If you think of a strategy as a bunch of ideas written down on a piece of paper, then it’s probably not worth much.
The words on the page are the tip of a large iceberg of work.
The words on the paper are the summation of all the conversations, research, persuasion, and thinking which has taken place before. If anything on the page is a surprise to a reader, you’ve failed.
The community strategy process:
- Gets everyone aligned with the benefits, requirements, and expectations of the community.
- Identifies concerns and creates the right messaging to use internally to bring others along in the journey.
- Introduces the community to new departments and secures additional resources.
- Uncovers the real needs and desires of members and uses these in communications and activities to significantly increase the level of participation.
- Stops tasks that aren’t achieving good results and allocates that time to achieving the community’s big wins.
- Develops complete user journeys, gamification programs, and MVP programs.
- Creates detailed timelines, action plans, and training material for community managers.
- Builds decision trees to not just measure what’s happening, but continually improve what’s happening.
- Identifies exactly what technology you need, how to set it up, and the specifications developers can use.
- Identifies major risks, how to mitigate them, and who will mitigate them.
- Creates a detailed budget for the community along with forecasted results and data.
A good community strategy isn’t a bonus or ‘nice to have’, it’s essential. Any of the above won’t just slow a community down, they will stop it from reaching anything close to its potential.
If you’re struggling to get support, not sure where you’re going, or haven’t seen any big improvements in participation and the metrics you care about, get some help.
