Community Signal

Black Lives Matter. As community professionals and hosts, we have the power to cultivate thoughtful spaces online. We serve communities and, if you’re a regular listener of this show, I doubt you’re serving racists. Systemic problems can feel overwhelming, but small things make a difference. Your community and how you manage it, regardless of the size of it, can be a part of the solution. I encourage you to think about that as you make choices that shape these platforms. On May 28, a couple of days after Twitter added a fact-checking notice to one of his tweets, Donald Trump signed an executive order targeting online communities and platforms. I believe that holding Trump accountable for his rhetoric and fighting white supremacy are the same fight. This executive order is designed to stop you, me, and big platforms from doing exactly that. On this episode, we’re talking with attorney Anette Beebe about the resulting fallout and answering some of your questions. Among our topics: What damage has Trump’s execu

People have gotten crafty when it comes to staying connected during this time of social distancing. Zoom calls with family and friends, Animal Crossing weddings, and drive-through birthday parties are just a few of the ways we’re showing up for the people we care about. HER, a dating and social app for LGBTQ+ womxn and queer people, is also doing its part to foster safe socializing for its community. That said, you might say this comes as first nature to HER, because safety has always been a must when it comes to representing and providing a space for their members. In this episode of Community Signal, HER’s head of community, Shana Sumers, discusses the recent changes that have been made to help community members stay connected during the pandemic. She also shares some of the tools and policies that keep members of HER safe from scams and persecution because of their sexual identity or gender orientation. Patrick and Shana also discuss: How community moderators make a difference on HER Reasons why members f

We’re several months into the COVID-19 pandemic and the daily loss of lives is still devastating and the longterm effects on our communities and society as a whole have yet to be seen. For many of us, the pandemic has affected our routines, our families, our work, and our livelihood. While some online communities have seen more engagement from community members (I love this story that mentions how Ethel’s Club pivoted from a brick and mortar social club to an online one), we’re also seeing tremendous layoffs across all industries. Amidst all of this and despite being just a few months old, Pandora’s community is aspiring to be a space where members can connect over music and everything impacting their lives right now. In this episode, community manager Erick Linares shares the strategy behind the launch of the Pandora community and how he’s working with his team to foster great conversations. Patrick and Erick also discuss: Why Erick thinks a superuser program will be integral to the Pandora community The ch

Nicholas Tolstoshev is talking programs. Brand representative programs, where brands pay you for access to your community. Ambassador programs, where you reward your best contributors. And empathy programs, where you help your coworkers see things from the eyes of your members and customers.  This discussion also ends on a note that we probably all need to hear right now, and that’s the importance of leaning on and being honest with each other about our shared challenges of navigating life and work during the pandemic. Nicholas shares how he has worked to start these honest and difficult conversations at Automox. Here’s to workplaces that are being encouraging and understanding during these difficult times. Patrick and Nicholas also discuss: Building ambassador programs and empathy programs to strengthen communities Empowering community members to create and moderate conversations of their own How Nicolas cultivates the internal employee community at Automox Our Podcast is Made Possible By… If you enjoy our

Every community has its own shared language and for the Spiceworks community, that shared language revolves around IT. Made up of IT professionals and service providers that support them, the Spiceworks community convenes to share their collective expertise and find solutions. In this episode of Community Signal, Sean Dahlberg, director of community at Spiceworks, shares how his team approaches community management and how they ensure that the community continues to offer value to its members, even as the company endures organizational change. Spiceworks was acquired last year by Ziff Davis and co-founder Jay Hallberg rcently announced his resignation. In response, Sean says that he and his team have prioritized being as open and honest with the community as possible in an effort to avoid rumors and reassure the community that the company is still committed to offering value to its members. Sean and Patrick also discuss: Sean’s transition from the Marine Corps, to the gaming industry, to Spiceworks The peppe

We started recording this episode about a week before its release, and since then, coronavirus COVID-19 has continued to spread across the globe. News and governmental guidance is being updated frequently and people in many regions are being mandated to stay home as much as possible in an effort to help flatten the curve. The pandemic has obviously impacted online communities, too. In this episode of Community Signal, I (Carol), along with community professionals Serena Snoad and Rose Barrett share our communities have changed in recent weeks. But amongst the three of us, there was a common theme –– the work of maintaining our communities as sources of helpful and reliable information is more important than ever. If you have a story to share about how your community has been impacted, we’d love to hear from you. But most of all, we hope that you are well, practicing social distancing, and doing your part to stay at home as much as you can. Here’s some of what you’ll find in this episode: How we can help rest

As community professionals, the array of platforms, reading material, conferences, and thought leaders available to us only continues to grow. And if you’ve read or written a job description for a community opportunity recently, you know that there’s often an expectation around technical literacy for everyone in the field. In a time when a lot of our day-to-day takes place in front of a screen, I felt a little punch in the gut while listening to this episode of Community Signal, when I learned that John Coate, an early community manager, had no knowledge of the tools available when he first started at The WELL. In fact, he says that his first day on the job was the first day that he sat down in front of a computer! So, why was I surprised? Has our industry placed too much influence on speaking engagements, platform knowledge, and revenue-focused metrics instead of the values and actual community-related experience that should govern our work? As John puts it, “computers are just a way to connect people. Never

