What Community Managers Should Do Every Morning for Success
I recently caught this post on Fast Company called "What Successful People do the First Hour of Their Work Day" - great advice in there. I felt inspired to write something on how you can make the most of each day as a Community Manager, based on my personal experiences. Some might not exactly be "morning only" tips but they are relevant and important. Here are some ways I kickstart my day for optimal success:
I recently caught this post on Fast Company called "What Successful People do the First Hour of Their Work Day" - great advice in there. I felt inspired to write something on how you can make the most of each day as a Community Manager, based on my personal experiences. Some might not exactly be "morning only" tips but they are relevant and important. Here are some ways I kickstart my day for optimal success:
Re-connect with your Community
Well this sounds silly since that's our job right? As fast as our day-to-day moves and with the consistent juggling of priorities, sometimes we forget to slow down and make an effort to connect on a personal level. Plan an in-person coffee date. Reach out to a community member without a prompt or objective. Call someone on the phone. Doing this not only will remind you why you love job but also impact your community in a positive way.
Internet Listening
We most likely start every morning checking an onslaught of tweets from the previous night, attempting to get to inbox sanity, and pouring over our social media tools. We plough through it and respond, but are we really listening? What's the sentiment of the conversation (I'm not talking that percentage in your social platform)? Community Managers are good at their jobs because of instinct and good judgement - we can read one Hacker News comment and infer where the conversation is headed. It isn't measurable but extremely valuable. Really get your head into the pulse of what's happening by watching the patterns of your community and the industry. Once you know the patterns, you can figure out the correct next steps for both positive engagement and fire drills. Then you can truly be proactive instead of reactive.
Plan for Productivity
A day in the life of a Community Manager means balancing a load of multiple objectives and tasks. Depending on your role you might be jumping between creating content, managing Twitter, assisting support and more, all in between meetings. It's important to block times to do work, as well as protect your work day in order to be productive. I look at my calendar every morning and plan exactly how I'll be spending that day by putting blocks of work on the calendar for specific projects. This helps keep you on task and focused, in the end increasing your productivity. Here's a snapshot of my calendar - it's a mix of meetings and blocked work times, I even schedule my workouts:
Push Back
It can feel like every day something pops up that is a 'must act now!' situation driven by someone on your team with a sense of urgency. Maybe you open your inbox each morning to new, and always 'high priority' requests. Companies may also push programs over to Community Management if it doesn't seem to fit on any other team internally. While it's in our nature to want to take it all on, we have to learn to say no and push back on internal demands to do what best serves the community.
Strategize
As mentioned above, it's tough for a community manager to carve out time to plan and strategize while we're balancing our work load. When you are planning your day for productivity it is so very important to block time for strategic thinking. This allows you to take a step back and figure out what's working, what's not working and what you can do to pull the right levers for success. It also helps drive the importance of community management in your company by providing thought leadership instead of just demonstrating tactical skills.
Make Friends on the Inside
Community Managers work across multiple teams inside our companies: engineering, recruiting, design, support, product marketing, etc - it's important to strengthen those relationships for a friendly and smooth workflow. It's also important to have a clear idea of other teams' objectives and work load so you're knowledgable when asking for resources. Everyone is fighting for resources in a startup, especially from engineering and design. It's as simple as making time to ask a team what they're working on in the upcoming sprints, or walking to a person's desk instead of using IM to communicate. Having respect and understanding for the other teams you work with will open the door for more positive work relationships. It seems like something we should already know, but it can get lost in the every day hustle.
Be Grateful
I borrowed this from the Fast Company article because it's a great tip for everyone in any field, and in daily life. Take 5 minutes in the morning (or evening) to think about the things you are grateful for - this will also remind you why you are doing the job you do. It can be focused on your career, but extend it to what you're grateful for in every day life. You can also take this a step further and try out a little visualization tactic, envisioning what you want to achieve in the future and engaging your subconscious mind. But that's content for an entirely different blog post....
What do you do to make sure you're being the most successful community manager you can be?
Community Manager Productivity: Reviving Your Inbox & Evernote Success at Work
Last Tuesday was the first SF Community Manager Meetup of 2013 and we focused this session on productivity. For community managers, one major challenge is finding that balance between daily tasks and time for strategic planning. One area where I'd like to improve upon is bringing more productivity into my daily tasks, which include email and content production. Luckily, I invited Aye Moah, Head of Product, Baydin and Joshua Zerkel, Evernote Ambassador, to teach the group some tips and tricks on how to do just that.
Last Tuesday was the first SF Community Manager Meetup of 2013 and we focused this session on productivity. For community managers, one major challenge is finding that balance between daily tasks and time for strategic planning. One area where I'd like to improve upon is bringing more productivity into my daily tasks, which include email and content production. Luckily, I invited Aye Moah, Head of Product, Baydin and Joshua Zerkel, Evernote Ambassador, to teach the group some tips and tricks on how to do just that.
