Do you know how most people become professional community managers?
They drift into it. They get reassigned from another department, it’s added to their list of responsibilities, or their hobby becomes a job.
I drifted into it too. The problem is when you drift into a career, you don’t go through a valuable process of skill acquisition, mastering a broad domain of knowledge, or collecting adequate resources to excel in the role.
I loved learning on the job, but I also made a lot of mistakes doing so. Most of these mistakes were simple to fix.
Some of these mistakes hurt my communities, prevented them from growing, failed to keep members engaged, or guaranteed the community wouldn’t succeed.
One mistake, ten years ago, got me fired.
Skills, knowledge, and resources
We’ve spent the last 10 years mastering a range of social sciences, refining key community management skills, learning how to use and apply data, and acquiring a collection of case studies.
By now, we have a great grasp of what does/doesn’t work in communities.
We’ve worked with over a hundred different organizations on their community efforts.
We have a playbook and collection of case studies similar to the way a copywriter has a swipe file.
In any given situation, we can refer to a) how other communities tackled the situation b) what proven social sciences says about tackling the situation and c) our own experiences from previous projects.
Today, FeverBee is unique in what we can do for organizations.
We can take any community (either just getting started or existing), analyze it and improve it considerably. We can tackle the big problems, analyze what is/isn’t working, increase the number of participating members, and (if necessary) monetize it.
My discovery
We discovered two years ago that most organizations wanted to bring this in-house. Consultancy is great, but bringing those resources, expertise, and skills in-house is far more valuable.
If their employees can do what we can do, they can solve the problems their existing communities faces and build any number of successful communities in the future.
We took everything we use for our clients, and packaged it into FeverBee’s Community Management course.
FeverBee’s Professional Community Management Course
I’m proud to announce the FeverBee Community Management course (formerly The Pillar Summit) is now accepting applicants for the Spring 2013 semester beginning on Feb 4th.
The FeverBee Community Management course will train you to grow and manage a thriving online community for your organization.
The course sets high standards for community managers. It trains you to apply proven knowledge and resources to tackle your community’s biggest problems.
The course goes through the entire process of developing your community and maximising the value it provides your organization. Even better, it provides you with a full set of reference materials you can use for yourself, your team, and the rest of your organization.
With our training, you can build bigger communities at a much faster pace. You won’t join the long list of organizations that launch a dead community. The course will save you time, money, and ensure your community meets best practices.
We don’t waste time talking about vague social business concepts, nor dwell upon social media, instead we focus solely on the practical nature of building bigger and better online communities.
The course is an intensive, distance-learning (online), experience which includes the following:
- Live weekly lessons (which are also recorded so you won’t miss one). Each lesson also includes a Q&A session.
- 100,000+ words of written material covering every step of the community development process.
- Coaching sessions from the world’s greatest community specialists; including Justin Isaf (HuffingtonPost), Blaise Grimes-Viort (eModeration), Patrick O’Keefe (Managing Online Forums), Robert Cartaino (StackExchange), and Nicole Larson (Element14/Newark) and lesser knowns, but very influential, social scientists.
- A complete new book of case studies you can use to guide your community’s development (and show the rest of your organization).
- FeverBee’s personal coaching to support your community. We set aside time to personally coach each participant on their specific community situations.
- Template scripts/strategies and other documents we use for our own clients. You get the exact same materials that we use for clients.
- End of term assignments covering the course material focused specifically on your organization’s community efforts. By the end of this course you have a clear document, reviewed by us, to guide your immediate efforts.
- Access to key academic journals. Undertake your own research with access to the key journals in the field.
- Problem-orientated live discussions with fellow participants. We tackle a major topic each week. Learn from other professionals facing the same challenges that you have.
All participants receive lifetime access for their organization to all of the above. You can use the same materials to train future community managers at your organization.
Previous participants
We know some have an anti-training bias. We counter this with the incredible results our participants have achieved. We change the way organizations approach communities.
Previous participants of the course have included community managers from a range of big and small organizations (and several great entrepreneurs). This includes Oracle, EMC, Amazon, Lego, GreenPeace, Wikipedia, Save The Children, Fidelity, Avid, Brown-Forman, Johnson Controls, Autodesk, Ziff Davies, PatientsLikeMe, TeachFirst, and many more.
Our participants have applied our principles to develop many extremely successful communities.
The reviews of the course have been fantastic.
Enrollment
You can sign up for the full course (1 module per semester), or for a single module.
Module 1 – How to start an online community ($3650 USD / £2300 GBP)
This module will take you through the process of growing an online community from scratch. It covers the basics of online communities, audience and sector analysis, platform development, seeding and launching the community, and growth to critical mass.
This module is for organizations about to start their community efforts.
Module 2 – Successful Community Management ($3650 USD / £2300 GBP)
This module will explain how you can manage, grow, and increase activity in your community. This covers growth, converting newcomers into regulars, content, moderation & discussions, events & activities, and relationships & influence.
If you have an existing community, this module will help you maximize it’s benefit to your organization.
Module 3 – Advanced Community Management ($3650 USD / £2300 GBP)
This module will explain the advanced aspects of community management and strategy. This covers how to develop a practical community management strategy, measure an online community, increase the return on investment of your community, scale the community, and applied social sciences.
If you have been in community management for a while, this module will ensure you have the ability to develop, grow, and scale multiple communities.
Full Course – ($8000 USD / £5000 GBP – 28% discount)
- Module 1 – How to start a community
- Module 2 – Successful community management
- Module 3 – Advanced community management
Our guarantee
We know investing money in any course can feel risky. We’re confident to offer all participants a full refund within the first 5 weeks (80% of the semester) if they’re not happy. We’re proud that only 1 participant has ever requested this. Few courses are confident enough to make this promise.
This shifts the risk fully on us to make sure the course outperforms your expectations.
If you are interested, learn more at our newly launched course site:
If you have any questions, e-mail me or call +44 (0)7763 831931.
Enrollment ends on Feb 4th (or once all places are taken). The sooner you enroll the sooner we can send out our getting started pack.
It’s open to up to 30 participants (a max of 10 per module). Registrations are accepted on a first-payment basis.
“It’s too expensive!!”
We could do a cheap course with guest speakers and accept 100+ participants.
Financially, it would be more lucrative, but the results wouldn’t be as impressive.
Think about the conference you’ve attended. How many have made you measurably better at your job? I’m betting it’s not many.
For real change we need to fully explain the theory, coach each participant, and establish criteria to ensure high standards are met.
Therefore, we strictly limit the number of participants that can attend and make sure each reaches a high standard.
Something else to consider, is your community as successful as you want it to be?
How much is this costing you right now?
How much are you spending on staff, platforms, resources, and opportunity cost?
What if you could make a one-time intervention to resolve that? Would that be worthwhile?
We’ve offered every participants a 100% refund if they don’t feel it’s worth the money, only 1 person has EVER taken this. We’re proud of that.
And if the payment itself is a tough burden, we can space the payments out over 3 to 6 months.
We work hard to make this investment affordable for your organization.
Ask Your Boss Now
In our experience, the biggest reason why people don’t take this course is they don’t ask their boss in time.
If you need to get permission to take this course, now is the time to ask.
Send this e-mail to your boss. We’re also happy to arrange calls to discuss the details further.
Please reply to this e-mail if you have any questions about the course.
Summary
Who: Richard Millington (and 10 participants per module)
What: Professional Community Management Training
When: 4th February – 15th March
Where: Fully online distance learning. No travelling or missing work required. All lessons recorded.