Every company has the challenge of managing how to respond to customer feedback. But what if you’re managing a crowdsourcing community and actively asking people for their ideas and feedback? How do you make sure that every contributor feels seen and respected for their efforts, whether their idea becomes reality or not? These are the questions that Tim Courtney and the team behind LEGO Ideas have tackled. On a previous episode of Community Signal, we spoke to Jake McKee, who helped build LEGO’s first community team. One of the early members of that community was Tim, who would later go on to join the LEGO Ideas team. In this episode, Tim shares a history of LEGO Ideas, a space where people passionate about LEGO can submit their own ideas for new sets. And while LEGO has many designers on payroll, Tim explains why the contributions from its community pay back (and pay forward) tenfold. Here’s more of what Tim and Patrick discuss: How 16-year-old Tim first joined the LEGO community The strategy behind helping

Community pro Andrew Thomas was recruited by Northwestern Mutual while working at Shapeways. On this episode, he talks about what it’s like to go from a 200-person startup to an organization with over 7,500 employees that has been around for over 160 years. With more teammates and internal knowledge comes the added responsibility of continuously learning, introducing yourself to new people, and advocating for your work across the organization. Andrew and Patrick also discuss: The standardization of knowledge management practices How Andrew thinks about self-care and burnout for himself and for his team Getting buy-in and advocating for your work in a 7,500+ person company Our Podcast is Made Possible By… If you enjoy our show, please know that it’s only possible with the generous support of our sponsor: Discourse. Big Quote Standing out on LinkedIn as a community manager (04:16): “I think [I got noticed by Northwestern Mutual because I listed] out the tools that I have had experience with. My job is to ma

Shannon Emery manages both the external customer-facing and internal employee communities at Higher Logic. With so many tasks to manage and two distinct communities to nurture, how is a community professional to focus? Patrick and Shannon’s conversation is about just that –– the strategies and resources that she relies on to stay focused and successfully manage both communities. These strategies include: Leaning on dotted-line team members for support and subject-matter expertise (4:19) Adapting the principles of agile product management to her workflow (20:13) Asking about the bigger picture before accepting new tasks or projects (20:29) Our Podcast is Made Possible By… If you enjoy our show, please know that it’s only possible with the generous support of our sponsor: Discourse. Big Quotes On transparency in workplace communities (10:30): “If an employee asks a particularly difficult question [in the internal community], let’s talk about it. Let’s be transparent. Otherwise, why do we have a community? …

As we’ve shared on many episodes of Community Signal, community professionals come from numerous career paths, educational backgrounds, and areas of interest. In this conversation, Patrick talks with Matt Nevill, customer community manager at Agilent Technologies, about his transition from engineer to community manager. As a one-person community team, Matt discusses how he partners with other teams within his organization to ensure the success of Agilent’s community and gets advice from Patrick on when and how to scale the team. If you’re thinking about how to justify adding another team member or quantifying your community’s value, the advice is all here. As Matt and Patrick explain it, it’s all about clearly communicating that a more engaged community means happier customers that turn into repeat customers.  They also discuss: A support staff that was getting crushed by calls until they launched a community The right way and time to scale your community team Evaluating community platform options Our Podca

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is a frequent topic of conversation on Community Signal. As Patrick puts it, if you’re a community professional in the United States, “this is the law that places the liability for speech on the author of that speech, not on you as the [community’s] host. It allows you to moderate and remove certain content while not assuming liability for what remains. I like to think of it as the legal basis for our profession in the US, and it is an important legal protection against the wealthy and powerful who would happily take down an entire online community for one post they don’t like.” Plainly, this is a law that protects our jobs, our communities, the people in those communities, and their right to have civil and safe discussions online. For this episode of Community Signal, we invited past guests to share how Section 230 has enabled them to foster community and what changing Section 230 could do to the fabric of online communities. Our Podcast is Made Possible By… If

Data breaches, distasteful ads or marketing campaigns, offensive content left unmoderated for far too long… as community professionals, we’ve studied these situations when they arise and many of us have had to manage such issues in our own communities. In this episode, Patrick and crisis communications expert Kate Hartley discuss examples of micro and macro communications crises and how to best manage them. Kate breaks down the difference between a full blown communications crisis and negative or critical response to a change. “It’s only a crisis if it’s going to stop the community [from] being able to function,” she says. “If it’s not going to stop the community being able to function, then it’s not really a crisis. It’s an issue that just needs to be well-managed.” Kate and Patrick also discuss: How social media and news feeds fuel outrage Remembering your employees during a communications crisis Setting a strategic intent for handling a communications crisis and knowing how to measure your outcomes Our P

