Announcing The 2011 State of Community Management Report

We are excited to announce the publication of our 2011 State of Community Management report.  The report is a compilation of what we learned with members of TheCR Network over the course of 2010 as well as survey results covering  community management maturity.

Key findings from the report include:

• Social business is realized through the combination of social software, process change, and a change in general management approach to a more community-centric perspective.
• Community management is evolving to include more variations and has become both an explicit role and a discipline of general management.
• Community management excellence requires the understanding of human behavior and psychology, the community management discipline, business, and the organizational context.
• Community approaches to marketing, support, innovation, and collaboration have gone mainstream. If you are just starting out now, you will find you have some catching up to do.
• Executives are overwhelmingly positive about social approaches with 59% perceived as either ‘cautiously optimistic’ or ‘enthusiastic’ about it.
• 67% of surveyed organizations have community managers.
• Organizations with community managers have cultures that are less resistant to information sharing and more likely to have enterprise-wide governance structures.
• Education and cultural change are critical to success in social business.
• Organizations are still working through how to measure the effectiveness of social and community initiatives.

Inside the report, you will find survey results, qualitative lessons learn, our analysis of how the community management discipline is changing, and a list of experts and references for further learning.

Combined with The 2010 State of Community Management report, this provides practitioners with a robust reference document that can help you:

• Understand the discipline of community management
• Provide a training resource to new community managers
• Better plan and support social business and community initiatives
• Better manage an existing community
• Find inspiration and new approaches to common challenges

This report could not have been developed without the perspectives of our members, the insights from experts we have had as guests (follow them via our Twitter list), and the support of the report sponsors: Acquia, Enterprise 2.0, Farland Group, Igloo Software, Moxie Software, Rosetta, and Social Media Today. We have done our best to curate and assemble those perspectives, insights, and support in a way that provides you with a valuable resource. Please, in turn, consider these individuals and organizations if they offer expertise or tools you need.

Click to view and download the report.