Repositioning Community Management

In previous CLF meeting we found that the transactional interactions (I have a question-I get an answer) are rapidly eroding due to both external ChatGPT-services and internal AI-bots that provide an answer before any human interaction is happening. So, what does that mean for the profession of Community Management?

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“Transactional Community is not bad!” “Emotional is not the right word!” Just a few reactions to us pushing the envelope of Community Management.

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We have access to a lot of customer and prospect conversations. We also speak with our community of Community Managers. The conclusion we take is that Community Management is changing. This is our first stab at driving that discussion and then take conclusions. We used a panel format with Hans Scharler of MathWorks and Wilfried Rijsemus as panel debaters and invite others to join the conversation.

Online, Events or both?

CMs that are working on Events feel that they are doing something different from the traditional online CMs. We know from experience that events and online combined accelerate a community's growth and its value to the members. The definition of a community is still “a group of people with a common interest”, regardless of how you support them. The lesson here is to let more CMs tell their event stories as they are equally important instruments.

Your party or their party?

Community Managers have considered Community Management and Social Media Management as two different things for years. However, every modern brand tries to reach their audience both in their own brand community and the social media channels that the community member is also on.

So, for a Community Manager currently active in driving traffic to the community it has become important to connect with their colleagues who are reaching that very same audience in their social media channels and have a single plan to create advocates for their brand. Regardless of whether the members come to your party or the organization is joining their member's party on Social Media.

Community ecosystem and why it is important

This leads to a first conclusion that we felt already for years but we actually now see emerging.

The Community Ecosystem is the combined spectrum of your company throwing your own party as well as your company joining your members’ party on social media.

They are the very same people and a CM needs to develop a Community Ecosystem plan. So, it is not either-or but both. I’ve illustrated it in the picture below. One can elect not to be active on one or more pillars but that should be a conscious decision.

The accelerated erosion of the transactional layer

This leads to the driver behind this whole discussion and why it is emerging rapidly at this time. Various CMs report a decline in their traffic due to AI. This means that the organization has a choice to make. Indeed, serving an audience with the help of AI is not bad at all. You can elect to do nothing and make sure the visitors are answered or that your content is scraped by Chat GPT. Great for case deflection objectives.

Yet, most communities have an advocacy program that is akin to marketing funnel. 1000 new members lead to 100 active, lead to 10 advocates. As the inflow dries up, so does the advocacy funnel. The opportunity is to pay more attention to the member quality engagement and make sure those are served extremely well. The emerging Community Ecosystem opportunity may just be the best antidote to the erosion of the transaction layer.

Join Us

You too can be part of this group of community managers. It is a true community. You give and you get. All members gladly share their stories and also can ask the questions they are struggling with. Just go here and register. It’s once a month every last Thursday. 10x a year. Access is free.