Housecleaner Needed: Why Every Community Manager needs one
08 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment
in Lessons, New Community Managers, Uncategorized Tags: cleanup effort, housecleaning, space management
Or, why some might argue that every Community Manager must BE one!
Spaces proliferate faster than putting two undetermined gender bunnies in a cage. Before you know it, you have hundreds (and hundreds) of communities and groups. Wearing our rose-colored glasses, we can quote those stats to show how we’ve accomplished adoption in our work environment.
But let’s get a dose of Dr. Phil and get real. Not every space is successfully launched, prepared, nurtured, revised, evaluated, redesigned, and adopted. I don’t have numbers to back me up, but I do know from experience that an annual ‘cleanup’ effort reduces the overall number of spaces by about 20%.
So back to the housecleaner. I don’t know about you, but my workday is quite full with supporting users, community managers, creating and changing spaces, moderating content, making connections between the business and community…oh, and attending meetings, planning strategy, generating reports and doing all the things that all of us have to do all the time.
Housecleaning communities is, for me, an annual event that is mind-numbing. I have to wonder what it would be like to have the time to follow up on every space request, to reach out to Community Managers to offer assistance and to jump start their spaces, to archive spaces well before they hit the ‘no content in six months…you’re archived’ rule.
One person can’t do it all. Anyone out there have a housecleaning strategy?
Listen to This!
18 Nov 2011 3 Comments
in Lessons, New Community Managers
I’m getting increasingly disturbed by the widespread use of the word “listening” in a social context. We’ve been taught that listening can be either active or passive in a face 2 face situation, but the word listening is inherently passive.
Maybe if we started using words that our non-social wannabees could relate to, it would be easier for them to understand what we’re talking about. It’s like talking to them in their own language; how radical is that?
Listening is not:
- Monitoring social channels for mentions
- Pumping out reports on the number of mentions
Listening, to my beginner’s mind, IS:
- Monitoring social channels for mentions AND taking action
- Replying to happy customers and inviting them to our social spaces to continue the conversation
- Responding to unhappy customers and offering a quick resolution to their issue
- At least attempting to measure sentiment, albeit not an accurate science or easy task
Maybe we call it engagement (another widely used social term). Or Customer Conversation. Or Customer Touch Point.
I don’t propose to have the answer, but I know that the word ‘listening’ doesn’t get across the breadth of activities, or the full value that can be produced by its flawless execution.
Post-Cleanup Aftermath
14 Nov 2011 Leave a Comment
in Lessons, New Community Managers, Space Architecture
If you’ve been following along, you remember that I just finished archiving over 170 spaces / communities. It was among the most tedious, mind-numbing things I’ve ever done and I will think three times before ever creating a new space again. OK, that’s an exaggeration but I will certainly apply lessons learned.
Of those 170 spaces, managed by approximately 300 Community Managers, I have received three…..three…..requests to reactivate the spaces:
- “I post a quarterly newsletter in that space, I need it.” Well, communities aren’t really intended to ‘push’ content but rather to engage but in any event the last time a newsletter was posted was a year ago. Haven’t heard back from that one, time sure does fly.
- ” Where did my space go? It just disappeared!” Remember that post that I highlighted, advising that I’d be archiving spaces? Well, your space had three pieces of content, all posted by you, all more than a year old. It’s gone, baby, gone.
- “I urgently need you to reactivate my space; my boss is all over me.” Really? Maybe your boss has been gone for 11 months, but not a piece of content has been added or viewed in that timeframe.
The rest of the Community Managers may someday discover that their spaces have been archived, but I doubt it. Monitoring spaces, especially when attempting to manage over 700, has to be a nearly weekly routine.
Blaze an active space!
Autumn is the time for Space Cleanup
09 Nov 2011 Leave a Comment
in Lessons, New Community Managers, Space Architecture
Well, not really. The time for space cleanup is probably every week at best, but I only get around to it seasonally. A few months into my Social Media Management role, and I’ve just archived 170 spaces of some 700+ in existence.
