#fromvirginia

"The blink of an eye" is an understatement when it comes to my past three months at Loyal. If it weren't for my weekly posts, it would be easy to overlook where I started, and everything I've learned since then.

After several years in advertising, community felt like an entirely new world—one centered on relationships rather than campaigns. Luckily, my experience was more relevant than I anticipated, and a solid learning plan helped me understand community from every angle.

Here's a re-cap of the learnings I've shared over the last three months:

Lay the Foundation: I explored what community really means, and why companies build community in the first place. And before skipping to features, use low tech options to build a solid foundation (inspired by Jane Jacobs and our own city neighborhoods). 

Design Interactions: A sense of community starts with the small things, like being helpful, and acting human. From there, your first few community members become the most important, setting the tone for interactions to come. And sometimes, despite your best efforts, things go wrong. Handle it well, and you have an opportunity to win people over for life.

Remember What's Important: Content is buzzy, but not a silver bullet. Think about how all your efforts ladder up to creating a deep community experience, either on your product, or in real life.

Go Outside: But the most important thing you can do for your community is to disconnect. To step outside, and people-watch. Watch how people gather, why they gather, and how their conversations ebb and flow. Understand what makes a community thrive. 

Today marks my 13th(!) and final post in the From Virginia series, but my education in community will continue for many years to come. Every project brings new challenges, and subsequently, new solutions. Every community has its own distinct personality and challenges. But at its heart, every community is about people and relationships.

For now, stay tuned for some new exciting series launching soon.

Over the last few months working in community, I've learned that even the best planning and community management in the world won't prevent every problem. As cliche as it may sound—you really can't please everyone.

But that's not necessarily a bad thing. David Spinks wrote a great post on why it's okay to piss off your customers, and Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit (this month's book for UserCentered's book club!) points out that the times when things go wrong are when you can win people over for life. It's all about how you handle it.

Authors of Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit argue that there are 3 discrete steps you can take to resolve any issue artfully:

Apologize, sincerely and immediately

Go over the complaint with your customer

Fix the problem and then follow up 

The only problem I see with this approach is that, sometimes, a problem shouldn't be fixed. Perhaps an underused feature was removed, or you've changed your product in a way that may frustrate a few customers, but benefits your community as a whole. It's just not feasible, or reasonable, to act on every complaint that comes your way.

In those situations, I think the best you can do is just be a good person:

Empathize with the user, and let them know you're really listening.

Give context, not excuses. Explain what happened and why the decision was made.

Ask why they're upset. Maybe they're just confused, or maybe the old feature was replaced by something they might ultimately like better. Sometimes you'll be able to help, sometimes you won't.

Thank them for their feedback—and really mean it. Make sure your community is able to give you feedback, and be absolutely sure that your team listens and responds.

Users only get upset if they really care about your product or community. It's a good sign, as hard as it may be. Take every opportunity to listen to your community—whether or not you can solve the problem for them.

I spent this past week exploring new parts of NYC—new neighborhoods, new people, and new communities. I always try to disconnect a bit when I'm on vacation (didn't even have a phone on me for the last 48 hours!) and that always ends up being my best thinking. This week was no different—though I was disconnected from "work", community was everywhere.

Disconnecting is important for every profession, but it's especially crucial for people working in community. People-watching (especially when people are in groups) is an amazing way to get new perspective and draw inspiration for your own community.

Keep an eye out for:

How people gather. Even informally, there's always n architecture to how people gather. In small groups, people sit close together, leaning in to talk. In larger groups, people break off into smaller sections for conversation. This seems obvious in person, but is often forgotten online. Don't think of your community as one large mass waiting to connect. Give them opportunities to break off and talk about things that interest them with a small group. 

What they're gathering around. Everyone has a reason to get together. Whether it's drinks, food, or frisbee in the park, there's always a reason that people are getting together. Even best friends have some sort of shared activity that serves as an excuse to hang out and structures their time. When you move online, content acts a lot like food. It draws people in, gives them something they want, and sparks conversation afterward.

