Related
Recommended
Becky Anderson
2 minute read time.
Observations from a Community newbie

For those of you I haven’t had a chance to meet yet, my name is Becky Anderson, and I joined the Community team early in 2021.  I came from the customer experience portion of Verint, and therefore had little to no exposure to a community.  I’ve spent the last year getting up to speed on this side of the house, and just finished a course that focused on the strategy of managing a community.  Following are some of the key take aways for me. 

 

  • You need different types (profiles) of people in your community, or it will not work.  I think that when people think about building a community, they can easily focus on one profile of people. The reality is that a community of information seekers will not be successful because there is nobody to provide the information.   
  • Each profile of people need to get something out of the community.  What people get will likely be different, but it needs to align with their goals, or they will not see value, and therefore will not return.
  • A community is about behavior change.  Regardless of the goal of a community, in order for it to be successful, members need to change their behavior. It might be from calling for support to consulting the community, or it might be to start to collaborate with their peers in the community instead of in private e-mails.  Whatever it is, behaviors need to change, or the community will die out.
  • There is a lot of planning that should into the content in a community.  Content doesn’t just happen, and it should take the form of several different media types – including videos, blogs, articles etc to better attract different people. Its important to plan where content will come from, and the frequency that it will be posted in the beginning.  Over time, some of this content may come from other members.
  • Measuring the success of a community SHOULD change over time.  In the early phases of a community, the measure of success should revolve around the people who are changing behaviors, so something like return visits or return contributors is much more telling. Only when you make it into a more mature community should you focus on growth.
  • There should be some very clear rules/policies on what type of info is in the community, and what is better served in Social Channels. Having clear boundaries between social channels and the community, and enforcing them is necessary for the community to be successful, and not muddled with information that shouldn’t be there. 

 

I hope that these keys for me are thought starters for you, wherever you are in your community journey.  Sometimes I think that its important to take a step back and think about the bigger picture.

  • in reply to jhayharris

    I think in relation to community, the role of social is to promote, direct, and first line engage. At Arm, our social channels are very much used to tell our audience what we are up to, the value of that event, and how to get involved. They then redirect people to where they can further engage/register etc (for example, redirect to community content).

  • in reply to jhayharris

      Thank you for your response.  I think that the separation between social and the community can be a fine line.  Some things to think about.. complaints or concerns of members, where do you want those to be handled?  Or if someone has a very specific or unique question.. do you want them to go through your social channel or should they contact someone in the community?  Having a good idea of where you want these things will also help you make sure that the response channels are correctly staffed.  

  • I am spending this evening browsing this blog library which goes back quite a ways, I am sad there is not more recent material. 

  • This was a very helpful read Becky!  Point 5 is resonating with me a lot as I am starting to hear a lot about the analytics I people want to see and how to baseline 'growth'.. the first thing out of everyone is the need and how to grow the community.. but I think the point about changing behaviors which will obviously then imply also a motivation transition perhaps is a very important metric to track... particularly in my case where I am taking on and existing community that has become 'stale' and trying to reinvigorate it!  

    I am still not clear on how the distinction between social channels and the community should be drawn.. still trying to piece all of these peripheral constructs together.

About
Privacy Policy
Terms of use
Copyright 2024 Verint, Inc.
Powered by Verint Community