The Community Roundtable

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

Throwback Thursday – Best Practices Webinars

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Best Practices WebinarOne of the greatest perks of working at TheCR is access to all the big, beautiful brains on our team. Hillary Boucher has more community management knowledge than you can shake a stick at and even though she is kept pretty busy with her day job (running TheCR Network and our community teams) she took some time last year to sit down with me and share some of her best practices for specific community programming.

These webinars are short, to the point and contain the how-tos for quick wins in your community. Whether you are thinking about revamping your new member on-boarding process or undertaking a community platform migration, we’ve got the best practices to help you reach your community management goals.

Take a peek! Is there a community management topic you’d love to see Hillary take on in 2017? Send it to us and we’ll try to get it on the calendar!

Community Management Best Practices Webinars

Best Practices for Training a New Community Manager

Best Practices for New Member Welcome Programs

Best Practices for Community Platform Migration

Best Practices for Content Programming

Best Practices for New Member Leadership Program

Want more Community Management Best Practices?

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Can’t find what you’re looking for? Drop us a line and we’ll do our best to help you find the community management info you need!

Throwback Thursday – Community Management Research

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We are gearing up to launch our 8th annual State of Community Management Survey, so I thought it would be a great time to share an overview of all the community management research we publish. This week’s #throwbackthursday highlights our four major research platforms for community management professionals.

Community Management Research

The State of Community Management

Report: The State of Community Management is our annual research platform that tracks the performance of communities and community management across the eight competencies of the Community Maturity Model. The State of Community Management 2016 marked the seventh year of this vitally important resource CCC2015_Cover_ShadowTiltfor community professionals and organizations and built on the insights and expertise of our past reports.

Community Careers and Compensation

Our Community Careers and Compensation research traces its roots to the Community Manager Salary Survey, which TheCR first launched in 2014. In addition to questions about the salaries, roles and titles of community professionals, with the CCC, we expanded our efforts to capture the skills that community professionals across the spectrum find most valuable, and added questions about where community sits within the organizational structures of businesses, nonprofits and other organizations.

The Social Executive

One of the major challenges of the community and social business teams with whom we work is the education of their executives, who vary widely in expectations, priorities for and engagement with social tools and approaches. Because this is such a critical issue, we consider The Social Executive research platform to be key in helping our members and clients make progress in their own organizations.

The Community Manager Handbook

The Community Manager Handbook: 20 Lessons from Community Superheroes combines research findings and advice from The Community Roundtable with short case studies and tips from some of the smartest community professionals in the space, for community managers looking to start, build and grow their communities. The superheroes include current and recent members of TheCR Network, sharing their tested approaches to address the challenges facing communities large and small, old and new.

Have you used any of TheCR’s community management research in your work? We love to hear about our research in the wild! Drop us a line and let us know! 

 

More Community Management Resources

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Can’t find what you’re looking for? Drop us a line and we’ll do our best to help you find the community management info you need!

Throwback Thursday: Managing a Community Budget

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community budgetLike it or not, managing a community budget is a must for many community managers – and might be something you’ve never tackled before. With 2017 looming (how are we halfway through November already?) we wanted to share some of our most popular posts on defining and managing a community budget.

And for those of you thinking, “Ha! A budget! I’ve got three paper clips and a cold cup of coffee!”, we’ve got something for you too – both how to survive when you’re underfunded AND how to calculate the ROI of your community to have the data you need to ask for more money.

Best Practices for Managing a Community Budget

Help! I don’t have budget to add new staff to my community team.

The Benefits of Community Benchmarking – How benchmarking your community can help secure increased resources.

Community ROI Calculator -Use this calculator to give you a glimpse into the ROI of your community, using the value of an answer as a key value.

The Smartest Way to Use Your Community Conference or Training Budget

3 Best Practices When Budgeting for Community and Social Programs

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Looking for more community management best practices? Check out our archive of throwback Thursday posts – the best of the best in community management. Including topics such as Building Your Community, Getting a Community Management Job and Community Metrics 101.

