Why Community is the New Marketing | CMX Summit
Marketing and community strategy have been separate in the past, but the landscape is shifting. So much that traditional marketing isn't working and marketers are looking to community professionals to help define their new strategy. Now is the time for community professionals to step up and take the lead. Learn why I believe community is the new marketing and how community managers should approach it with their marketing counterparts. Thank you CMX for letting me share these ideas on stage!
2016 Challenges and Predictions for Community Management with Vanilla Forums
I was asked to share my prediction for the community industry in 2016 for a special piece by Vanilla Forums alongside other kick ass community professionals. I really believe now is the time for the community management field to step up and own the direction of our industry and where overall business is shifting. I share my prediction below and encourage you to check out the full report here.
I was asked to share my prediction for the community industry in 2016 for a special piece by Vanilla Forums alongside other kick ass community professionals. I really believe now is the time for the community management field to step up and own the direction of our industry and where overall business is shifting. I share my prediction below and encourage you to check out the full report here.
Community will continue to move to the forefront of business as a critical strategy for companies to build and retain their customer base. This is an awesome thing for our field as our skills become more desired and directly tied to organizational goals. It also means that now more than ever, we as community professionals need to clearly define and own this within the business. As businesses (and other teams like marketing and sales) look to us for guidance on community strategy, we need to show where our work directly impacts the bottom line. By aligning our work with the business goals of our organizations, we will be able to maintain ownership of community and in turn, it’s authenticity for our community members.
Within community strategy itself, our customers are committing loyalties to brands who do more than just provide a great product - customers want to join a movement. People, especially younger generations, are looking to be a part of something bigger than themselves. Like Airbnb’s hosts and guests who commit to the notion of being home anywhere, to Tom’s Shoes Tribe community that takes social impact way beyond buying shoes. Brands will need to think about their greater impact in the world, and build a movement based on their organization’s mission.
This is a truly exciting time for community professionals where we will have the opportunities to do big things in our field, and specifically for our communities.
Thank you Vanilla Forums, and Melanie Attia for organizing an awesome forward thinking report!
My Guest Post on Thorn: The Fight Against Child Exploitation, Powered by a Text Message
When a victim of human trafficking tries to reach out for help, a phone call can be dangerous – even life threatening. That’s where a text message can make a difference. Our mission with Twilio.org is to provide social good organizations with the communications tools that help them make a greater impact. Since launching Twilio.org last year, we’ve seen organizations innovate on the Twilio platform to aid in the fight against child sexual exploitation. The main point of communication? A text message.Read more on the Thorn blog.
Doing good through technology is a main objective at Twilio, which is why we have an entire program focused on making communications technology accessible to organizations who are doing good in the world.
We've seen some incredible things from nonprofits utilizing communications technology in their work, particularly in the area of fighting child exploitation and keeping women safe. Recently I was able to highlight some of these projects and discuss how social good organizations can use voice and messaging technologies to reach their mission. An excerpt below, and head over to Thorn to read the full post.
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When a victim of human trafficking tries to reach out for help, a phone call can be dangerous – even life threatening. That’s where a text message can make a difference. Our mission with Twilio.org is to provide social good organizations with the communications tools that help them make a greater impact. Since launching Twilio.org last year, we’ve seen organizations innovate on the Twilio platform to aid in the fight against child sexual exploitation. The main point of communication? A text message.Read more on the Thorn blog.
Why Numbers Are Your Most Powerful Tool as a Community Manager
Gut instinct is important. If a community manager can't go with his or her gut, they just might be in the wrong business. In many companies the community manager jumps into the front line with the objective to go, raise awareness, engage and grow the community. Many times responsibilities do not include providing detailed analytics for activities - and in many cases I agree that there is a time period where it's trial and error, back-to-back events, and an intense period of awareness. But what happens next?
Gut instinct is important. If a community manager can't go with his or her gut, they just might be in the wrong business. In many companies the community manager jumps into the front line with the objective to go, raise awareness, engage and grow the community. Many times responsibilities do not include providing detailed analytics for activities - and in many cases I agree that there is a time period where it's trial and error, back-to-back events, and an intense period of awareness. But what happens next?
