The Community Roundtable‘s 2015 “State of Community Management” report is out.

I’ve watched this report mature from some fun facts and salaries to an incredibly insightful and useful report. This year’s is worth devoting significant time to.

What I find most exciting is that what I’m reading here mirrors what we saw onstage and discussed offstage at CMX East 2015.

Community building is no longer begging for serious consideration. Companies are starting to truly understand that community is valuable (and isn’t social media marketing) and are investing in it.

Instead, our focus is on making sure the money is spent well (community managers and development over tools), the work required is not glossed over (advocate programs require real effort), and that we’re measuring our value and ROI.

This is so incredibly exciting to me! It’s the signs of a maturing practice that is taken seriously and striving to improve and show real value. Let’s all take this report as a call-to-action: This is where our practice is headed, and we all need to step up and strive for the same high points that are in this report.