Keep your community manager job: 4 things you can do

By: John Lambert Pearson

With unemployment rates still at historic highs, any job is a good one. And let’s face it, being a community manager is a pretty good gig. But consider the following:

• Organizations still struggle to compute the ROI of community
• For many organizations there may not be a tangible ROI, only a squishy, harder-to-justify ROE (return on engagement)
• There are two ways to increase ROI: Increase returns, or reduce investment
• Your salary is likely one of the top two investments in your organization’s community effort

So to be blunt: unless you can demonstrate community ROI to the higher-ups in your organization, your job may be in jeopardy.

Recently I ran an informal poll of organizations running their own online communities. Part of the poll delved into management satisfaction with the online community effort, and some helpful tips can be drawn out of the results:

• Communities that are linked to strategic priorities or specific programs are more likely to be viewed favorably by management than communities that aren’t. Develop a community strategy that is about something more than concepts like connecting members, creating a 24/7 networking opportunity, or providing a platform for collaboration.
• Communities with fewer groups tend to be viewed more favorably by management. Reduce the number of groups in your online community by deactivating, hiding or deleting the least active groups. Here’s a process you can follow to reduce the number of groups.
• Management teams tend to be more satisfied with online communities when engagement levels were higher. Don’t be satisfied with passive definitions of active members. Low expectations beget low engagement. If you don’t have a definition of an active member, use this one: A user who has made a contribution within the past month.
• Report monthly to management on contributing members and other engagement measures. Show them examples of members helping members, or taking other actions that support the community strategy.

Interested in the full report? It includes more juicy data and open-ended responses on the kinds of metrics that organizations are tracking in their online communities. Just fill out this quick form to receive a copy of the results.