One of our values at Twilio is "Start with Why" - Starting by understanding why customers care. Challenge assumptions with data. This drives our culture and how we approach everything we do from product to marketing to support. I've been thinking about numbers a lot lately, and as I'm upgrading our community manager metrics at Twilio I wanted to share my process. This is part one of a two part piece about community manager metrics but before we dive into those metrics I've defined for community management, let's start with why you should care. More specifically, why these numbers are your most powerful tool as a community manager.
You have to. OK we're starting off a bit blunt but here's what I'm getting at: your company is moving from early startup awareness phase to demand and lead generation phase thus, you are asked to begin contributing to the funnel. Trust me, this is a really good thing because it forces you to stretch and form your analytical side, and we all know most community managers don't do this enough.
You want that promotion. You've put in hard work on the front lines and now you'd like to expand your team as you see how much value community work is doing. Maybeyou want to build out your team and gradually move upwards into a more strategic position. Hard numbers are going to show the team your value add to the bottom line. The team knows you're important, but with numbers you prove just how much impact you have to the marketing funnel. Side note, in general it's best to support any argument or team ask with data - it will drive your points home.
It is so important for Content. Most likely you manage your company's content strategy, at least the blog, handful of customer stories and maybe you've kicked off a new webinar series - am I close yet? You need to understand and implement SEO strategy for your content - then you need to measure the heck out of it. Knowing the effectiveness of your content, how your audience reacts to it and where it's getting the most traction is more than just good community management tactics. It is informed strategic planning and will help guide you to make better and more effective content.
It is better for your community. Psst, this one is most important - Real data will help you be a better community manager. How can you make informed decisions about your community if you don't know what they are doing and why they are doing it? How can you grow your community base if you don't know how they are interacting with you online, in your content and within your product? You can't, you have to dig deep and figure out what your users are doing in order to give them a better experience and then give that better experience to your new users.
To be able to ask the right questions. The more data diving you do, the more questions you will come up with. Try to always start with why from the perspective of your user and think about what data will drive action or a change of action in what you do. Listen to the questions that your colleagues ask - in fact, why don't you walk over to your sales or product or support team and ask them what they would want to know about your community - the answers might surprise and inspire you.
Now that we're all fired up and ready to get analytical, go read up on the resources above. I'll follow up next week with the specific numbers and data that I look at in my day-to-day as a community manager and some awesome things my Twilio colleagues implement too. For now, here's a few resources to kickstart your new journey into analytics:
The Kiss Metrics Marketing Blog
Check your local workshops - Groups like Girl Develop It, Parisoma in San Francisco, or SkillShare for online classes
Know your tools - Sprout Social, Bit.ly, Awesome Wordpress plugins like Jetpack and more. Check the analytics page on any social tool you're using, it's probably chalk full of goodies.
Google Analytics - learn it, love it, use it
We're actually hosting an upcoming SF Community Manager Meetup covering SEO best practices and optimization tactics - join us!
Cut to the Chase, Give Me Real Advice - My Takeaways from Lean In
After reading Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, I had two initial thoughts: 1) There are a lot of really good tips in here for women who want to rise to the top and at the same time 2) There are a lot of pain points ignored, and sugar-coated philosophies that could prove to do women a huge dis-service.
After reading Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, I had two initial thoughts: 1) There are a lot of really good tips in here for women who want to rise to the top and at the same time 2) There are a lot of pain points ignored, and sugar-coated philosophies that could prove to do women a huge dis-service. First and foremost, I am all about women empowerment in every way - I marched in the 2004 Women's March for Lives on the national mall in DC with over one million protesters. I visualize myself as an executive level leader one day. I very much support women being vocal in the workplace and combining forces to make a difference. But also feel there is a very fine line between a support circle to help women succeed and an all out media campaign seemingly focused on drawing attention to talking points that are not looking at the real problems in the workplace.
Taking it with a Grain of Salt
Sheryl Sandberg does a pretty good job at outlining a few specific tips for women in the workplace in the first half of her book and below I highlight the ones that resonate with me the most.
