Community Strategy Insights

The latest insights on community strategy, technology, and value by FeverBee’s founder, Richard Millington

No-One Wins If You Rush In

Richard Millington
Richard Millington

Founder of FeverBee

When you get a new community job, you might be tempted to dive in on day one and begin engaging with members in the community.

A few things to consider before you do this:

1) Do members know who you are yet?

2) Do you know who members are?

3) Do you have sector/product expertise or knowledge to properly respond to and engage with members?

Imagine a stranger jumping into a technical discussion with you and your colleagues without knowing who any of you were, what contributions you had made before, and sharing information that wasn’t accurate.

It’s probably not going to go well. It’s easy to cause long-term damage to your reputation based upon your first few contributions within a community.

It’s perfectly ok to reach out to a few members, introduce yourself (ideally via a referral), and say you’re keen to get their views on the community while you get up to speed.

Likewise, if your organisation has a training course or certification you can go through on the products, it’s worthwhile going through it and reading up on the top 50 or so discussions ever posted in the community.

Taking a couple of weeks to familiarize yourself with the community and its topic now can save you plenty of problems later.

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