crash course for new community managers
DESCRIPTION
Presented at the Enterprise 2.0 Boston Conference, June 2011 Congratulations - you are a new community manager! But what does that mean? Where do you start? What are the fundamentals for success? Attendees will learn about important drivers for community success: - Goals – What are the corporate and member goals? - How to design with an eye on the goals - Communication plan – ‘What’s in it for me?’ - Governance – what are the rules, who enforces them?TRANSCRIPT
© 2011 ArcSight Confidential
© 2011 ArcSight, Inc. All rights reserved.
ArcSight and the ArcSight logo are trademarks of ArcSight, Inc. All other product and company names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.
Crash Course for New Community Managers
Trisha Liu
Enterprise Community Manager
ArcSight, an HP Company
Twitter: @mor_trisha
© 2011 ArcSight Confidential
@mor_trisha
#e2conf-15
What is a community manager?
Photo credit: Mycael
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Be clear
Photo credit: Phil Shirley
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Site Design
Don’t re-create silos
Photo credit: Bill Jacobus
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GovernanceWork with Legal
Photo credit: the justified sinner
Legal
Requirements
User
Experience
Balance
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Write training
Photo credit: Ivan Walsh
Photo credit: John Tolva
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Deliver Training
Spread the message
Photo credit: Alice Bartlett
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Launch!Photo credit: (nz)dave
Handle technical issues / education
Monitor closely
Photo credit: Kris Stokes
Listen
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Handle issues
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“Only 15 of the 143 CMOs and CCOs in the
Fortune 100 we studied have active Twitter
Accounts.
Worse, 15% of them have a net zero social
footprint (meaning no social activity).”
- Mark Fidelman in Business Insider
Participate
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Critical Skill
Photo credit: William Couch
Practice discernment
© 2011 ArcSight ConfidentialPhoto credit: Ed Brambley
Watch for strays
Image credit: Dion Hinchcliffe
http://i.zdnet.com/blogs/community_manager_large.png
Q & A
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Trisha Liu
Charter Member, Community BackChannel
http://cmtybc.com
@mor_trisha
http://www.linkedin.com/in/trishaliu
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Appendix
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Focus on Goals
What are the corporate goals?
– Crowdsourcing
– Support customer success
– Increase employee productivity
What are the member goals?
– Find answers and solutions
– Find information more quickly
– Network
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Use Goals to Drive Site Design, Feature Selection
Identify activities that members want to perform
– If members want to find info, then search is a key feature
– If members want to ask questions, then discussion threads are needed
– If members want to network, do you have profile pages?
© 2011 ArcSight Confidential
Page Design
Write clear calls to action
Use plain language
When a member looks at the page, he should clearly understand:
– What can I do here? (what action?)
– What can I expect to find here?
Don’t try to put all info/activities on one page, members will not know what to do
© 2011 ArcSight Confidential
Content Structure
Don’t re-create existing silos
It is easy to build what is familiar
– Three department community managers built a total of 90+ containers
– If a member posts a question, where (which container) would she put it?
Focus on activities or programs that span the member base
– Employee community focuses on products, not departments. Any employee, regardless of department, can contribute to product discussions
– Customer community focuses on activities – Share, Interact, Network –not products
© 2011 ArcSight Confidential
Training
Keep it simple
Use plain language
Focus on activities that members want to perform
Training formats:
– Documents
– Video
– In-person / webinar
You don’t need to write a giant manual!
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Governance
Work with Legal to understand:
– Compliance requirements
– Data classification (public, confidential, restricted)
– Any access restriction requirements
Balance legal requirements with user experience
– If structure or access controls are too cumbersome, people won’t use the community
© 2011 ArcSight Confidential
Plan Hard, Manage Easy
By focusing so much effort and attention on goals and activities:
– Members will know what to do
– Benefits of using the community are clear
– Reasons to use the community are easy to communicate
After launch, focus shifts to adoption
– Monitor the old channels, such as email
– Encourage people that use the old channels to bring the activity to the community
© 2011 ArcSight Confidential
Be Active in the Community
Quantitative reports only tell part of the story
Listen
– Login to the community and read discussions
Participate
Practice discernment:
– When do you need to step in?
– Wait for others to provide answers
– Sometimes conversation stops after the community manager answers, feeling is “The authority has spoken.”
© 2011 ArcSight Confidential
Community is a Product
Just like any other product, a successful community requires:
– Marketing
• Promote the community
• Communicate benefits
– Training and Education
– Product Management
• New features
• New activities
– Technical Support
• Site issues
• Upgrades