That being said, Sheryl Sandberg doesn't represent the woman I want to be, nor does she feel relatable to me as a 20-something career gal. Sheryl ignores large problems in the workplace, undermines her recommended tactics with ill-fitting experiences, and glazes over a major factor in what it takes to rise to the top.
Sheryl doesn't claim to be an expert but it's a shame to lead a movement that doesn't address real problems like sexism, cultures non-conducive to family life, or particularly here in Silicon Valley, the 24/7 expected work hours. We should be rallying to tackle these issues by directly encouraging change in the workplace. As noted by my friend Kate Losse "...as a manual for navigating the workplace, it teaches women more about how to serve their companies than it teaches companies about how to be fairer places for women to work." For an in-depth (partially devil's advocate) review from this point of view, give Kate's Lean In review a read.
Sheryl encourages readers with specific tactics and attempts to support with her personal experience, though many times this fell short for me. She inspires us to set boundaries with your work and says she did just that when she leaves work at 5:30pm for dinner. But she also tells us that she works once her children are asleep and then wakes at 5am to answer email. This is not setting a boundary, this is telling us we can set a boundary but we'll have to work tirelessly around that boundary just to keep up.
Rising to the executive level takes a lot of hard work and while Sheryl alludes to this throughout the entire book, she never explicitly states the level of commitment it requires. If you're going to encourage women to move forward with executive level aspirations, you should be clear that it is going to take a lot of time, work and dedication. Also, see the 24/7 work hours point above.
Now the Good Stuff
All of this said, Lean In does provide an collection of researched and actionable items we can use in our lives. Whether you're aiming for a promotion or rising to a senior level position, these tips are valuable to keep top of mind. Here are my re-interpreted highlights from Sheryl's book.
1) Everyone is faking it: Sheryl calls this the 'Impostor Syndrome' where women fear one day everyone will find out that it's all been a sham. We're not qualified! Well we are qualified. Also, everyone else is faking it until they make it anyways so carry on.
2) Take credit: We're guilty, women are too humble and we need to proudly take credit for the hard work we do. Such as when someone provides a compliment to your outfit you must say "Thank you" instead of "Oh this old thing?" - transfer same logic to your job. You bought the dress and wore it well = you did the work and did it well.
3) Stop caring if everyone likes you: Or as Sheryl says "It's ok to be bossy". If you try to please everyone, you won't get anything done - or be able to voice your real opinions. Though in the book research states that likability of women lessen as they gain power in comparison to men, but a recent Harvard Business Review study disagrees. So keep being assertive ladies.
4) Don't leave before you leave: It truly saddens me how many times I watched someone make a decision based on a man who wasn't even in her life yet, or pass an opportunity because they felt they should situate their life for domesticity that wasn't even in progress yet. I agree with Sheryl here that you should not pre-plan your life and bat away opportunities for a family life that hasn't even started. You can always update your life choices later.
5) Have confidence: lean in, sit at the table, speak up, go get what you want by explicitly asking for it. Success isn't going to come to you, you have to go get it. All easier said than done, but if you take anything from this book it's that you should attempt to practice this in life.
6) Choose partners wisely: Not everyone is in a situation where they have a happy and supportive partner, I understand that. But if you're making the choice, by god choose a partner that is happy, supportive and helps around the house. If you decide you're rising to the top, it's important you're on the same page because it's a journey you'll both be a part of. Ursula Burns, CEO of Xerox suggest grabbing a parter 20 years older - interesting advice but her reasons why are relevant.
Where I Lean
For me, Lean In is better as a general guide to navigating the current workplace more than a manifesto for a movement to follow. But I'm still going to recommend the book to women in my life who need to hear this reinforcement. I think it's incredibly important to build out a support circle of women who want to take control of their careers. Just keep in mind ladies, talking the talk is a lot different than walking the walk, and I believe women should be taking more real action and drawing less attention to the fact that they are women. We can change the workplace by committing our time to companies who are building the work culture we deserve - set real boundaries, find organizations with women in executive positions, work with HR to make your company friendly to family schedules, look into your company's plan for your professional development or ask that they provide it - these are all things you can do right now.