Why Isn't Community Considered Essential By Some
My theory why it happens and how we can fix it!
I was taken aback the first time someone told me that they felt community was non-essential. I realized they didn't get it. But then I kept hearing it from non-community builders. So I began to wonder: was I in a bubble that has ruined my perception, or is there a fundamental misunderstanding of those thinking this way?
I have thought long and hard about this. It's 100% a misunderstanding - but three issues have caused this.
The first is a fundamental misunderstanding of what community is. Just as most community builders get antsy when people conflate community with audience, there is also a disservice happening between confusing platform and community. Some of the issues lay with the thought that community has to be built on expensive platforms when it's fundamentally about people.
I will repeat it for those that may think I hit my head. Community can happen without a platform. A community platform is one channel among many where community can happen. You and I know this, but you'd be amazed how many people still need to hear it.
Community can happen on social media, it can happen at an event, and it can happen in your backyard. Community is all around us, but it has a fundamental quality. As I have described before, it's about the characteristic of behaviours that matter most. The quick and dirty of community, or the so-called quintessential element, is sharing between peers or members happens in a symbiotic form.
However, this doesn't solve the "essential" quandary still faced. The second issue is the paradox of community work and the ubiquitousness of community. Because community seems to be everywhere, it's taken for granted as something that just exists. For this reason, they likely don't see how community builders do the magic they do in creating bonds and making these spaces happen. If you're reading this, you probably understand what community builders are doing in a community, like how professional admiration happens when a magician watches another do their craft.
However, in the community's skeptics' mind, it's organic and natural - not requiring a hand to guide. However, we all know as community builders that most communities exist because someone intentionally builds them - even when they think they are doing it unintentionally.
This leads to the third reason executives or non-community folks feel organized community is nice to have and don't realize it's essential. They don't understand what ROI community brings, and I don't blame them. If you are in the community daily, you see the power, connection, and value community work brings. We are the glue making connections and filling gaps systems can't always see. We also know the detriment not providing this space would have for a company. However, many community folks can't, don't or fear talking about ROI.
When times were good, and money flowed easily, many community builders were focused on human connection and delayed, neglected or avoided return on investment conversations. If they didn't ask, most community builders didn't bother. However, as the market turned, the community platform and human resources were seen as a dispensable cost, not a source of ROI. Without the ROI story, these roles were easy to cut. Or sometimes, the wrong story was being told.
A large swath of community builders will argue community ROI takes time, so you need to tell management it will take 6 months or more. I don't know when it became a bad idea to talk about community ROI from day one - but I assume it's a misconception about the acronym ROI some community folks have. Return on Investment (ROI) does not need to be a direct sale. The company needs to know the cost of you, and a platform is worth it. And it has to be more than anecdotes.
Thankfully, there are ways to see the community's effect on numerous aspects of customer retention and referrals. This is measured by satisfaction, happiness, brand affinity, and likeliness to recommend. Good feelings towards a brand have a monetary value, and the community can impact this for the better.
So how do we identify and measure these things?
The identification aspect is relatively easy. Companies want customers to feel good about their purchase, become advocates, tell others, renew, buy more, share, and leave nice reviews. They want non-customers to be swayed by what they see, sign up and see value immediately, so they don't feel like they made a mistake. If you are still stuck, talk with the people managing customer success or experience; they can tell you what they are looking at.
Once you know what matters, the next step is to ask questions and collect data before a customer becomes a community member, then a short period after, and then keep doing it. You can do this with a brief survey before they join, quickly after they enter or in correlation with your onboarding teams.
It's a couple of simple questions. Some examples:
On a scale of 1- 5, how important is it to network with your fellow product users in the community?
On a scale of 1-5, how important is learning how fellow product users use the product?
Then after a month, you can ask:
On a scale of 1- 5, how important is it to network with your fellow product users in the community?
On a scale of 1-5, how important is learning how fellow product users use the product?
On a scale of 1-5, how does this community space make you feel about our brand?
Rank out of 5; how would you feel if this space to connect did not exist?
The reason you want to ask questions before and after is we need to look at the direct feelings and influence the community has on customers.
Make sure any questions you seek data on ask about the value the community offers and how it impacts how they feel about the brand, using the product and building confidence. You also want to know how they would feel if this space were to go away.
I also loved looking at how community and non-community scored on NPS. Never do the NPS on the community alone, but ask to have the existing NPS report segmented by community vs non-community so you can report the differences.
Make it a point to ask for this data from any report shared in town halls, all hands, etc. Ask the information sharer for the segmentation, so you can highlight the impact your work has. You can then take the community member data and further slice and dice based on time in the community and how active they are.
What other considerations do you need with data collection? Ensure you or your team add tracking pixels for all your analytics tools used across your digital footprint. If your community is separate from the analytics coverage, its influence can never be measured. You'd be amazed over the years how many times I saw a community needed to have Google Analytics, Marketo, or HubSpot trackers included but didn't.
I can't stress this enough. If you have a community role, it's on you to drive the conversation and show how essential community is. No one else will do this for you. And I would not wait for someone to tell me either because I promise if you don't do it, you will be asked at some point, and when you scramble to do it, it will be too late. Data needs to be collected before it's needed. These solutions are not retroactive.
Now I understand the apprehension you may have. I do not assume you are a data scientist - or a market researcher. However, you have a particular skill. You are a person who builds connections and relationships, and this is where you can flex those skills. Your marketing and data science friends can help create surveys, talk to you about methodologies and help you show the value of community work.
If these people don't exist at your organization, I promise someone is looking at data at your company. If there isn't, I would be shocked and concerned. However, it could also be an opportunity to get some courses and learn - and bring more discipline and rigour to the data at the organization. You can be unstoppable if you can bring your community insights with data.
Most people who see community as non-essential cannot see the magic community builders do. It's in good part because we need to tell the power, impact, value and ROI of the work we do in terms that moves executives. We can all do better. It isn't easy, but as a relatively young industry, we must push forward conversations about impact.
I leave you with this homework: What's one way today you can showcase how your community work delivers ROI?
Thanks for reading this edition of my newsletter and sharing it with your friends!
Here’s to your continued success!
Adrian