Category Archives: Community

I’m joining CMX!

Community
Evan Hamilton speaking at CMX East 2015
Me speaking at CMX East 2015.

I’ve been consulting for the last couple of months, because I wanted to find the right fit for my next full-time position. I wanted to find a company that could be home, where I could feel supported but also challenged, where I could feel respected but be constantly learning, where I could care about the product, where the founders truly understood and valued community.

And so, I’m incredibly pleased to announce I’ll be joining the team over at CMX Media as Director of Community! I’ve been a huge fan of the work that David Spinks has been doing in the community space for years. I’ve been to all but one CMX Summit (and spoke in NYC last year), many of their meetups, and recently discovered I am the top contributor on their fantastic Facebook group.

Their mission of advancing the community industry is one that is very close to my heart (I’ve literally been hosting my community manager meetup for 5 years). So I was over the moon when David and Carrie asked me to join the team. I highly respect both of them and can’t wait to learn from them on an everyday basis (plus, they’re a ton of fun to be around). And I’m excited to take a break from larger startups and get my hands dirty at a small company once again.

I’ll be transitioning into this full-time role over the next few months as I wrap up my consulting contracts. My initial focus will be making CMX Summit East 2016 the best Summit yet (A tall order!), and gradually I’ll start focusing on the CMX Series events, the Facebook group, and any other way I can think of to connect those in our industry and push it forward. I’ll need your help! Either in the comments here, via email (evan at cmxhub dot com), or via Twitter/LinkedIn, let me know what you want to see from CMX. David and Carrie have created an amazing community, but all three of us have a lot more we want to do, and your voices are a crucial part of that process.

I look forward to interacting with you all even more than I do now! See you soon. 🙂

Notes:

Community Manager Breakfast, my newsletter, and this blog will continue operating independent of CMX.

If you were interested in working with me on a consulting basis: I will still be available for consulting alongside the super-talented CMX team, so please do still drop me a line.

Looking back on 5 years of Community Manager Breakfast

Community, Community Manager Breakfast

According to my records, I’ve been hosting Community Manager Breakfast for five years. Wow. That’s a long time, especially in the world of startups! With that in mind, and in honor of today’s Community Manager Appreciation Day celebration, I decided to mull over the changes I’ve seen since I first launched this little meetup back in 2011.

1) We’re less focused on social media.

That’s huge. When I first started in community management, it was clear that social media was going to be “a thing”. And we all wanted to be part of it. But it wasn’t 100% clear how it fit in with community management. For a moment, we seemed to toy with being content creators, garnering likes and retweets. We had a lot of big discussions around social media during those early breakfasts. But gradually something became clear: social media was a great tool for engaging an audience, but not always a great tool for connecting people to each other. And as many of those channels become increasingly noisy and broadcast-focused, I am glad we didn’t hitch our success to them.

2) Individual specializations are starting to develop within community management.

Five years ago, community managers did a lot of things…but not in a good way. We often were the first marketer, the website copy writer, the office manager, the customer support rep, etc. These days we’re increasingly being actually hired to do what we do: bring people together. And this means we can start to specialize within that general focus. Now we see developer evangelists, event organizers, open source facilitators, support community managers, and more. This gives our discipline more depth and more directions for practitioners to grow in.

3) We’re formalizing our practice.

While five years ago we were merely seeking to bring some sense and definition to community management, now we’re focusing on formalizing, documenting, and improving it. While it’ll forever develop and change and improve, we now are starting to see things like the commitment curve providing repeatable structures that we can build off of, rather than always starting from scratch.

4) Community managers were and are great people.

I’m so lucky to have met every single person who has come to breakfast and for all the support you’ve given me over the years. I’ve met so many of you that, to my great embarrassment, I can’t always remember everyone’s name! But please know next time you see me: I think you’re great, I thank you for coming, and remind me of your name and we’ll have an awesome conversation. 🙂

Here’s to another five years of breakfasts! Hope to see you at one if you’re in SF or NYC!

Nobody seems to own retention. Let’s take it on.

