By Rachel Happe, Co-Founder of The Community Roundtable.
The fifth annual State of Community Management report is here!
A lot has changed in the five years we have been publishing this research and the State of Community Management 2014 continues to push the boundary of what we collectively know about community management. As the discipline has matured we have been able to translate much more of it into quantitative data. This year’s report is chock full of data, segmented and delivered in ways that will help you plan and act.
The report includes:
- Key Findings
- Findings by Community Maturity Model competency
- Guidance on using the research, by competency
- Best practices from TheCR Network, by competency
- Additional resources
What you’ll see in the data is that community management is standardizing – but still not mature or completely integrated into core business processes. Most community initiatives now have approved community strategies, which is fantastic – and quite a change from the early days of shiny object syndrome. However, all to often those strategies are not mirrored by approved and resourced roadmaps, pointing to one of the biggest challenges in the space today – funding the resources and programs that will translate aspirations to reality.
Also encouraging is that the vast majority of best-in-class (most mature) communities can measure value, indicating an important shift in the market from something that was considered innovative and unproven to something that is understood and measurable.
This research was the result of a community effort that included TheCR Network members who guided our exploration, experts who helped tease out best practices, TheCR team who all contributed in ways large and small and finally our sponsors – DNN, Enterprise Hive, Jive, Lithium, and Sitrion – who made it all possible.
The collaboration across our community allowed us to bring this rich data to you. We hope you find it interesting but more importantly, we hope this data helps you succeed. If it does, we would love to hear about how you used it to plan your roadmap, educate stakeholders or justify your budget.
Happy reading!
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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.