Moah gave us stellar tips and tricks on finding success in your inbox and Joshua taught us the best way to organize your work life with Evernote.
Here are few highlights from these productivity thought leaders:
Inbox Productivity:
- Archive everything over a month old - you won't get to it anyways
- Make subjects searchable for YOU - be selfish so you can find it later
- To increase response rate, summarize what you need in the first sentence
- When asking for something, try to send when the recipient's blood sugar is high (right after lunch!)
- Use Boomerang by Baydin to keep your inbox actionable, send reminders and find "Inbox Few"
For more inbox tips make sure to follow Moah on Twitter @AyeMoah and download Boomerang for ample productivity. www.reviveyourinbox.com
Using Evernote for Work:
- Evernote is a perfect tool for creating and capturing content
- Create a notebook for your eBooks, whitepapers and PDFs - drag and drop, read later
- Use tags for serious search power - Evernote can even search scanned articles
- Set up a recipe with Zapier to send Twitter mentions to Evernote
- Be clear on how you want to use Evernote and be strategic about your notes
Joshua just released an eBook about using Evernote at work - make sure to check out www.NotesAtWork.com and follow him @JoshuaZerkel
It was extremely educational and I walked away with items I know I'll use in my day-to-day. Make sure to join the SF Community Manager Meetup for news on upcoming events: http://www.meetup.com/San-Francisco-Community-Managers/
Email Hacks: How I (Attempt) To Respond to 100+ Emails a Day
Oh email. Some people don't get any at all; some get a lot. Some people have to power to not answer emails, unfortunately it's a huge part of my job. Community managers are in constant communication with team members and said managed community - this includes emails.
Oh email. Some people don't get any at all; some get a lot. Some people have to power to not answer emails, unfortunately it's a huge part of my job. Community managers are in constant communication with team members and said managed community - this includes emails.
"If it's important they'll email twice" - have you heard that before? That's actually a terrible philosophy, particularly if you are a representative in your user community or a manager. Over the past few years I've picked up a few tips and tricks that help me get through this abundance of daily emails.
First Things First, Data!
Do you even know how much email you get? Who's sending it? Who are you responding to the most and how fast? Meet Gmail Meter - it's just a simple Gmail script but at the end of each month it sends you all kinds of data on your email:
Where are you spending most of your time? Who's sending you tons of email? I personally like to measure how long my emails are outbound vs. how long emails are that people send to me. Which brings me to...
TL;DR - Make Emails Short
Your emails should be 3-5 sentences. If you must make them longer, provide a TL;DR at the top. Sometimes you need to provide links, more information, etc which is fine, just make sure the important information is in the top 3 sentences. For you as a sender, the reader will only read the first 3-5 lines which you know is true for the mail you receive too. Thus, I fly through emails because I don't read past the 3rd sentence.
I would actually recommend crafting important emails like you would a PR person pitching a journalist to make sure they are read and responded to. Short and Sweet.
Make Responses Actionable
You know when you send an email and the person comes back with a million questions? Or maybe the email just says...nothing. When you respond to an email thread try to close it out - meaning create action items and/or end the conversation. Here's an example:
"Did you see this event? It looks like it might be valuable for us to attend or sponsor. What do you think?"
Your response might be:
"Does look interesting! Any details on sponsorship? What fun things could we do there?"
That response is terrible! You just spurred a never-ending email thread. Here's what your response should be:
"Looks valuable. You take lead on getting sponsorship information. I'll coordinate with team to figure out who is available to attend and let's put a 30 min time on the calendar to re-group on Thursday."
Now people are moving to action and you won't have another email on that thread. Great job! Always Be Closing...email threads.
Timing is Everything
If you work in Startup Land, do not try to do emails Sunday evening - you will just get responses from everyone and start Monday with inbox 200. My general tips for timing include:
- Monday is email day - commit and knock it out. It's what everyone else is doing anyways.
- Evenings and particularly Friday afternoons are GREAT for emails - no one responds, you will get to inbox zero and close out everything for the day or week.
- Sunday afternoon is risky, definitely don't hang around your inbox after 3pm.
- See top right graph.
Boomerang isn't a Tool, It's a Lifestyle
If you have yet to discover Boomerang by Baydin, now is the time. Get emails out of your inbox and have them return to you when you're ready to take action. Think about email follow ups, get it sent back to you if no one responds to a thread or when you need to re-ping someone. Now with calendar integration you can set meetings and dates without leaving your inbox.
Go Forth, Find Email Productivity
The most important part of email productivity is to get out of your inbox. You have to get up from beneath the daily grind to strategize, plan and move things forward. Best of luck to everyone with exploding inboxes.