Community is Everywhere - How Do You Manage It?
In this episode, Christopher and Nicole discuss the idea that community exists everywhere, not just on a company's own branded community platform. They talk about how community management is evolving to be more cross-functional, with community professionals embedding in other teams like social media and customer success. Inspired by FeverBee: The ‘Community Everywhere’ Era Has Arrived: Don’t Waste This Opportunity
Check out the blog: The End of Walled-Garden Communities
Check out the blog: The End of Walled-Garden Communities
Key points they cover:
- Community happens across social channels, forums like Reddit, and other informal spaces online. Companies need to think about how to participate in these spaces, not just drive people back to their own community platform.
- It's important for community managers to align strategies and data across all community touchpoints, though this requires breaking down silos and working cross-functionally.
- No technology alone can solve the problem of managing community everywhere. Human insight is still critical to connect the dots.
- At its core, community professionals love building relationships and connections. The challenge is balancing that with showing business value.
- To understand your customers, you need to know them as whole people, not just their interactions on your community platform.
They conclude that managing community everywhere is complex but critical for the evolution of community management. More collaboration across the organization is key.
Creators and Guests
Host
Chris Detzel
Chris is a versatile Digital Community Strategist with several years of experience. He has owned community vision, strategy, and execution. He is responsible for leading the development and execution of community engagement programs, creating compelling content for customer communities and acts as the voice of the customer. He believes that data should drive decisions as it is the key element of any long-term successful strategy.
Host
Nicole Saunders
As Director of Community at Zendesk, she oversee the Community Team (part of the Global Digital Experiences team), set strategy, define policy and governance, develop and launch new community products, and engage our user community. Our programs include: an online community, virtual events, user groups, community champions, customer advocacy, and an annual global virtual community summit.