If you’ve ever Googled a medical condition or a new symptom that you’ve experienced you know that the search results leave much to be desired. When Nina Lorez Collins posted about symptoms of perimenopause on Facebook, she saw that many women in her network were looking for a space to talk about the same symptoms that she was experiencing. The conversation flourished into a Facebook group of over 30,000 women looking for answers and support through all stages of menopause and aging. As the What Would Virginia Woolf Do? community (now The Woolfer) continued to grow, it tested the limits of Facebook’s product and support and Nina found herself looking for alternatives. She faced the realization that she could not sustain the group as a free community. It needed dedicated resources and income to continue operating at the same level.  If you’re looking to launch or move your community to a paid model or debating changing community platforms, Nina offers lots of suggestions on what to consider as you’re negotiatin

Communities are good for business, but are businesses good for communities? This question has come up on the show before, specifically when we spoke to community hosts losing their Yahoo Groups and when IMDb’s message boards were closed and erased. What happens when corporation-led communities are determined to have outlived their usefulness to the corporation, but not to the members? Does this lead to more grassroots-led communities? How will the tools and examples we’ve created serve those grassroots communities? Bailey Richardson, a community professional that helped build Instagram and recently co-authored Get Together, and Patrick address these questions on this episode, as well as:  The current community software landscape and why there’s still room for growth What happens when you need to demote or ban a community leader Why graffiti is allowed on Instagram Big Quotes Not all interactions can infinitely scale (10:08): “When we left [Instagram], people on our team [asked], ‘What’s the one thing that

Earlier this month, Verizon Media, the parent to Yahoo, announced that users of Yahoo Groups had until October 28th to continue posting in their groups and until December of this year to archive all of their conversations. After December, 18+ years of conversations will be erased from Verizon Media’s servers and the internet entirely. Obviously, the community is fighting back. Administrators of these groups, most of whom are unpaid volunteers, are working tirelessly to download their data, collect the email addresses of their community members and, in some cases, move people over to a new platform. As community professionals, we know that a migration like this can take months of planning, research, and communication to our communities. In this case, administrators had two weeks to figure things out. In this episode, Patrick talks to two avid organizers of Yahoo Groups about the next steps for their communities and what they hope will come out of this situation. In both cases, they want the connections and res

For communities that come with a membership fee, direct revenue might seem like the top benefit for your company. But the Daily Maverick’s membership program gives them direct access to their most engaged readers, which has created benefits beyond revenue. The Daily Maverick has hired employees through its community, grown new company verticals thanks to the support of its community, and has given readers and writers a way to interact directly with one another about the stories they’re most interested in. Styli Charalambous, the co-founder and publisher of Daily Maverick, also shares the unique perspective of a founder building a membership program from the ground up, who then hires a member of the community to run the show. This episode will leave you with great starting points for discussing the ROI of community programs and a lot of inspiration around how to keep community members engaged. Styli and Patrick also discuss: Why Daily Maverick doesn’t have a paywall on its website How Daily Maverick approache

On this episode of Community Signal, community management consultant Tanja Laub gives a full report on what it’s like to work as a community manager in Germany. And perhaps not too surprising, the experience is not dissimilar to what guests from the United States and other countries have described. Tanja shares a breakdown of community manager responsibilities, typical salaries, and the limitations and opportunities that she’s seen in the field so far. Tanja is also a chairperson for BVCM, an association for Germany community managers, where she has helped develop a certification procedure for community and social media managers. Rather than requiring professionals to take a class to become certified, community managers instead verify their professional history and some other details about themselves to get the certification. Between that and her work to help organizations refine their hiring needs and community manager role descriptions, Tanja is helping to set the standard for what it means to work in commu

On Community Signal, we talk to community professionals across all industries, from gaming, to healthcare, to photography, and more. And while our respective communities might convene over different topics, the tactics and tools that we employ to foster healthy communities are largely the same. In this episode, Craig Dalrymple shares how his community career started in gaming and how that knowledge has carried him into other industries.  Patrick and Craig also get on the topic of customer success, the rise of roles in this space, and how community professionals can have an impact. But no matter what team you’re on or what your title is, what’s most important is that you feel empowered in your role and that you have the tools to succeed. As Craig says (8:48): “Can I do something here? Can I move the needle? Can I take this community and make it happier and bind it better with this product that they’re getting together around?” They also discuss: Balancing being yourself and a community manager in your online

A few weeks ago, the Community Signal team was discussing the upcoming schedule for the show and talking about the then recent news that Ravelry had decided to ban any pro-Trump related content. Community guidelines and how we moderate conversations in our respective communities are frequent topics on Community Signal, and it’s also something that we work on everyday as community professionals. If you’re contemplating new community guidelines, revising your existing ones, or debating a tough moderation decision, this episode has some terrific insights from Heather Champ. Sharing stories from her time guiding community at Flickr, Tumblr, and more, it’s most interesting to hear from Heather not about exciting new tools and automations, but instead about how much empowering community members with options, filters, and clear community guidelines can create flourishing spaces for expression. Heather also brings up a very important topic –– the level of vulnerability that community managers face in their jobs and t