Community Feelings

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Unlocking community resources, respect, and influence
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Unlocking community resources, respect, and influence

How to build a well-respected community team and get the resources and support you need

Danielle
Sep 12, 2020
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Share this post
Unlocking community resources, respect, and influence
daniellexo.substack.com

I’ve made many mistakes through my community-building journey!

☑️Worked in a silo, only to expect others to take my work seriously (and fail)

☑️ Put all my trust in leadership, only for these leaders to be ousted (a few times)

☑️ Waited for promised resources that never arrived (also a few times).

Oh yes, I’ve done all these and more! I now know what I could have done better to set myself and my teams up for a smoother ride.

Buy this print from Lisa Congdon!

Here are a few lessons I learned the hard way (so you don’t have to) on how to build and manage a well-respected community team.

1. Turn your peers into community members

You’re a community builder! Use your strong connection skills to inspire your peers to get involved in community building.

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FreePBX @FreePBX
Introducing the #OpenSourceLounge! It's an opportunity for you to visit & chat with some of our Developers & team members from Support & Engineering. Join us Thursday, June 11th at 7 PM EDT. Join via Sangoma Meet: meet.sangoma.com/487597554512#5… Or dial: +1.202.600.3995 PIN: 560732130
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7:30 PM ∙ Jun 4, 2020
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The benefits:

  • Unlock resources you will need (or will need one day).

  • Create internal champions that will spread the good word.

  • Impact team morale and leadership will take note!

  • Create bonds between the community and the team will allow your company to build better products and services!

  • Special access to your team is an additional perk for community members.

How to do it:

  • Have forum moderation shifts for your team. Make it fun! Get competitive! Create small teams that each sit with a dedicated team member. (If you are terrified by this, you shouldn’t be! Build strong resources and tools to make this possible.)

  • Invite your team members to pitch in at community events. In-person or online, there’s a ton to do! Create roles and invite team members to get involved.

  • Inspire your team (including leadership) to 1) listen to your community members and 2) share what they’re passionate about with the community. Host AMAs, interview team members for your blog or newsletter, or have your peers create workshops for your community!

The Airbnb Experiences team hosts live events where members of the team share their biggest lessons with the host community. Check out Let’s Talk Experiences.
  • Create community committees. Bring team members together with your top community leaders and discuss a shared problem or an interesting space together! Gather this small group of community members and team members together repeatedly over a few weeks to form strong bonds and trust between them.

Pro tip: Get out of your bubble and get deeply curious about your peers’ work, as well! Find out what motivates them, what their challenges are, what it takes for them to be successful. You’ll not only uncover shared challenges you can unlock together, but you’ll also create stronger bonds between teams!

2. Obsess over measuring and showing value

You’ll often hear this from leadership: “We’re all bought in on community! We don’t need to completely understand the value, this is something we believe in!”

And while I love the sentiment, I would encourage you to think to the future. There will be a time when leadership and decision-making shifts. Set yourself up for longterm success by obsessing over measuring the value of community work.

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Brian Oblinger @brianoblinger
Learn how to measure your community and show value. 🎯🔢📊💰#cmgr
Twitter avatar for @IB4TL_FM
In Before The Lock @IB4TL_FM
🔓 8: Just say No to Page Views Building a framework to measure performance, defining KPIs and health metrics, and partnering internally to accelerate your efforts. 🔊 Episode: https://t.co/7hPzbGy1lh 📚 Metrics Template: https://t.co/xXUZYvUVMJ Sponsored by: @vanilla https://t.co/ymfoJ6TNAr
1:21 PM ∙ Jun 23, 2020
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In a recent role, I built community reach, impact, and health dashboards and a highly detailed budget that made my finance partner’s jaw drop.

This work proved how seriously I took community building, company resources, and business objectives. I know these documents were key to more trust, respect, and resources.

3. Build a Personal or Team Brand

Community building feels and looks like magic to an outsider. Demystifying this, and attributing community growth and engagement to smart strategy and hard work, will get you everywhere.

Building a brand and reputation around your work, internally and externally, is in your hands. Storytelling is a huge part of community building. You’ve built the muscles already, so put them to use for your team! Share your brilliance with all who will listen.

Noele from Teachable does this so well right now!

Twitter avatar for @NoeleFlowers
Noele Flowers @NoeleFlowers
Since launching a new(ish) community on @CircleApp, building engagement and habituation has been on my mind. Here's a roundup of some of the strategies I've relied on. noeleflowers.com/post/7-ways-to… CMs, what would you add? #cmgr #CommunityManager
noeleflowers.com7 Ways to Build Engagement in a New CommunityEasy-to-implement strategies to help you create a community that’s active—and indispensable to your members. Anyone who launches a community does so with visions of a space that’s active: buzzing with great conversations, frequented by regulars, and indispensable to its members. You’d never launch a…
5:56 PM ∙ Aug 18, 2020
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The benefits:

  • A better understanding of community work from your colleagues will lead to deeper connections to your team. This can unlock collaboration and resources!

  • If you, the expert, don’t take control of the narrative, others will (and will do so without having full context).

How to do it:

  • All the data you gather when you work to obsess over value? Nancy Duarte says, “The difference between an individual contributor and a leader — [a leader is] willing to learn how to tell the story that’s in the data.” Create dynamic community reports. You are the closest to the most inspiring data and stories–use this to inspire others.

  • Build an internal site and include your team mission, vision, objectives, current goals, reports, community success stories (bonus points: make videos!), wrap ups of campaigns, and profiles of team members.

  • Write about what you’ve learned and publish to the company blog or your own blog or newsletter. A great example is the well-respected Airbnb Design blog created by a group of design-obsessed Airbnb team members:

Twitter avatar for @Airbnbdesign
Airbnb Design @Airbnbdesign
In our latest case study "Closing the Experience Gap," Lead Researcher Nanako Era from our Anti-Discrimination team shares three methods we use in research to improve on the inclusivity of our products and technology. Learn more about her approach:
airbnb.designClosing the Experience Gap3 ways to use research to build more inclusive products
6:04 PM ∙ Aug 13, 2020
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Feeling stuck getting the resources, respect, or position you deserve? I’m happy to chat about it! Reach out via Twitter or drop me an email.

Want to hear about more of my past mistakes and lessons learned? Subscribe if you haven’t already!

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