Throwback Thursday: Work Out Loud (WOL)

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work out loud

It’s no secret that we’re huge fans of the work out loud concept. We’re in the middle of International Working Out Loud Week and are really enjoying all the great content this week at the #WOLWEEK site. If you’re thinking of how the #WOL movement can be applied specifically to community management, look no further! Below we have a round-up of some of our favorite work-out-loud resources we’ve previously featured.

Case Study: Using The Work-Out-Loud Framework To Measure Adoption & Engagement – We were lucky enough to have Jim Martin of Shepley Bulfinch facilitate a Roundtable Call with members of TheCR Network on how his organization used the Work-Out-Loud framework to measure adoption and engagement in their community.

On the call, Jim shared how he has been using the Work Out Loud (WOL) framework within Shepley Bulfinch. Specifically, Jim shared:

  • How they are using Work-Out-Loud framework metrics to find validators, sharers, askers and answerers on their social intranet, and to better understand what they look like, and articulate the value their behavior has to the firm
  • How they are using the framework to evaluate the success of their process for asking and answering technical questions; #AskFinch
  • Why they chose this framework, what worked and what didn’t, and what they would do differently next time.

This case study specifically looks at an internal employee community use case, but was helpful for everyone facing engagement and adoption issues in their online communities.

TheCR Network Members can view the full case study here. Not a member? Join now. 

The Link Between Communities and Culture Change – Most organizations do not understand how powerful communities can be in support of goals like creating collaborative and innovative cultures or executing on digital transformation.

When you take a community management approach to behavior change, it triggers a series of ‘aha’ moments for individuals that lead them to change their beliefs about what is possible – and leads to even more behavior change.  Operationally, that means instead of investing in getting agreement on a new belief first, the belief becomes a natural result of engaging in new methods. The makes the community approach to culture change more cost-effective and agile.


Community Engagement FrameworkCommunity Engagement Framework – TheCR Community Engagement Framework gives structure to the process, and provides community managers with the goals and metrics they should focus on as their communities evolve.

In each step, there are community management techniques to trigger, establish and reward the behaviors. For example, Sharing Out Loud can be triggered by having a regular thread where people share their priorities for the week, like we do in TheCR Network. That helps community members understand the social environment, get comfortable with how people respond to each other and engage without fear of demonstrating a lack of knowledge – making the community a more comfortable place for members to share.

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

Throwback Thursday: All About Us

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By Amy Turner, The Community Roundtable

As I quickly approach my one year mark at The Community Roundtable (crazy how fast time flies!), I thought it would be fun to feature a few oldie but goodie posts about our team. It’s been an incredible year for me as I learn how to embrace a work-out-loud, collaborative and social business environment – a huge departure from my traditional marketing agency background. With that said, there still are countless posts, articles and research our team has published over the past eight years that I’ve yet to uncover, and I continue to get blown away by all the amazing content this small (but powerful) team has produced.

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This week’s #throwback thursday post is all about us – The Community Roundtable team.

  • Infographic: The Community Roundtable’s 5th Anniversary When we started thinking about how to celebrate our five year anniversary we found a way to share our excitement and highlight some of the coolest moments in our first five years. Please enjoy our retrospective infographic – celebrating our most memorable milestones from 2008 until now.
  • Meet TheCR Team: Rachel Happe If you had asked me a decade ago whether I wanted to start a company, the answer would have been a resounding no. But a funny thing happened on the way to the circus – technology, communications and organizational development collided in a way where my experiences gave me unique insight – some of which is personal and some of it through my previous work.
  • For TheCR Network Eyes Only – TheCR Network Resource Bundle. Are you a member of TheCR Network? Have you checked out this amazing resource bundle of research, reports, and strategic exercises compiled from years of member-driven conversations, work and calls?