It is a mind-numbing activity with multiple steps, spreadsheets, and documentation to substantiate the decision to archive. But I followed one basic rule: no content in 6 months qualifies a space for a focused review. Now I didn’t archive EVERY space with no content for 6 months, but I found a boatload of spaces with no content for two years.
And, I learned some lessons during this effort that might be helpful as you create new spaces:
- The majority of spaces that I archived were being managed by either contract employees or student interns. Nothing wrong with that, but it appears that these folks either rotate roles or are more transient in their roles. They have a tendency to move on without notification, leaving their spaces unattended and withering on the proverbial vine.
- Second in the archive line were private spaces. Oh, everyone wants them but more often than not they sit empty or with occasional (VERY occasional) efforts at starting conversations that no one gets to see.
- And finally, the third category of ‘bound to be archived’ spaces are sub-sub-spaces. When will we ever get out of this hierarchical model of space architecture?
I hope this experience can hep you in some way. Would love to hear your observations!
The Yin and Yang of Community Management
07 Sep 2011 Leave a Comment
I have been blessed with the opportunity to assume an enterprise community management role with literally no experience. Now I know that sounds strange, but it’s true.
I had been an active, contributing member of EMC’s internal collaboration space, but had never had the experience of managing a community. I didn’t know what a widget was, didn’t know anything about the platform, wasn’t even a member of the Social Media Club. Looking back, I’ve often asked myself why I was offered the position.
As I approach the one year anniversary in my role on September 12, 2011 I believe I may be close to an answer. I hope this helps anyone looking to transition to such a role, who may think that you need experience and/or education specifically related to social media. I’m living proof that you don’t.
What I always had, regardless of role, is the ability to effectively communicate. In fact, I most often rely on written communication; it’s not that I cannot have telephone conversations or participate in meetings, it’s just that I’m easily able to be the authentic ‘me’ in writing. Based on my interactions as a participant on the enterprise space, the management team literally took a leap of faith and offered me the enterprise community management role.
Surprisingly, at least to me, I learned at least 85% of what I needed to know technically within 6 weeks. Of course, I had a generous mentor who had documented processes and willingly shared what he knew. But he went one step further, he appropriately coached me. When I had a question about how to help someone, he would question me. ”What do you think you should do?” ”Where could you find that information?” ”What would happen if you….”
With his strong support during that first six weeks, and his gentle release of me afterward, I was able to rely on my collaboration and communication skills to effectively offer service and support to all 30K of our users. No, they don’t each write for help, but it sure seems that way on some days!
So if you’re looking to get into a social media position, it’s a yin and yang of people collaboration and technical skills. Based on my experience, the technical can be learned while the collaborative and authentic style of communication is a skill far more difficult to build.
My advice? Go for it! Whatever it is, no matter how far it may seem, participate in whatever role you want while you’re in whatever role you’re in. Make your make, do your best, dreams really do come true!
Three Strategies to Build Community Engagement
21 Aug 2011 Leave a Comment
in Lessons, New Community Managers
Nearing my one year anniversary in a Community Management role, thought it might be a good time to share some tips to build your community. Most of them are free, all have been done for less than $200 total.
Global engagement. This has been my # 1 priority as our current enterprise community is, indeed global but global users represent only 20% of the registered population. Here’s what I’ve done:
- Created a homepage banner, with the assistance of folks who are not as HTML challenged as I, that has a global image and the word ‘welcome’ in 7 languages. Great visual that our space is intended for global users.
- Created a “global correspondent” role. Published a ‘help wanted’ widget, asking for global news correspondents, and organizational news correspondents. Built a solid base of employees from Russia, Ireland, Israel and occasionally Pakistan, Egypt and China.
- Publish a weekly wrap up, including all content from our global and organizational correspondents. Precede their links and summaries with a ‘globe’ icon to indicate their status.