Community,

The other day I ran across Bill Johnston’s analysis of a report on customer lifecycle marketing. Next time I see Bill, I’m going to have to buy him a drink, because he’s spot on.

Here are the basic punchlines:

  • Customer lifecycle marketing is one of the hot new things. It’s simple: Instead of thinking about customers just when you’re trying to woo them, think about customers throughout their whole lifecycle with your company.
  • Retention is a HUGE part of that.
  • …but nobody seems to own retention.

This is where community professionals come in.

I’ve long argued that community-building is uniquely suited to focus on retention. What other practice emphasizes long-term gains, engagement, satisfaction, and return business as heavily? None I can think of. There are oodles of professionals focused on acquiring customers, but very few focused on retaining them.

Community professionals should own retention.

Not help out. Not advise. Own. We are the best people to do this, and it gives us a seat at the table that “helping with acquisition” or “decreasing support costs” or “making people happy” doesn’t.

Ask around. Who owns retention at your company? Likely, nobody. Take it on. Do cohort retention analysis. Ask people why they unsubscribe. Plaster “retention” on your cubicle, because this is your chance to make a huge difference, get the attention you deserve, and build some wins for company and customers.

Tactic Tuesday: Year-end best-of lists (with a twist)

Community, ,

The end of the year offers ample opportunities for rituals in your community. One of the most effective? Best-of lists.

Whether it’s a poll, a bracket, a forum thread, or something else, asking people what their favorite things were for the year creates great energy. Everyone has an opinion and, if carefully managed*, the disagreements can create in-depth debates that deepen connections between community members. Communities thrive through emotional connections, so don’t forget that fighting can be good.

But I love the twist r/comicbooks is giving it over on Reddit. Instead of just nominating top comic books, artists, writers, and the like they’re also nominating top community members of the year. This strengthens emotional connections, validates community members’ time spent on the subreddit, and shows new members that this is a lively group that values their members. It’s a home run.

*The beauty of disagreement in best-of threads is that you can say “ok, make your own list”. Check out how just such a comment simultaneously empowers the angry community member while stopping a potential slugfest:

Reddit thread fighting about comic books

The themes from Feverbee SPRINT 2015

Community

Last week I had the pleasure of attending Feverbee’s SPRINT conference for the second time. While the fantastic CMX Summit focused more on high-level community thinking and strategic implementation, SPRINT was a much more details-oriented event, focusing on tactics, studies, and how community should interact with the rest of the company it resides in.

A few themes stood out to me.

1. The era of community frameworks is upon is

At least two speakers produced individual frameworks they use when building community. Which is to say nothing of Douglas Atkin’s commitment curve or David Spinks’ concentric circles of community. The bad news? It’s hard to know which to use (or whether to create your own). The good news? We’re moving beyond loose strategies and soft buzzwords to a more standardized and repeatable set of frameworks and processes.

2. Community management is great, but community architecture can be far more effective

One of the advantages community professionals have is that we understand people and how to talk to them and earn their trust. So it’s not surprising that much of community management focuses on interpersonal interactions. And while I love this work and think it will forever be a huge part of what we do, several speakers at SPRINT showed the beauty and power of community architecture.

Whether it was Richard Millington himself talking about registration CTA locations and examining the community growth funnel or Jeff Atwood impressing (as always) with the depth of thought put into Discourse’s architecture to ensure productive interactions, the most impressive stories at SPRINT weren’t about blog posts or events, they were about building community spaces. We have the interpersonal skills. Now we need to stop being supplemental to the product and insert ourselves and our expertise into the product and design process.

3. It’s time to get professional

“Winter is coming for community professionals.” Richard’s keynote wasn’t meant to depress us, but rather impress upon us that the popularity this role currently holds in tech may fade quickly unless we become more professional, consistent, and scientific. This was the first year there were fewer people joining the community profession, he said. My take? That’s great. There have been far too many social media marketers with the title “community manager” and far too many people asking me how to get into community because “it’s so hot right now”. I’m looking forward to a smaller, leaner, smarter, and more passionate group of community professionals in the future.

Interested in being part of that group? Why not join us at Community Manager Breakfast?