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

Throwback Thursday – Building Your Community

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By Amy Turner, The Community Roundtable

A community is only as successful and effective as the people who are part of it. When first starting out, or perhaps re-energizing and re-building a stale community, how do you build a strategy and lay the foundation for a successful one?

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We’ve compiled some of our best resources for starting and building a community, including a detailed toolkit for starting on your journey, tips for building a thriving community, as well as a unique perspective about how on-boarding a new community member is similar to welcoming a new baby into the world.

This week’s #throwback thursday post focuses on starting and building community.

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

Throwback Thursday – Event Insights and Highlights

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By Amy Turner, The Community Roundtable

This time of year is always busy for us here at The Community Roundtable as we gear up for conference season. The relaxed days of summer are long gone and we turn into road warriors with a jam-packed schedule of conferences, events and workshops.

Group shot from TheCR Connect West in January 2016.

As we look ahead to the events we are hosting and presenting at over the next two months (including TheCR Connect!), it’s helpful to take a step back and reflect on our insights and learnings from events and conferences attended in the past. Because as we all know, it’s so crucial to step away from our computers, online networks and virtual connections every once and while to have meaningful, personal and engaging conversations with each other.

This week’s #throwbackthursday post focuses on events, highlighting key insights and observations learned from our journeys over the years.

  • Emergent Learning in Networks and at Conferences – For several years during the 2000’s online community professionals gathered together annually to share and learn from each other. Recognizing that online community practice continues to evolve, a group of Bay Area community managers felt the need to revive the unconference tradition to gather together online community and social media professionals to share their collective knowledge and real world experience to address today’s pressing topics.
  • Community in Real Life – We were recently reminded about the power of taking online communities offline and this is an approach we strive to embrace here at TheCR. This short – but effective post – summarizes the important “how’s” and “why’s” of connecting in real life.
  • Why Conversations Matter And How Things Need to Change to Support Them – Moderating and talking with panelists at a Gilbane Digital Content Conference gave Rachel some fascinating insight into where we are now and where things need to go to really support enterprise-wide conversations.
  • To Event Or Not Event? – Learn about Jim’s love/hate relationship with planning events over the years. He’s experienced first-hand how exhilarating it can feel when it all comes together and the vendors, speakers and attendees start connecting on the show floor and in the conference rooms. But the internet came along and changed the game.
  • For TheCR Network Eyes Only – Live Internal Event Blogging and Engagement Tactics – Are you a member of TheCR Network? Check out this exclusive discussion thread inside the Network about how to live blog and engage with employees back in the office or the field while you’re onsite at an event.

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

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Throwback Thursday – All About Community Management Careers

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By Shannon Abram, The Community Roundtablecommunity management careers

It’s no secret we’re a little bit in love with community managers. But, really it goes deeper than that. We love the people that want to be community managers. We love the people that are community managers. And we love the people that have moved on to different, exciting roles after being a community manager. And boy, do community managers do interesting things with their careers!

This week we’re sharing a few posts specifically for those community folks out there thinking about their community careers. Whether you’re just getting started in the world of community, or you’re in place to be building out your very own community team this post has something for you.

This week’s #throwbackthursday focuses on the many stages of community management careers – from getting started to the executive view.

  • Free eBook: Defining Community Management Roles – This free ebook uses our research to target one of the pain points we most often hear from community professionals – the lack of clear role definitions in community management. This is a problem for human resources professionals and hiring managers. Standards for what defines a community manager role, versus a community strategist or director of community can be difficult to ascertain. As a result, providing proper compensation, support and professional development opportunities is difficult.

  • Community Career Profiles: All About Community Strategists – Engagement and people skills rank as the most Community Manager Profileimportant skill set for a successful community strategist. However, strategic and business skills were most important to nearly 20 percent of those in this role.

  • Community Career Profiles: All About Directors of Community – Directors of community bring a special skill-set – strong engagement skills, a knack for content development – to the table. But, they spend most of their time on strategic and business objectives.

