Community is always a work in progress. Uncommunity #42
👋 Hey there! Biswa here.
Welcome to the latest issue of Uncommunity - the newsletter that helps you become a better community builder. We bring you community experts’ interviews, content on communities, tools to scale community or events, and jobs to be applied.
This week, our guest for the AMA is Max Pete. Max aka The One Hand Wonder Man is SuperHi's Customer Support + Community Specialist residing in San Diego, CA. Max also serves as a coach for kids with limb differences at Nubability and is on the board of the nonprofit Design With Us. Beyond work, Max is an active runner and also enjoys making playlists for any occasion.
Let’s go 🚀
What are some metrics that will make or break a community?
Good question! In my opinion, I think attendance (who is showing up and how often are members showing up) is one of the most important metrics that you should measure. If you notice that no one is showing up, or people are showing up on an infrequent basis, you can use that data to strategize potential new programming, content, etc.
Doing AMAs is a great way to engage leaders in the industry. What are some good ways to scale the AMA programs?
Truth! I think more important than scalability is being consistent with your programming. For example, if you want to launch an AMA event in your community, it would be good to build a ritual around it (e.g. every 3rd Wednesday of the month) to keep members coming back and engaged.
What are some tips on getting your members involved in community initiatives?
Reaching out and asking them! Before you spend a lot of time on community initiatives + event ideas, first, ask your community what they want! More often than not, you'll find a lot of clarity in what your community wants and needs and in turn have more engagement around the community initiatives.
How do we design community initiatives or programs based on the community's needs?
Same answer as above! Asking the community what they want + need goes a long way :)
Community is always a work in progress. What do you mean by this?
Mainly that it is never finished! There are always new ideas to test, new learnings to collect and implement, etc. Community is fluid, so it should be ever-changing. Even if everything that you are doing now is working, it doesn't mean that it will stay the same forever.
What's the best article on communities you've read ever?
I don't have any specific that comes to mind, but I always love enjoying new articles from Community Club, Rosie Land, and Tom Ross!
Advice to someone who's just getting started in community management?
Don't be afraid to make mistakes and try something new. Also, one of the best ways to learn is to connect with other community managers and see what they're doing and how you could possibly implement something similar in a community that you're a part of or want to work with. It is best when we are all learning from each other :)
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Get in touch with Max on his Twitter.
*Knock knock* Are you with me? Okay, great. Because we are just getting started! Read on to know what’s happening (or happened) in the world of Community Management.
What else we’re reading?
[SURVEY] If you’re a community management professional, you know how important surveys are to benchmark our industry. Contribute to this survey by Community Roundtable.
A Guide For Designing Online Community Governance.
This governance design guide has three primary goals.
Understanding of stakeholder identities and qualification criteria
Understanding which decisions are made, and who makes them
Creating a document that outlines both
Leveraging communities to drive product growth and engagement
Creating alignment between product and community can go a long way to helping both sides understand how the community is fitting into this whole mix—how it contributes to product knowledge, innovation, and feedback—and establish mutual understanding between both sides about what that contribution looks like day-to-day.
Read the tips on how you can work together to create a win-win.
Scaling Intimacy is a Community Leader’s Greatest Challenge. What does intimacy feel like? By definition, it’s “a private cozy atmosphere”. It’s a feeling of closeness. How does it relates to online community? Well, quite a lot actually. Taylor Harrington, Community Head at Groove outlines some tried and tested ways we can scale intimacy and keep the sense of belonging intact, when growing a community.
‘What Should a Community Manager Do in Their First Week, Month, and Six Months?’ A question that comes to every community professional’s mind when they are starting a new job. Here’s a step by step guide that you could use or send someone who you know is starting out.
Communities and organizations: How to ensure a happy marriage?
Too often communities fail because organizations only found out afterwards what it takes to get a community off the ground. That’s a shame, because a fruitful symbiosis between organization and community is definitely possible.
Peter Staal, Founder of Bind Community Building, opines on why is it a good idea to keep stakeholders engaged before there’s a community (with examples).
How to Get Community Buy In. Prove the Value of Community Inside your Organization. You can leverage the value that your community creates to cooperate with other departments within your company. In this article Kourosh Ghaffari, from Waves, look at how community teams can work together with marketing, product, and sales teams to create some (measurable) value.
End-to-end community attribution: Quantifying impact from a revenue perspective. Read how Common Room defines community-attributed revenue (CAR) as revenue from an organization whose member(s) engaged in the community before they appeared in your CRM or Marketing Automation system.
[EVENT] [April 14] Creating and Scaling a Global Sisterhood Community with Melek Pulatkonak. An event by Carrie Mellisa Jones. RSVP here.
[EVENT] [April 20] Wired to Engage: How We-centric online communities create energized, loyal customers. RSVP here.
What are we listening to?
The Community Led Show: Erik Martin on How to Get Your Coworkers Involved in Community
The Community Corner: Building Five Star ERGs with Sheldon Maye
The Empathy Edge Podcast: Carrie Melissa Jones: Building Successful Communities
Peers Over Beers: Episode 88 - Allison Boudreau - Director Education, and Community at Calix - Community and Academy
Peers Over Beers: The Most Common Frustrations for Community Professionals
Community Signal: Keeping Open Source Software Developers Connected to Users
IB4TL: 64: Inception
More on community governance:
More like.. Engagement bible!
Normalise talking about imposter syndrome.
Some more engagement ideas, grab them while you can.
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