Guide to Online Community Management Sample

ReadWriteWeb Premium Report 2009

ReadWriteWebGuide to Online Community

Management

May 2009Edited By Marshall Kirkpatrick

The

page 2ReadWriteWeb Premium Report 2009

IntroductIonFraming the issues and describing the parts of the report

the BasIcs Our answers to the first questions companies ask about online community

ldquodo startups need communIty managersrdquoA long blog post that kick started our interest in the topic based on interviews and feedback from more than 50 people in the field

roIA discussion of the different ways to look at the Return on Investment from community management understand the nature of the job by knowing what your company will get out of it

JoB descrIptIonAn exploration of different ways that people describe the work

the marketIngengagement BalanceIs community management marketing customer service or something else Yes

dealIng WIth challengIng communIty memBersItrsquos a part of every community managerrsquos job

Table of Contents

4

7

12

25

34

48

58


IntervIeWsMathew Ingram on the Toronto Globe and Mailrsquos Big Media Community

Lucia Willow on Managing Community at Pandora

Dawn Foster on Managing Developer Communities

Connie Bensen on B2B Community Management

addItIonal resourcesThe Best Podcasts Online Groups and Public Events for Community Managers

64

74

Big thanks to the research team that helped with this report Nisha Chittal Doug Coleman Tim Hattenberger Rennie Wiswall and Nate DiNiro


ROI

Whatrsquos the return on investment (ROI) for online community management Thatrsquos a very important question for a number of reasons First itrsquos a question that advocates for community management are almost always asked by those holding the purse strings at their workplace Secondly engaging with the question helps illuminate the nature of the job

sectIon hIghlIghts

Many of the benefits of community are intangiblebull

There are hard number studies available from Ciscorsquos 2004 finding bull that ldquo43 of visits to online support forums are in lieu of opening up a support case through standard methodsrdquo through Dellrsquos tale of $1 million in sales through Twitter last year

Community managers should establish methods to measure their bull own impact on other departmentsrsquo bottom lines

For every person you interact with publicly far more watch that inter-bull action and are impacted

Community management can be another form of networking deliv-bull ering the same kinds of value that conference attendance presenta-tions and related activities deliver

If you read one link from this section Jeremiah Owyangrsquos ldquoCom-munity Managers Must Deliver ROI Commandments For Surviving a Recessionrdquo httpwww web-strategist comblog20090128commu-nity-managers-must-deliver-roi-tips-for-surviving-a-recession


What Kinds of Animals Are These

Whatrsquos the difference between community management and more traditional positions like customer service and marketing That depends on who you ask There isnrsquot much consensus Most people agree though that online community management incorporates some of both of these types of work It also presents unique challenges and opportunities because of the newly public nature of conversations the variety of people now able to discuss things publicly the scale of the Web and the speed of communication

sectIon hIghlIghts

Social media is different than anything thatrsquos happened before be-bull cause of several unique qualities of the internet

Community management takes a particular kind of personality a bull mixture of passion and compassion

This is a demanding job with long hard hours and high public ex-bull pectations

Skill in working with social media tools is importantbull

Management assumptions need to be questioned bull

Good community management will change the business itrsquos per-bull formed for

There are established norms for pay (we list them below)bull

If you read one link in this section Interview with consultant Nancy White httpwwwnetsquaredorgnwhite


ldquordquo

Community manager and expert on the field Connie Benson bristled when we used the marketing word ldquocampaignsrdquo in our interview with her She believes community management should tilt away from marketing towards customer service and thus achieve what could be called ldquopassive business developmentrdquo As the innovators behind the popular forum site GetSatisfactioncom said in their slogan for a recent conference ldquoCustomer service is the new marketingrdquo That means that making your existing customers happy in a public way is the best kind of marketing you can have

the Ideal communIty manager personalItyldquoPassionate but without letting it get out of control

Thick-skinned but not cruel or insensitive Driven but still interested in helping others Personable but always

professionalrdquo - Dan Gray1

Marketing consultant Rick Turoczy says itrsquos a matter of skill sets and authenticity ldquoI think community management is better handled by customer service for the majority of companiesrdquo he told us ldquoMost marketing people donrsquot get it Theyrsquore broadcast only The best community managers Irsquove ever worked with (including before the days of social media) were always in customer service or professional servicesrdquo

While such high-minded ideals are well ideal marketing and community management will probably always have a close if at times uncomfortable relationship Some of the more ldquomarketingrdquo type of work that community managers do includes the creation of original content highlighting selected customer-created content and engaging in conversations off-site on blogs Twitter etc about the company and issues relevant to its industry

1httpbifftheunderstudywordpresscom20081203the-mind-of-a-cm

2 httpconniebensencomblog20080717community-manager-job-description

thIngs that make socIal medIa dIFFerent

Communication is public im-pacting passive site visitors search traffic and others

Blogs will challenge you

Customers can help each other

Conversation happens much faster

Use cases are public customers create content

Your claims are verifiable by Google


ldquordquo

responsible and respectful way

ldquoIf it werenrsquot for Twitter and FriendFeed we would not have had as good a response to our representatives The users on those sites are a quick and smart grouprdquo

cOmmunIty manaGement fOr develOPer cOmmunItIes

Dawn Foster is a widely known online community and marketing consultant She tends to work in developer-centric communities especially open-source ones We asked Dawn to share some experiences shersquos had at various companies that were particularly educational

She told us one unhappy story one story that started out rough but ended up being resolved well and one story that was happy right from the start Her stories resonate well with many

of the other developer community managers wersquove heard from in the rest of this report

Dawn can be found at her blog FastWonderBlogcom and on Twitter at GeekyGirlDawn

the Bad story the company that hated the communIty

ldquoI was working for a company that had a community where the community and company were at extreme odds The relationship was honestly adversarial People at the company were talking about how stupid the community was and the community was talking about how unhelpful the company was They brought me in to help with that but I probably shouldnrsquot have The founders and execs were the ones being hostile

ldquoWhat I learned from that is that no amount of community mangment skills or work will overcome a situation where

company executives donrsquot like the community Had these execs been more eager to participate if it had been people lower in the company causing the problems then that might have

worked

Pages from rww-reportmay09-working01pdfpdf

Pages from rww-reportmay09-working01pdf-2pdf




IntroductIonFraming the issues and describing the parts of the report

the BasIcs Our answers to the first questions companies ask about online community

ldquodo startups need communIty managersrdquoA long blog post that kick started our interest in the topic based on interviews and feedback from more than 50 people in the field

roIA discussion of the different ways to look at the Return on Investment from community management understand the nature of the job by knowing what your company will get out of it

JoB descrIptIonAn exploration of different ways that people describe the work

the marketIngengagement BalanceIs community management marketing customer service or something else Yes

dealIng WIth challengIng communIty memBersItrsquos a part of every community managerrsquos job

Table of Contents

4

7

12

25

34

48

58







64

74



ROI


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74



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Guide to Online Community Management Sample

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Transcript of Guide to Online Community Management Sample