  • Community Career Profiles: All About Community Managers – Not surprisingly, engagement and people skills are an essential part of being a community manager!  Internal community managers have more strategic responsibilities related to change management in their organizations. They’re advocates for the community and are more likely to be responsible for developing executive support and coaching executives and member training.

  • For TheCR Network Eyes Only: Community Careers and Development Group – Are you a member of TheCR Network? Check out this group inside TheCR Network where members share job postings, hiring advice and best practices for landing the community jobs of your dreams!

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

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Throwback Thursday – Community Metrics 101

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By Shannon Abram, The Community Roundtable

One of the most daunting aspects of community management for many community managers is how to tackle metrics and measurement. There are so many things to measure, track and report on. And then – what’s the best way to share this data. Weekly? Monthly? With your whole team? Executive reports? It can become overwhelming quickly.

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Our research has shown that communities need to be aspirational in their metrics instead of settling for what is easily available. Measuring behaviors and outcomes rather than just activity correlates with overall community maturity. That’s a challenge for a couple of reasons – those metrics can be harder to define and they can be harder to track in many platforms. Dive into this week’s #tbt post for a primer on community metrics 101: what metrics you should track, how to think about community value and more!

This week’s #throwbackthursday focuses on Community Metrics 101 – a look at the importance of metrics and measurement in any community.

  • What community metrics are most important to track? – One of the most daunting tasks for many community managers is dealing with community metrics. A member recently approached us with the following question: “I’m getting started with tracking metrics for my community and looking for guidance – where do I begin? What metrics are most important to track?”
  • If you run a community, don’t think like a website on metrics – 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.
  • The Basics of  Metrics and Measuring – If you get a group of community managers together and merely mention the word “metrics”, the first question that comes up is “What do I measure?”… and that is a fantastic question. With a huge variety of forum platforms, an even bigger pool of possible community objectives, and a never-ending list of user types – it might feel really impossible to come up with the perfect community dashboard.

  • For TheCR Network Eyes Only: Community Pitch Deck – Are you a member of TheCR Network? Check out this Roundtable Report: Unlocking the Executive Perspective on Success & Measurement: Business Goals, Community, & Metrics

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

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Throwback Thursday – Community Management 101

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By Shannon Abram, The Community Roundtable

community management 101Looking to get started in community management, or just need a refresher on the basics? Check out these community management 101 resources! We’re highlighting the fundamentals of community management in this week’s #throwbackthursday post – including an exclusive glossary of community management terms for members of TheCR Network!

This week’s #throwbackthursday focuses on Community Management 101 – getting back to basics with some fundamental community definitions.

  • Defining Community – The challenge with the word “community” is people mean a lot of different things when they say it, but there are few definitions. Joshua Paul at Socious took a crack at this issue and provided some great suggestions on how to differentiate between several meanings of the word, highlighting the preposition that comes before it. Is it ‘The community’, ‘our community’ or ‘a community’?

  •  Differentiating Between Social Media and Community Management – As someone who works with social media managers and community managers, it seems the line between the two types of positions is not terribly clear – and maybe doesn’t need to be – but I think it would be helpful to distinguish between the two.  Why?

  • Community Types and Terms Defined – There still seems to be a lot of confusion and disconnects when people are talking about their community or talking with The Community Roundtable about how being a member of TheCR Network can help them.  And it’s not surprising.  Much of the lingo and concepts are still very new in organizations and understanding what lens you view community practices through is important.

  • Connection, Friend, Member – Who’s In Your Company’s Online Ecosystem? – We came across this article last week about defining your online community to higher ups, and it resonated because people mean a lot of different things when they use the word community. As the article so aptly states, it is hard sometimes to understand if you are “referring to the online community at large, the community of people that your organization interacts with online, or an online community where your customers, employees, or partners can engage one another and support your customers or members.”

  • For TheCR Network Eyes Only: Community Management Glossary – Are you a member of TheCR Network? Check out this exclusive glossary of dozens of community management terms – and add the ones you think need to be there!

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

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