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Behind every great community is a highly caffeinated, professional multitasking- master of strategy known simply as “the community manager”. If the Wizard of Oz had a community site, this person would undoubtedly be manning the keyboard behind the curtain and posting seed questions about how the movie rendition of Toto was the wrong type of terrier. There is no replacement for the work they put in towards the success of the site, and no job is more important to the health and growth of your online community. But how does a community manager spend their time at work? Speaking in a room full of community managers, Martha Jack, director of eConverse Social Media, outlined the composition of a typical year for successful community managers. Beyond the typical daily and weekly responsibilities of generating content, managing moderation, and proactively “putting out fires”, a community manager must make time to think big-picture. The responsibility often falls to them to strategize, facilitate membership, and create organized, methodical and efficient processes to align the community with the goals of the entire organization. So how does a community manager make that transition? What does it take to change from constantly dealing with the torrent of short-term tasks to appropriating time for proactive long-term planning?

Before we go into what makes a community manager successful, it is important to know what the best performing communities do to be great. According to the "2014 State of Community Report" there are 3 prevalent themes that span across the highest rated communities.

1. Community Maturity. This does not mean that the community is old. Some of the oldest communities in age may function properly but do not always have repeated best practices processes. Community maturity means that communities have mature processes. It is estimated that 85% of successful communities employ processes such as reports to measure engagement and evaluate the community.
2. Leadership Opportunities. This means that members have the opportunity to hold a leadership role within the community. Responsibility is key to drive engagement.
3. C-Suite Participation. This is participation by the higher-ups in the association or board members. Having the executive team of your association actively engaging your members through the community is beneficial for both the success of your community and the perceived value to your members.

Combining these three things facilitates a community that has measurable value, and thus an increased likelihood to be approved for resources and plans. But how do you achieve these things? Breaking down community management on a quarterly level, we can view exactly what goes into making those themes a reality. Early and often, successful community managers should connect with other members of their team on community specific issues. So what do the most successful community managers have in common? Below is a quarterly breakdown of key ideas that many have done to be successful: 

Quarter 1: Plan, Train, and Utilize Your Annual Conference:

Where do you want to be a year from now? What are your annual goals? Early Q1 is the time to conduct staff training. Having staff comfortable with the community will ensure buy-in and usage of the community.

Annual Member Survey:

Typically annual meetings will be held around this time, so be sure to get a seat at the table at the discussion about the annual member survey. The member survey is crucial for conveying your community’s value as a member benefit. It is important that you have input into surveys that are being pushed out to your member population. A survey is a great place to put in reference questions about the community. You can then utilize these external metrics to validate your reporting, using the member survey as a basis against engagement reports over the course of the year. Once the survey goes out, use the community to disseminate information and build the discussion. Your Open Forum and communities are great places to request feedback from the survey.

Annual Meeting:

Your annual meeting may also fall in this time. Be sure to have an onsite presence at the meeting and be able to either showcase or demo the community features. Come up with interesting ideas to connect to all of the members at the meeting and most of all be SOCIAL. Now is a great time to let people know who you are and what the community is all about. This is also the time to better utilize your mobile and/or event apps to your members. Don’t hesitate to reward your superusers! Giving prizes for some of the stronger community members incentivizes users to be more engaged.

Quarter 2: Act on What You Learned, and Throw a Party!

After your annual meeting you will generally have a post annual meeting report. Think about what worked and didn't work with marketing your community and begin to start planning for the following year. This may also be a great time to expand or cut back the number of your communities. Use the session attendance as a guide to create new communities and pay attention to who the conversation leaders were as they may make excellent community administrators. Morale is typically high following the annual meeting so don't hesitate to draw parallels to the community and play off of the boost the meeting gives your association. Your community site is, in essence, similar to the annual meeting: your users can network, ask questions, and share resources. The key difference being that your community site is all year long. Be sure to capitalize on any and all information that is at your disposal.

Train on what you learned

Following your meeting, you may want to conduct a more specific or topic oriented staff training. In-house lunch-and-learns accompanied with target advertising is a great way to ensure strong attendance. You can utilize your discussions to place and ad, such as a cleaver message to remind users to update their profile pictures. The merit of your advertising can be tracked with the reports module, and that data can be used so if you do try to sell advertising to an outside vendor you have a basis of effectiveness. Be sure to look into cross promotion opportunities with other events, products and communication tools.

Community anniversary

Make a big deal about your community anniversary. It is a great way to refresh interest with your users. Have a contest of some sort and offer real prizes. This is also a great time to roll out new features and showcase some of the advancements that have been made on the site in recent months (Bootstrap and new discussion email templates, for example). If you are launching new modules, such as volunteer or mentoring, now is the time to introduce them to your community. Sometimes paring your anniversary with a real-life event gives additional credibility to the occasion. Have a party for the community, print a flyer for the office, have a cake, have fun, take pictures, and post to your associations social media.

Quarter 3: Don't Let Engagement Take a Vacation

The summer months are sometimes the most daunting in terms of engagement. With so many people on vacation, seasonal occupations shifting, and school summer vacation under way it is easy for the community to reach a lull in engagement. This is why seed questions are so important. It is up to you to keep the conversation going. Also, be sure to continually clean-up data, and remind your C-Suite employees the merit of the community and the importance of their participation.

Vacation:

Don't forget about your vacation! It is important that you not be the only person in the organization who knows what's going on with the inner workings of the community. Be sure to train someone on basic site tasks and responsibilities of a community manager. Ensure your coverage knows procedures, characters, crisis plans, and basic trouble-shooting.

Fix what isn’t working:

This quarter is a good time to revisit goals, workflows, and processes. You have four months to work on your community prior to year end. Take steps to make yourself and your community successful. Attend trainings, check out the HUG, and go to the Higher Logic Super Forum to learn what is coming up next. Remember that it is never too early to start brainstorming for your annual meeting.

Quarter 4: The Game Changer

Q4 is historically a time for change for associations. The change might be something that you see coming, or might be a surprise. What might the change be? New technology being implemented, staff changes, resource changes, strategy changes, or even structural changes in your association are all within the realm of possibility. Change cannot always be forecasted, so it is important to adjust, get help, and take calculated risks at your association's speed. Recognize that different parts of your association function in different ways, and where change may be welcomed and expedited in one area, it may encounter some resistance in another. Also, when a "game changer" does happen, be sure to make note of it. This could positively or negatively impact engagement. It is important to keep track of the cause and effect of your engagement fluctuation.

Revisit the Annual Meeting

Start the finalization of your annual meeting plans. Will you have an event- specific community? What needs to be ordered or developed for your meeting to be a success? This quarter is a time for planning and adaptation as much as it is a time for that one last push to boost engagement. You should revisit new member materials to ensure they align with some of the new updates, modules, and changes in your community. Keep in mind the state that your community is in and follow-up with leaders about their experiences over the year. Community leaders will have the best insight about the workings of their community. They will also know if their community needs additional support, responsibility, or recognition. Reach out to them with some questions about how things are going: Are we implementing a new module/ change correctly? Are we managing the community correctly? Have your community manager received enough recognition for the work they do and do they feel that their participation has been noticed?

Finally, complete your year-end stats. Knowing your audience is key. What will your C-suite be looking for? Are they numbers people? Would a testimonial be more effective? Demonstrate both qualitative and quantitative value of your community. Be prepared with your necessary resource changes and requests. Be patient, think ahead, and know what has to be done to take your community to the next level.