Community Management 101. - A conceptual grasp of community management - The value of community management - Turning community members into advocates - and more

1. by ....Amanda Tiffany Foley (@_AmandaFoley)
Community Manager, Government Digital Services
Freelance Community Strategist + Writer
COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT:
!
A WORKSHOP

2. ‣ Introduction
‣ Don’t Call Me A Social Media Manager!
‣ Elements of Community Management
‣ The Value of Building Community
‣ Talking vs. Listening
‣ Tools Of The Trade
‣ Resources
‣ Q & A
(A ROUGH) AGENDA

3. INTRODUCTION
‣ Currently:
‣ Diving into the world of “Digital Government” +
Freelancing with London tech startups
!
‣ Before:
‣ Marketing @ audience.io
‣ UK Community Manager Gogobot.com
‣ Marketing @ School for Creative Startups
‣ Community Manager @ TechHub London
!
HI, I’M AMANDA

4. ….AND AS A HUMAN BEING
‣ coffee snob
‣ standup comedy obsessive
‣ early adopter / tech nerd
‣ doctor who lover
‣ one of 8 children
‣ hockey-loving canadian expat

5. DON’T CALL ME A SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER!
(AND DON’T CALL YOURSELF ONE, EITHER)

8. (SOME) ELEMENTS OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT
‣ social engagement
‣ offline
‣ support
‣ strategy
‣ content
‣ problem solving
‣ storytelling
‣ turning your community
members into advocates
information architecture
‣ product development
‣ data analysis & growth

9. “At the end of the day, your community manager is your team’s most valuable asset, in regards to learning about
and communicating with your users. Leverage them on your team accordingly.”
!
- @SJW
Sarah Judd Welch, Founder of LoyalCX

10. ….but let’s dig a little deeper.

11. ELEMENTS OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT
SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT
!
!
What is it not about:
!
‣ It is not just about Twitter
‣ It is not broadcast only
‣ It is not just pushing out content
‣ It is not just worrying about maximum reach or followers
!

12. ELEMENTS OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT
SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT
!
What it is about:
!
‣ Complete engagement within a high complexity market, in which services,
products, and users are completely intertwined
‣ Going to where they are, not making them come to you
‣ Gathering feedback and putting it to use
‣ Getting to know your users
‣ Acting as a knowledge source and resource hub
‣ and much, much more

13. ELEMENTS OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT
OFFLINE + SUPPORT
!
!
‣ As a result of being the link between the community and the organisation, A CM
(can) become the known or “go-to” offline advocate / evangelist
‣ A Community Manager is not a customer support agent, but it is about helping and
pointing people in the right direction
‣ Community is about being helpful and building trust
!
!
!

14. ELEMENTS OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT
STRATEGY + CONTENT
!
Community Managers are the main liaison between the community and the
organisation. Meaning:
!
‣ You are front-line when understanding what type of content works well
‣ You can see a wider picture of things like user experience, sentiment, support
queries, content engagement rates and conversation
‣ You must constantly listen, adapt their own strategies, and advise other teams
within the organisation based on findings
!
!

15. ELEMENTS OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT
SOLVE PROBLEMS
!
!
‣ Know your product, company or organisation inside and out. Know it better than
the engineers know it.
!
‣ Knowing your community inside and out. Offer up invaluable feedback on who
and where your users are, what they think, how they operate
!
‣ Be able to jump-in and create solutions to problems based on your intimate
relationship with the community
!

16. “Compelling storytelling is the foundation for building
strong social relationships and brand advocacy.
Persuasive, shareable, and detailed, your brand’s story
will create deep consumer connections.”
!
-Hessie Jones, CEO of ArCompany

17. ELEMENTS OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT
STORYTELLING
!
‣ Tell the story of your organisation
‣ Let the story communicate what your brand, product or community is all about.
!
!
‣ Tell the story of your community members
‣ Turn community members into advocates
!
!
!
!

18. !
!
!
TURNING COMMUNITY MEMBERS
!
INTO ADVOCATES
!
(OR, WHY PAYING INFLUENCERS TO TWEET ABOUT YOU IS OVERRATED)

19. Don’t confuse audience with influence.

20. Brand Advocates are defined by:
!
‣ Highly satisfied customers
‣ Very likely to recommend your
brand
‣ Wanting to help friends
‣ Loyal
‣ Has a genuine passion for your
product or organisation
‣ Doesn’t require incentives (unlike a
paying an “influencer”)

21. ELEMENTS OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
+ PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
!
‣ Feeding the information you’ve gathered onto the rest of your team on a regular
basis (i.e. most frequently requested features)
‣ Having a strong community / product feedback loop
‣ Clearer = better. What improvements can be made to reduce support tickets?
!
!
!
!

23. ELEMENTS OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT
ANALYSIS +
MEASURING SUCCESS
!
‣ Measure the quality of relationships
‣ Measure the sentiment. Happy community = advocates = ££$$
‣ Measure what your learned from your community, what you learned from listening
to the conversation around your product, how it made your product better
‣ Measure Social Engagement.
‣ Crunch the numbers. Establish with your team what your quantitative goals are
when it comes to page views, log-ins, conversions, user growth, content
amplification, etc

24. The Value of Building Community
!
“Most people switch for better.
!
Without a doubt, there's a slot in every market for the cheap enough, good
enough alternative.
!
But rapid growth and long-term loyalty come from being better instead.
!
When your product or your service doesn't measure up, the answer
probably isn't to lower your price or offer a refund to the disappointed
customer. Instead, the alternative is to invest in making it better. So much
better that people can't help but talk about it—and so much better that they
would truly miss it if it were gone.”
!
!
- Seth Godin

26. !
LET’S TALK ABOUT:
!
TALKING VS.
LISTENING

27. Listening = Learning
!
Learning = Doing Something About It
!
Doing Something About It = Making It Better

28. LET’S TALK
ABOUT:
TOOLS OF
THE TRADE

30. RESOURCES
Some of my favourites:
‣ Following #cmgr conversations on twitter
‣ The LoyalCX Blog
‣ Sarah Judd Welch (LoyalCX), David Spinks (CMX Summit, David Noel
(VP of Community at SoundCloud)
‣ Community Management Conferences (with a grain of salt)
‣ The Full Start Blog, written by WeWork Labs
‣ Read, Read, Read
‣ Try, Fail, Learn, Try, Learn Some More

31. Q&A TIME
amandafoley1@gmail.com
Questions?
!
@_AmandaFoley on Twitter
Find the workshop
slides:
bit.ly/amandafoley