Thicker than Blood: how community management brings you closer to your customer How do you keep your relationship authentic?
- subversive unit within a large company
- Working out loud - ideation, code, activities - do it transparently and be intentional
- Share bad news as well as the good news
- Participate as a person in your community - be who you are and be open about
- one chance to maintain the credibility of the company
- Provide substantive answers
- Be authentic as a person
- Don't be surgical, it's not PR - be a member of a community
- two way conduit
PR vs. Community*Company creates message = PR
- Community = people are conversing
- Answers not an answer - but a message in the case of PR
- Community management ensures that there is a channel back to the company
- must be open to all levels and all times for effectiveness
How much room or flexibility does your company allow you to build that relationship?*Working from the outside in - side rogue project
- Experimental phase helps with allowing the flexibility
- The following help you allow this
- executive sponsor
- where you report to
- values of the company
How has your idea of community changed?*not one cm's relationship with a huge group of people but shift to the one on one relationship building
- the people participating in communities and community managers have shifted
- segment your audience to serve their needs
Online and offline - bridge the two or not?*Offline helps build stronger communities - people behave better after meeting in person
- Conferences - regional ones too - helps to build relationships but also build community
- hacker lounge
- beers
- games - play werewolf
- offline = authentic moments
When to do the offline event for my community?*For a software (open source) community perspective - do an offline event after a new release - lots to talk about
- For others, do it regularly, consistently
When have you championed your community to your company*Hang outs with power users and engineers (google/youtube) and they are begging for it
- facilitate and bridge relationships between the customer and your company
- Pair it with metrics - this led to a result - share that with your company
- Go back to the company with issues - lay it with the behaviors, why it's happening and how it can be fixed - less like whining and more like advisor
Data/Metrics that helps demonstrate community success*make the data align with the broader business objectives - understand why you have a community
- include a mix of quantitative and qualitative data - tell the story don't just give them the number
- transparency out to the community and from the community to the company
- paint the true value of ROI
- Reporting structures are key to ensuring the right data from the community to the right department within the org