The Community Corner with Beth McIntyre

Jennifer Dulski has had a legendary career, she has worked in senior positions for Yahoo, Google, Change.org and was previously the Head of Groups & Community at Facebook . Not to mention founding DealMaps which was acquired by Google. She recently launched her new book “Purposeful: Are You a Manager or a Movement Starter” which breaks down how to build a movement around your cause and community. In this interview we talk about just that and her favorite example of people and brands that have created a movement, how it applies to community professionals and so much more. Take a listen!

To Long; Didn't Listen

• Jen touched on a topic from her book called “The 5 Stages of Engagement” (more on her book here), which starts with denial and ends with engagement. She shared how Virgin America enlisted the help of their customers to petition for a new runway for them! The morale of the story is to listen to your customers and learn how to engage them in a way that serves you brand and your customers.
• She also shared the unusual community Starbucks has called “The Leaf Rakers Society”, a group of people who are enthusiastic about fall. Jen showed it’s a great example of a company just supports and isn’t overbearing which allows people to build a surprisingly deep connection. If you’re building a community, you can consider using this to create a community associated with your brand that will create a richer connection than a help forum.
• During her time at Facebook they conducted a survey and found that communities with a true, deep connection usually contain 3 things. The first was intentional time in that group, actively engaging with posts (not just lurking) and being connected with one another. If you’re able to build a community the specifically goes to your group and not only engages but become friends with others in the group chances you will have a very dedicated community!

Joining us on this episode of the C2C Podcast is Cesar Manara, Community Manager at Stack Overflow. Stack Overflow is a question and answer site for professional and enthusiast programmers. 

Cesar believes in creating long-lasting and meaningful relationships between customers and companies. With him joining us, we are going to deep dive into different facets of creating online communities and learn from him what it takes to create one. 

1. So how do you build a community? Cesar shares that it’s important to nail down why you are creating a community. What purpose is it going to serve? What are your business goals? And once you know this, then you have to focus on what your members want. What are their needs?

Consider Stack Overflow where they are focusing on providing tools, resources, and knowledge to programmers so they can do a better job. And that’s not all, the job board on Stack Overflow today is better than LinkedIn.

2. Online trolls and the negativity that spreads easily in communities is a menace that many community managers have to deal with. For Cesar, the answers lie in changing the culture of the community. He will talk about why it is important to change what your peers think is right or wrong. And this can be changed through rewards and punishment. You reward those that act in a way that you want them to be and punish bad actors.

While Cesar knows how to create an online community, he also knows that he needs data. Data that will help him make decisions and drive his community forward. 3. With data, he believes you can figure out what your community members want? What activities do they want to spend their time on? Why are they spending time on your website and so much more? You can then see how those activities can be translated into business needs. Find the sweet spot in between these two and create something awesome.