community management benchmarking, presented by rachel happe

SOCIALMEDIA.ORG/SUMMIT2016ORLANDOJANUARY 25–27, 2016

Community managementbenchmarking: Educate executives,secure budget, and drive engagement

RACHEL HAPPETHE COMMUNITY ROUNDTABLE

Community Management BenchmarkingEducate executives, secure budget, and drive engagement

Rachel HappeCo-Founder, The Community Roundtable@rhappe

Getting executives to care is hard. Benchmarking helps.

What is a community?

www.communityroundtable.com

Community is not:

blogspodcasts

chatforums

Social Media

RSS

videoprofiles

activity feeds


Community is:

passion

voices

relationships

ideas

discussions

affinitynetworkspeople

organic

conversation

relationships

collaboration

purpose

missionsupport

emergentgroups


Com·mu·ni·ty

Noun

A group of people with unique shared values, behaviors, and artifacts.


Communities are powerful because they are how individuals define:

• Behavioral norms

• How to learn

• Values

• Truth

• Identity

What is community management?


Community management includes strategic, operational and tactical responsibilities

1. Strategic• Define shared value• Develop strategy• Build roadmap and secure budget

2. Operational• Map ecosystem and engagement flows• Build policies, governance and playbook• Hire and train staff• Build strategic, operational and tactical scorecards

3. Tactical• Engage• Create content• Facilitate community programming• Track metrics

Benchmarking Community


1.Focuses the ConversationBenchmarking provides concrete and actionable guidance that helps translate your strategic ambition into strategic reality.

2.Injects Unbiased PerspectiveData-driven analysis removes personal or political bias, providing and objective look at performance.

3.Enables Confident Community Decision-MakingBenchmarking tells you where you are and provides the data to make confident decisions about your community’s future.

Why benchmark?


What do you benchmark?

Input: ManagementThe approach to building successful communities

Output: BehaviorHow individual communication behavior is changing

Output: ResultsThe value produced by the community; benefits including ROI

Investment

Return

Return


1. DefineDecide what is important to track

2. BaselineTrack your as is state so you can track your progress over time

3. CompareCompare results to other communities or organizations

4. UseAnalyze to determine your roadmap and priorities

How do you benchmark?


1. Educating and Selling Stakeholders

2. Planning and Budgeting

3. Prioritizing Resources

Using benchmarking


1. Benchmarking is ‘dumb’ to your strategyBenchmarking provides a objective comparison, which is what makes it valuable, but because of that it cannot indicate/evaluate where performance differences are intentional based on your unique context and strategy

2. Trends, not specificsThe best use of benchmarking is to see trends and use those to trigger deeper discussions about your approach – but it cannot define priorities unique to your organization. It is one of many great inputs to a strategic conversation.

Limits of benchmarking

16

Benchmarking Community Management


“Goals are for Losers”– Scott Adams

Community management is a system


The value of community management

78% of best-in-class community programs can measure their value…

… due to approved strategies and the funded roadmaps needed to implement them

Data from The State of Community Management 2015

STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 37

The research suggests community teams should:

• Focus on metrics tied to key objectives in your community strategy

• Identify those metrics that illustrate the behavior change you’re looking to see as a result of member participation in the community

• Take a thoughtful, proactive approach to measuring the value and ROI of community by collecting data early and tracking change over time

Total members

Total activity

Activemembers

Contributingmembers

Volume ofnew content

Content views/opens/clicks

Questionsanswered

Volume ofcomments

Time to firstresponse

Influenceridentification

New memberactivity

Behavior flowsand conversions

Resolution time

Revenuegenerated

18% 13%

34% 15%

34% 17%

39% 26%

42% 19%

58% 27%

66% 49%

68% 48%

68% 58%

74% 63%

74% 65%

89% 78%

84% 90%

82% 76%

Average

Best-in-Class

61%

39% 33% 42%

22%

78% Able toMeasureValue

Able toMeasureValue

of thoseable toshow ROI

of thoseable toshow ROI

Average Best-in-Class

41% 50%


TRACKING SPECIFIC METRICS

PERCENT OF C-LEVEL RECEIVING COMMUNITY REPORTS

VALUE AND ROI

While most communities track basic membership and engagement metrics, best-in-class communities are more likely to look at behaviors that evaluate the vibrancy of the community and effectiveness of the community team.

Best-in-class communities are more likely to share community reports with the top levels of the organization – giving executives the opportunity to understand the value of the community to the organization as a whole.

Best-in-class communities are twice as likely to be able to measure value as average communities in this year’s survey, but determining ROI from that remains elusive for the majority of all communities.

STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 23

65%

24%

100%

58%

Approved Strategy

Resourced Roadmap

Approved Strategy

Resourced Roadmap

Average

Best-in-Class

}}

63% of communities with approvedstrategies lack a resourced roadmap

42% of BIC communities with approvedstrategies lack a resourced roadmap

GAP BETWEEN STRATEGY & RESOURCED ROADMAPS:

BUDGET BREAKDOWN:COMMUNITIES WITH DEDICATED BUDGETS:

EXECUTIVES WHO APPROVE BUDGET:

BIC communities are more likely to have an approved strategy – and resources to execute on it.

The biggest elements of community budgets are, not surprisingly, technology and community management resources – BIC communities tend to allocate more of their budgets to community management, but the differences are slight, suggesting maturity is more than where you spend your money.

Over 80 percent of best-in-class communities have their budgets approved by C- or VP-level executives, suggesting alignment with strategic corporate objectives.

70%51%

Best-in-ClassAverage

A majority of community programs have dedicated budgets, a key input to effectively calculating ROI.

32

32

16

94 4 2

Best-in-Class

Average34

26

13

13

54 4

41%

54%

12% 14%10% 11%15% 14%

22%

7%C-Level Senior VP VP Director Other


100%

90%

80%

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

The research suggests community teams should:

• Ensure their community strategy is approved, measureable and regularly reviewed as the community matures.

• Develop a community roadmap.

• Define a discrete community budget, even if it is currently part of a larger one.

• Work to educate stakeholders on the investment required and the rewards expected from a successful community approach.


Define: The Community Maturity Model

Companies using the CMM to manage their community programs:


✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

Compare: Benchmark competencies

Comparing enables you to:

• Question assumptions• Identify gaps• Confirm strengths• Communicate progress• Feel more confident


Use: Define goals and build a roadmap

22

Value of Benchmarking Community Management

1. Identifies root cause of engagement issues

2. Enables strategic alignment

3. Captures attention of executive stakeholders


Benchmark Yourself!

http://the.cr/socm2016survey

Thank You & Keep in Touch!Rachel Happe

@rhappe

[email protected]

The Community Roundtable

@TheCR


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SOCIALMEDIA.ORG/SUMMIT2016ORLANDOJANUARY 25–27, 2016