- Several sections in the Wrap Up: From our Global Newsdesk, From our Organizational Newsdesk, News You Can Use, and, on occasion, “Most Active” communities, discussions documents, and blogs
- Prior to my involvement our intranet ‘owners’ had a live feed of all activity taking place in our enterprise community
- Building on that, we publish monthly “Best of….Communities, Discussions, Documents, and Blogs” on the intranet to engage more employees.
- The Community Managers and authors will have their content recognized both in the community and on our intranet, and will receive a “GASPIE” award (Grog Award for Social Participation).
- The Grog award was named after our 4 minutes Evolution of Conversation at EMC video, which is wildly popular. For a cost a bit below $200.00, we printed greeting cards thanking our monthly GASPie winners for their continued participation.
Simple Ways to Offer Technical Assistance with No Technical Background
20 Jul 2011 Leave a Comment
in Lessons, New Community Managers
I love managing our community of over 65% of our global workforce; it’s an amazing space that has been growing as casual users and lurkers seem to be joining in our conversations. Also, we’ve welcomed so many international employees during the past year or so using simple techniques such as a multi-language flash banner that says ‘welcome’ in six languages.
What I don’t love is HTML. I get it, at least enough to make a correction here and there, and to copy code from widgets that I like. I just don’t feel a burning need to invest hours of my time to learn it. Truth be told, don’t enjoy it.
But I do get lots of questions about HTML widgets, and other technical aspects of our community.
Some simple ways to help others without feeling the need to be the expert:
- First, and most obvious, turn those questions to your community. Although I wrote ‘most obvious,’ it did take me several months as a Community Manager to learn this. I was busily berating myself for my lack of HTML knowledge, studying from an HTML self-help book and all the time, all I had to do, is turn to my colleagues. The first time I posted a request for an “HTML Guru,” I received at least 12 offers of assistance.
- Know your platform. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I won’t be learning HTML, but there are alternatives. In our environment, I encourage others to use Formatted Text widgets that present an MS Word-similar editor. No coding, no weird symbols, just standard text centering, bullet points and hyperlinks.
- Admit what you don’t know. Then, test, test, test. Create a test space for yourself where you can reproduce issues and/or do experiential research on how to resolve an issue. That’s critical; even if you have to involve IT all the work done upfront will allow you to thoroughly and accurately describe the issue and what steps you have taken to resolve it. Most IT teams appreciate that diligence.
Graphics and Pictures and Widgets, Oh My!
03 Jul 2011 1 Comment
Whenever we assign a space to a Community Manager to represent their geography, division or department, they immediately focus on the visual aspects. They are ‘wowed’ by spaces that use Flash animation to deliver rotating content banners. Or the numerous widgets that allow unlimited use of humorous and engaging photos.
What is difficult to understand, particularly for new Community Managers, is that it is all about the content. discussion, learning, teaching and collaboration all rely on content and not on shiny new widgets.
As an enterprise community manager, I’ve spent a great deal of time with new community managers who initially focus on graphical elements of their space. I show them an existing, successful community that has an incredible Flash banner that delivers a document or discussion when you click on any of the graphics. ”I want that! How can I do THAT?” is the typical response.
Before answering, I share another space with them, our most popular space. By any metric, our Unified Storage space has more visits, more page views, more discussions, replies, answers, and blogs. Regardless of how we measure it, this space ranks consistently as our number 1 space in overall engagement.
There ist not one graphic on the Unified Storage space; no Flash animations, and in fact no particular page header. What there is, in great abundance, is content. Content that is relevant to users, and is carefully organized in widgets that don’t rely on visual appeal but rather on logical segmentation.
The space is content heavy; and on first glance might result in a recommendation to add visual appeal. But why? They have established a large user base using a carefully considered content segmentation model that builds user knowledge and draws engagement by users in a wide variety of business roles.
Successful and engaging spaces are often simply designed, and focus on user ease of use and content relevance. Regarding content as the primary deliverable will release new Community Managers from struggling to add graphics, pictures and widgets before publishing their space.
My conversation with Community Managers usually elicits an “AHA” moment, with the new community manager understanding the primary role of providing timely and relevant content. Make it pretty later? Maybe, but that’s secondary.