How conversations ebb and flow. Conversations are one of the most interesting things to watch in social settings. You can see people light up and animate as different topics come up; you can sense when one subject is tapering off or getting heated, and when another one bubbles to the surface. People can direct conversations seamlessly from one topic to the next, without skipping a beat. This is much harder to do in an online setting over an extended time, but great CMs and moderators manage to do it every day. Fuel the conversation in a way that keeps people engaged, and sense when a change of topic is in order.

I spent the first years of my career working in advertising at a big agency. In college, I took advanced advertising courses, had advertising internships, and even led our school advertising club. In short, I was prepared for a career in advertising. When I made the decision to totally switch careers and join Loyal a few months ago, I was nervous. Nervous to switch to a field and role where I was entirely unprepared. I didn't have a background in community, or even a clear understanding of what community really meant.

Much of the last two months has been a major learning process. My learning plan has been incredibly helpful—meeting new people in community and learning what it means from every angle. But I've also realized that I wasn't as utterly unprepared as I first thought.

So much of community is simply about understanding people, which is not something you'll learn in a college course. That understanding comes from experience, empathy, and a simple curiosity about people. Here are a few things that were much more relevant than I realized:

Group Dynamics – Have you ever led a team at work or a group at school? Congrats. You've managed a mini-community. Understanding the different personalities in a group or team and sensing rumblings of when things might be going wrong is a big part of successfully managing a community. If you've defused a tense situation between co-workers, you can probably do the same in a community.

Motivation – Persuading someone to help out with a project or attend an event is not as easy as asking for their time. You need to understand their incentives for participating. It's the same for a community. Customers have no reason to join a community just because you ask them nicely. You need to pinpoint why it will benefit them to join, and communicated accordingly.

Bad news – Several people have told me that the hardest part of managing a community is when you let them down. You get so wrapped up that your community feels like close friends, and it's pretty painful to disappoint them. But you've probably had experience with situations like this before. What if you realized a client deliverable would be delayed, or a project your team worked hard on got canceled. You'd (hopefully) let them down easy. Same goes for a community. Tell them in advance, explain why, clarify how it will affect them, and give them clear steps for moving forward. And be kind. That goes a long way.

While the tools and processes may take some time to learn, the basic principles of community are pretty intuitive. Communities are people. If you're good at working with people, you already have a firm grasp on some of the most important parts of community.

Over the last few weeks, one topic has made its way into almost all my conversations: content. From global brands to small startups, content seems to be on top of everyone's minds. It's the buzz word du jour, right alongside "real-time marketing" after Oreo's superbowl win. 

Content can achieve many goals; it can educate users, help them solve problems, and strengthen your brand message. It can inspire members to talk to each other by sparking discussion or debate. It allows members to self-identify with your product or message, and as a result helps to attract a more cohesive community. Companies like Contently and NewsCred are doing a great job helping brands with original and curated content that strengthens their message and appeals to their community.

But content is not a blanket solution to solve all marketing or sales troubles. "Becoming a publisher" probably won't turn sales around overnight, and strategically planned "real-time" tweets probably won't make you an internet sensation. 

Here are a few things I've picked up over the last few weeks that help identify the right content:

Have Goals: At risk of sounding like a broken record, any new effort (content, community, or otherwise) should be approached with clear goals in mind. What do you want to achieve and why?

Be helpful: Produce or curate content that answers common problems your community may have—but don't let it become a one-way conversation. Let members contribute and discuss among themselves. It may even help you learn something new.

Share the spotlight: Consider putting your community at the center of your content. Create weekly member spotlights, or feature content they may already be creating. It's a chance to show how great your community is and reward people for engaging.

Stay on topic: The likelihood of a brand becoming the next New York Times overnight is pretty low, so stick to a few clear brand interests when choosing content. We help clients set up clear guidelines for their content—it helps stay on message and makes decisions about what to post much easier.

Content for content's sake shouldn't be the goal of any campaign. The best content strategies are the ones that stick to clear goals and enhance the experience without overpowering.