of industries about their efforts with community and social media management.
 
Our series continues with episode #23, featuring Shannon Paul, Social Media Manager at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.
 

Podcast highlights include:

  • Dealing with “Protected Health information” (PHI) due to regulations such as HIPAA, including the names of members, and how to balance the need for community and the privacy of members.
  • Creating resources such as www.ahealthiermichigan.org to present wellness resources.
  • Coordination and sharing among associated but separated organizations, as with the Blue Cross/Blue Shield plans in different states.
  • When “I can’t answer you” is an answer.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

MUSIC CREDIT: “Bleuacide” by graphiqsgroove

About Conversations with Community Managers*
To better reflect the diverse conversations our podcast covers we’ve changed the name of our long-running series to Community Conversations.
Community Conversations highlights short conversations with some of the smartest minds in the online community and social business space, exploring what they’re working on, why they do what they do, and what advice they have for you.
These episodes are a great way to begin to understand the nuances of community strategy and management.
Each episode is short (usually less than 30 minutes) and focuses on one community management professional.

Leigh Mutert on Merging Offline Community with Online

By

The Community Roundtable has partnered with Voce Communications to produce a podcast series, “Conversations with Community Managers.” In this series, TheCR’s Jim Storer joins forces with Voce’s Doug Haslam to speak with people from a variety of industries about their efforts with community and social media management.
 
Our series continues with episode #21, featuring Leight Mutert, Community Manager with H&R Block* (just in time for tax season). Find H&R Block’s online community at https://getitright.hrblock.com.
 

Highlights include:

  • Merging offline community with online- in particular, harnessing the experts at brick-and-mortar H&R Block franchises for the online community, and overcoming obstacles to secure their buy-in
  • Working within a tightly regulated industry while still growing community
  • Managing seasonality, in a business focused on the three months leading up until the April 15 tax deadline
  • How H&R Block tracks and measures their efforts
 

MUSIC CREDIT: “Bleuacide” by graphiqsgroove

*Please note: Since we recorded this interview, Leigh has moved on to become a Community Manager at Archer Technologies, if you have any questions about H&R Block’s community please follow up with Zena Weist.

About Conversations with Community Managers*
To better reflect the diverse conversations our podcast covers we’ve changed the name of our long-running series to Community Conversations.
Community Conversations highlights short conversations with some of the smartest minds in the online community and social business space, exploring what they’re working on, why they do what they do, and what advice they have for you.
These episodes are a great way to begin to understand the nuances of community strategy and management.
Each episode is short (usually less than 30 minutes) and focuses on one community management professional.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS