Cisco Communities Playbook

CiscoCommunityPlaybookYour Guide to Creating and Managing Online Communities

1 © 2012 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Contents

Chapter 1: The Big Picture1.1 How to Use the Playbook.....................................................................................................2

1.2 Why Community Matters .....................................................................................................3

1.3 How Communities Fit Into the Social Ecosystem .................................................................4

1.4 Is a Community Right for You? .............................................................................................5

1.5 Where Do You Fit In? ...........................................................................................................6

1.6 Representing the Cisco Brand .............................................................................................7

Chapter 2: Planning a Community 2.1 How to Plan Your Community ..............................................................................................8

2.2 Defining Your Audience and Their Content Needs ...............................................................9

2.3 Defining Community Purpose ...........................................................................................10

2.4 Creating a Content Strategy ..............................................................................................11

2.5 A Robust and Relevant Content Calendar ..........................................................................12

2.6 Leveraging Content and Other Assets ...............................................................................13

Chapter 3: Building a Community3.1 Components of a Community Page ...................................................................................14

3.2 Registration and Permissions .............................................................................................15

3.3 Keep the Experience S.O.C.I.A.L. .....................................................................................16

3.4 Workflows to Ensure Success ...........................................................................................17

3.5 Campaign Integration and Product Launches ....................................................................18

3.6 Promoting Communities via Social Media ..........................................................................19

Chapter 4: Engagement4.1 How to Nurture a Healthy Community ................................................................................20

4.2 Increasing Engagement Levels ..........................................................................................21

4.3 Metrics and Engagement ..................................................................................................22

4.4 How to Manage the Troublemakers ...................................................................................23

4.5 When to Retire a Community .............................................................................................24

Chapter 5: Ready to Start? Let’s Go5.1 What Do I Do Now? ...........................................................................................................25

5.2 Community Approval Request Form .................................................................................26

5.3 Launch Planner .................................................................................................................27


1.1 How to Use the PlaybookThis playbook is designed to give you the tools to start and run a successful community.

It covers why communities—when structured and managed properly—can help your team engage with interested stakeholders to support the buying cycle and drive measurable results for Cisco.

You will be taught how to:

✔ Define your audience

✔ Organize your strategy

✔ Develop a content plan

When ready, we ask you to fill out the Community Approval Request Form located at the end of the playbook.

Although tempting to jump ahead, we highly recommend you work through the playbook to ensure you can communicate your community’s value to the user base and for Cisco as a whole.

Chapter 1: The Big Picture

Cisco’s Global Social Media Policy: a Prior to engaging in social media on behalf of Cisco, you need to read the Social Media Policy Handbook. It is a company-wide handbook available to all employees and contractors and contains guidelines for engaging with people over social channels. For Cisco representatives working on social media channels, reading, reviewing and agreeing to the terms outlined in this policy is mandatory. Please visit the Global Social Media IWE site a for further details.

Look for the SME Icon throughout the playbook for material specific to the SME role.

SubjectMatter Expert

Take A Moment

Look for the Take A Moment Icon throughout the playbook for additional thought provoking ideas.

Cisco Community Playbook - Chapter 1: The Big Picture

http://www.slideshare.net/Cisco/cisco-global-social-media-policy

http://iwe.cisco.com/web/socialmedia


1.2 Why Community Matters

n the same way that consumers utilize user-generated reviews and independent research to consider a purchase,

business buyers demonstrate the same behavior in the social sphere, such as communities. But now the stakes are much higher.

IT buyers are usually tasked with investigating multiple providers prior to starting the RFP or purchase cycle. Communities provide IT buyers with a quick overview of product information, customer satisfaction and company engagement with their customers. This is important because IT buyers need to feel secure that they are selecting the best product from the best company at the best price.

✔ Buyers are looking for organizations similar to theirs that use the same technology that they are looking to buy.

✔ Buyers are looking for the long-term view of how Cisco will support their organization.

✔ Buyers want to understand what other companies think of the technology BEFORE THEY ENGAGE WITH CISCO.

What Buyers WantI


“Active members using our community to interact and engage with us controlled hundreds of millions of dollars in sales revenue over a 6 month period. Active partners of NetApp engaging in the community delivered over half a billion dollars in partner owned sales revenue over the same time period.”2

“Fifty-five percent of Business Technology buyers consider “on-domain” (i.e., vendor) support forums and discussion forums as influential information sources during their technology adoption journeys.”1

_______________________

1. “How to Interact with Tech Community Members”, Forrester Research, December 2011

2. Navneet Grewal, Director Digital Marketing, NetApp, Impact Interactions Research, April 2011


1.3 How Communities Fit Into the Social Ecosystem

ith the explosive growth in social media, you may be asking, “Why have a branded community when I can

use Social Media instead?” Good question.

While the traffic on social sites, such as Facebook and YouTube, is growing, these sites have a few drawbacks for marketers.

The Cisco social ecosystem consists of three

main areas: Home Base, Outposts, Passports1

Home Base Home Base are the channels owned and managed by the company. These channels are a top priority for Cisco and the primary area that creates and houses content. This is where Cisco partners and customers come to discuss and collaborate on Cisco products. Allocate 50% of time and budget here.

Outposts These are core third-party social channels such as Facebook and Twitter that provide the most efficient way to listen and respond to the community’s needs as well as drive traffic to Cisco-owned properties. Allocate 40% of time and budget here.

Passports These channels represent Cisco’s most outer ring of social networks. They are important, but not mission critical for success. Allocate 10% of time and budget here.

✔ Measurement of in-depth engagement analytics is difficult.

✔ Buyers are looking for the long-term view of how Cisco will support their organization.

✔ In Business-to-Business (B2B), there are still a large number of people who want to deal with the company on a website owned and operated by the company due to privacy and trust concerns.

✔ Social sites fall in and out of popularity; therefore, it is important to balance the content on the social sites while keeping the corporate presence stable and up-to-date.

Drawbacks for Marketers

W

Cisco.com

CiscoForums

CiscoCommunities

CiscoBlogs

del.icio.us

Blogs

Blogs

Blogs The Social Ecosystem


_______________________

1. Based on framework by Chris Brogan


1.4 Is A Community Right for You?

hen an online community is well thought out, managed and measured, the results can be significant. Success requires hard work, robust content and a dedication to your members. But, it is not right for every situation or every team.W


Key Questions Before Starting a Community

If your answer to these questions is YES, then a community is right for you and you are ready to proceed. If the answer to any of these questions is no, you should rethink your plans.

A community thrives only when both sides are engaging over content that meets both their needs. Initially, there will be more consumers than creators of content. This means that your team must be ready to over-contribute until the members begin to contribute on a regular basis.

1. Do my community goals align with Cisco’s corporate priorities?

2. Is my target audience large enough to consume and generate content?

3. Does my team understand the endurance necessary to run a successful community?

4. Is my team resourced to work and collaborate with members?

5. Do I have a strong content pipeline for the next 90 days?

6. Have I identified KPIs that align to my business goals?


1.5 Where Do You Fit In?

well-managed community provides significant benefits to both the company and the members. As a manager,

future manager or SME of a community, it is important that you understand your role in the inception, management and measurement of your new community.

Let’s take a moment to review these roles. Each community is required to have a designated “community manager” and a Subject Matter Expert (SME) assigned to it.

✔ Ensures timeliness and quality of community content

✔ Updates content at an absolute minimum of once a week

✔ Ensures all discussion posts, blog posts and comments are responded to within two business days, even if the response simply thanks the contributor for their contribution

✔ Answers technical questions that arise from the group

✔ Adds value by sharing real world stories, case studies, best practices, tips and/or “tricks-of-the trade” to improve knowledge exchange

A

Cisco Community Playbook - Chapter 1: The Big Picture SubjectMatter Expert

The Community Manager The Community SME


1.6 Representing the Cisco Brand

ith stakeholders around the globe, communities play a large role in helping to build Cisco’s brand and

reputation.

As a leader, manager or SME of a Cisco Community, you are responsible for representing Cisco, its products and its priorities. Because you lead the community, members look to you to establish the behavioral protocols within the community.

GovernanceIt is imperative that you read and adhere to the Global Social Media Handbook a that outlines protocols including information on spam prohibition, violation of third-party guidelines and improper material usage.

ConfidentialityWhen you engage with your audience, you should not disclose specific types of information such as financial and internal-only news and events.

Align With Corporate PrioritiesIn deciding if a community is right for your customer, you need to ask yourself if your community supports the five foundational priorities of Cisco’s corporate strategy.

W

Key Drivers of Future Intelligent Networks:Cisco’s Five Foundational Priorities

1

2

3

4

5

Leadership in the CoreRouting/Switching/Services

Leadership in the CoreRouting/Switching/Services

CollaborationCollaboration

Data Center/Virtualization CloudData Center/Virtualization Cloud

VideoVideo

ArchitecturesArchitectures


Take A Moment

Before you post, think ‘Would the CEO approve of this?’ or ‘Would this be appropriate in the Annual Report’?




Chapter 2: Planning a Community

2.1 How to Plan Your Community Your community strategy starts with defining your ultimate objective. That objective must be clear, concise and measurable. To start, you must identify:

Who What Why

Target Audience Understanding your audience, their needs and how they consume content are the first steps in planning your community. Take the time to research your target audiences’ ti-tles and responsibilities.

Committed Resources Your strategy will help determine the num-ber of team members required to create, maintain and discuss the respective con-tent. Too often people believe that a small team can manage a community because the members outside of the company will create most of the content and engage with each other. This is never the case in B2B communities, especially at the start of their offering. Team members must be committed to contributing content until the community members make contributions of their own.

Robust, Current and Relevant Content Content is the main driver of social media. Strong, timely and relevant content delivers high engagement. If your content is not consistent or audience appropriate, visitors will not come back. Before starting a com-munity, create a content strategy to ensure the community stays current, fresh and welcoming to members.

Strong Engagement Tools Engagement results when members in-teract with relevant and topical content. By providing content that members like, share and comment on, your community will grow organically. Communities with low engagement have a tendency to die off quickly.

Goals and Metrics One of the most important objectives is to define your goals. Simply indicating that you want a certain number of members in a community is not enough. Consider the amount of content that will be created, the key performance indicators and other pieces of data that will be benchmarked for success. If there are not measurable benchmarks, or the benchmarks seem unreasonable and cannot be reached, then a community may not be the best solution.

Cisco Community Playbook - Chapter 2: Planning a Community


2.2 Defining Your Audience and Their Content Needs

our audience is the single most important variable in the equation for community success. Understand who your

audience is and what their needs are, and you are on your way to creating a successful community. Misunderstand who your audience is and your community will never achieve the results you project.

Too often, community teams define their audience too broadly. But is this adequate? Probably not. These individuals are already targeted heavily by other marketing teams, not to mention the sales teams who call on them.

When thinking of a potential community audience, community teams should think in two aspects:

Segmentation: Are your communities for anyone in the networked world? Or are you looking for the managers of IT who are considering using cloud networks? The size of these two audiences varies greatly.

Audience Role: What is the role of the audience? There are three distinct audiences (see chart below) to focus upon when segmenting the B2B technology audience from a marketing perspective which will then help you understand their content needs.

If your audience is global, be cognizant of cultural differences which may come into play in your planning efforts.

Y

Audience Titles Needs Specifically Wants

Technical

Business

Learning

IT Managers, Network Administrators

IT Directors, Line of Business Executives

IT Managers, Network Administrators, Individual Contributors

Content around solutions and features

Content around business results

Collaboration with and learnings from other users and experts

l Statistics about growth and efficiencyl Case Studies of similar companies or industry

examples

l Technical specificationsl User focused, detailed content related to

running the productl Information on integration and maintenance

issues l Invitations for beta tests and early adopter

programs

l Updates on Cisco certifications to broaden career opportunities

l Wants to contribute to others’ learning


Take A Moment

Take a moment to define the ideal member for your community:

✔ What is their role at their company?

✔ What information would be most helpful to help them do their job well?

✔ How frequently are they currently interacting with your brand?

✔ What content would aid them in a buying decision?


2.3 Defining Community Purpose

nce you have established your audience, you are ready to begin defining your community’s purpose. Understanding what your audience is looking for, such as information to help with a business issue (purchase, support, research, etc.), is critical

in determining your community’s purpose and content. Review the chart below to help you determine what community type best fits the needs of your audience.

O

Category ExampleCategoryDefinition

Notes onEngagement

SampleObjectives

User Engagement Community

Document Repository

Training Community

Event-Focused Community

Primary focus is driving customers, partners and Cisco SMEs to share issues, best practices and experiences related to product and solutions, implementation, and management.

Primary focus is storing documents and driving audience to upload and read documents such as white papers or col-lateral.

Primary focus is driving audience to review training materials and provide Q/A that elimi-nates need for travel.

Primary focus is expanding attendance at offline events (mostly product-launch focused) by providing relatively low-cost online attendance.

Announce and invite target audience to attend an event or drive views of presentations

1. Build audience through planned content and interactive features

2. Utilize internal SMEs to engage and promote category products

3. Recruit external mem-bers to help engage and build vibrancy in responses

1. Develop a consistent and trusted repository of current documents on specific product information

2. Update frequently

1. Instruct on various new technologies

2. Assess skills3. Certification programs

High. Daily moderation is expected to keep conversations relevant. Asking questions of au-dience is key.

High. Some training communities function as merely repositories for training documents even though the Q/A is an important piece of the puzzle.

High during event time. Event-focused commu-nities will see a spike in engagement during the event. An archive date should be set prior to launch so the community is not allowed to become stagnant.

Low. Little conversation takes places in these communities.

Public Collaboration a

Partner: Design Zone and CVD a

Partner: Borderless Networks a

March 2012 Cisco Collaboration Virtual Experience a



https://communities.cisco.com/community/technology/collaboration

https://communities.cisco.com/community/partner/designzone

https://communities.cisco.com/community/partner/designzone

https://communities.cisco.com/community/partner/borderlessnetworks

https://communities.cisco.com/community/partner/borderlessnetworks

https://communities.cisco.com/community/technology/collaboration/collaboration_virtual_experience_2012




2.4 Creating a Content Strategy

ommunities run on content. Whether the content is company-created or user-generated, without strong

content, most communities fail. When planning your community, you must build a content strategy that meets the needs of your audience, yet is able to be modified over time to drive the desired behaviors within your community and attract engaged users who create additional content. Content that is valuable, exclusive and compelling will help your community become a daily destination.

When building your content strategy, take into account your audience segmentation and size. The needs of your audience will guide your content. There are many styles of content available to deliver your message and with a little creativity, you can help your community stand out from the competition.

Here are the must haves for any new community:

✔ Starter content for the first six weeks. This can include:

a. Starter discussion topics (seed posts from SMEs or the community manager)

b. Blog posts

c. Videos

d. Documents for downloading

✔ Content that is strongly focused on members’ roles (business, IT, admin)

C


Preferred Types of Content by Audience

Business Audiences Technical Audiences

Industry Research

Case Studies Training

Product Analysis

Network DesignCustomerSuccess Stories

Events

ThoughtLeadership

ProductLaunches


2.5 A Robust and Relevant Content Calendar

erhaps the two most important terms when creating a content strategy are endurance and flexibility.

Endurance You should have a content calendar to organize your information flows by topic, date, feature and supporting outreach used to convey the content. This calendar should be at a minimum 90 days into the future and be continuously updated. The endurance level needed to launch a community is very high and needs consistent updating from the sponsoring organization until the community begins to mature and members begin to contribute information on a regular basis.

FlexibilityYou may need to alter your initial content strategy once you see how the members are interacting with the content. This is why measurement becomes so important to the community

manager. Content has a shelf life and despite the fact that some new members will seek out older content, most members will seek out new content over old. That is why many members do not search the discussion forums prior to asking their questions.

As a community manager, your content strategy must evolve to gauge how long your content is valued by the community. You learn this by tracking page views and engagement for each asset over time. After a couple of months, you’ll notice the average length of time an asset remains fresh and when it goes stale. More importantly, you’ll also see which types of content are of interest to your community members. This allows you to tailor the content strategy to further meet their needs.

Using an organized, flexible approach to your content—based upon the members’ needs as much as the organization’s needs—will help your community succeed.

P

Sample post:“Fifty percent of CIOs expect to operate applications via the cloud by 2015.”

Sample post:“Clients are seeing results from our Cloud Enablement Services. Download the case study now.”

Sample post: “My head is in the cloud today, happy Friday everyone. Doing anything fun?”

Cisco (50%)

Industry (40%)

Personal (10%)


The 50-40-10 RuleYour content should be 50% Cisco specific, 40% industry

related, and 10% brand personality and humanity.


2.6 Leveraging Content and Other Assets

n area where many community managers struggle is content creation. With a mantra of keeping content fresh, interesting and engaging, a constant flow of great content can seem difficult to produce. Here are a few of ideas that

can help the savvy community team in their content strategies and tactical approaches.A


Link to Valuable ContentAdd keynote presentations, industry reports by analysts (excerpt only with a link to the actual site and full attribution to the company and analyst) and Cisco- created documentation or solution briefs.

Leverage Older ContentBring content back to the front of the community and add commen-tary to update the content with either new information or a di�erent

perspective. In communities, older content that is still useful sometimes gets buried.

Embed Social ContentBring social content into the community by embedding videos from YouTube, adding excerpts from third party blogs (with attribution), use a screenshot of a good Tweet to start a conversation, embed or link to an industry presentation on SlideShare, etc.

Engage MembersOnce you identify your top members in the community, ask

them if they would like to guest blog for a week or two. Utilize the more knowledgeable external members in an “Ask the

Expert” event in the community.

Embe

d C

onte

nt

Engage Valuable C

ontet Older Contnet


Chapter 3: Building a Community

3.1 Components of a Community PageCisco Communities offer a variety of customizable layouts and widgets to community administrators.

To access the customizable widgets, navigate to the Cisco Communities home page and login. Once logged in, visit a community where you have administrator permissions. Next to the Overview tab, click “customize.” You will then see the following options:

On the left-hand side are the layouts available to community managers. To keep the layouts consistent across all Cisco Communities, it is recommended you use the two sided and one major column layout (highlighted in screenshot).

To the right of the layouts is a section dedicated to widgets. Widgets are page components that can be added to the community page. Widgets are broken down into four categories focusing on content, places, people and miscellaneous other widgets. Each of these widgets can be dragged from the category area and dropped anywhere onto the community page.

For a more comprehensive list of widgets and their features, visit the community manager’s help resource center on communities.cisco.com a.

Quick Tips

Decide on the Widgets You Need Building Up HTML

When you first login to your new community, you will notice that you have many choices on how to design your community. Just because you have a treasure of resources however, does not mean that you need to go overboard. Choose only the widgets you need and start designing your community.

Some of the widgets that you run into will be HTML-based. If you’re not familiar with HTML, check out the code snippet library a to get started. This is found in the community manager’s help resource center a on communities.cisco.com. From the basic paragraph tags to the more advanced table code, the library has everything you need to get started and create great content.

Cisco Community Playbook - Chapter 3: Building a Community

https://communities.cisco.com/community/internal/mccmanagers

ttps://communities.cisco.com/community/internal/help/code_snippet_library

ttps://communities.cisco.com/community/internal/help/code_snippet_library




3.2 Registration and Permissions

isco Communities are open to both guests and registered users.

Custom PermissionsCustom permissions can be set for communities. This is common for private communities such as user groups and early adopter programs.

Registered UsersRegistration and login leverages Cisco’s Single Sign On process. Users who have a Cisco.com ID will be able to login to the communities without having to create a new account.

Registered users are categorized into one of four designations:

✔ Cisco employees and contractors have access to most public and private communities. SMEs and community managers typically fall into this category.

✔ Partners are Cisco partners. Partners have access to the public and partner communities.

✔ SMARTnet Users are customers who have registered for the SMARTnet support service. They have access to the public communities.

✔ Registered End Users are users who have registered but do not have one of the above three designations. They have access to the public communities.

Guest UsersGuest users have limited access to the communities and depending on the particular community, may be unable to view, post or comment within the community. To take full advantage of the communities, it is encouraged that all users register.

C

Cisco Community Playbook - Chapter 3: Building a Community SubjectMatter Expert


3.3 Keep the Experience S.O.C.I.A.L.

hen creating the user experience for your community, it’s important to keep in mind that the experience needs to be S.O.C.I.A.L.W

A community must be able to grow with the needs and the size of the audience. If you do not have the resources, a community cannot be maintained.

In a community setting, it’s im-portant to have a brand presence that is both open and transparent. Be friendly with your audience. Friendliness can be the difference between returning or idle users.

Community management re-quires commitment and con-sistency. From editorial calen-dars to regular check-ins with the community, it’s important to create a consistent social ecosystem.

Communities can be difficult to navigate. Ensure your community is intuitive to use and makes sense from a design perspective. Overloading your community with widgets, for example, is not a good way to design your community. Members will not want to return to a difficult to use com-munity.

Make sure your community members can engage with your community by creating opportunities for users to be active. Active members are more willing to come back and engage.

Communities need to give people the power to do what they can to get work done. Rules are okay, but it is also important to give people the power to do what they do best.

Scalable Open

Consistent

Intuitiv

eActive

Lim

itles

s



3.4 Workflows to Ensure Success

ommunities require a team effort to succeed. With a focus on meeting member needs while also promoting Cisco’s content, the team must be ready to respond to member-generated content in a quick and professional manner. Workflows have

been developed to make the process as efficient as possible.C


Recruit SMEs

Leverage External SMEs

Set Expectations Develop Escalation Matrix

Subscribe to Feeds

For each main topic within the community, one or more internal SMEs should be recruited to help with the community’s engagement. These SMEs should be prepared to answer the tougher questions about Cisco products and services that are generated by the members. They should also consider being the featured expert for their area and for “Ask the Expert” events on their topic of expertise.

The community manager should consider adding external community members who have demonstrated expertise within the community to the escalation matrix. In many cases, a private message from the community manager will spur the external SME to step in and provide support for the team. (As a benefit, these external SMEs from the community should be recognized for their efforts.)

For the community manager, the pre-launch workflow includes setting expectations for both the SMEs and members upon launch. In B2B communities, members expect their questions to be answered. A general rule of thumb for the workflow is to allow two business days for community members to answer a question. Then, if there is no reply, a Cisco employee MUST answer or reply.

To make the workflow efficient, the community manager should build an escalation matrix of their SMEs with all contact information prior to launch. SMEs need to understand their role, but also that the community manager will handle many of the basic discussions by pointing the member to content on Cisco.com, freeing the SMEs to handle only the more rigorous discussions.

Additionally, all SMEs and the community manager should utilize the “Subscribe” feature for any discussions in which they participated to maintain the discussion if members continue to engage.

Launch

By setting up clear workflows, the community manager not only demonstrates to the SMEs that the burden of support will not fall only on their shoulders, but that he/she will also handle the workload and recruit community members to help. This helps alleviate the main concern of internal SMEs: that they are required to handle all the content within a community.

Pre-Launch



3.5 Campaign Integration and Product Launches

Due to their interactive nature, communities are an excellent complementary asset to utilize in both

campaigns and product launches. There are relatively easy tactics to encourage your campaign or launch audiences to interact using your online community. Tactics include:

Open Q&A EnvironmentDevelop your plans with your community to allow interested parties to learn more details, ask questions, attend online events, etc.

Landing PageBuild a landing page that focuses on discussions, documentation and video assets. It may be temporary, but you should save some of the content by moving it into the main community after the campaign or the product launch ends.

Consistent Look and FeelIncorporate the look and feel, such as color palettes, tone and graphics of your campaign into the community to provide a common theme.

Seeding ContentSeed content related to the campaign or product launch to spur conversations for the audience who click through to your community from non-community assets.

Ask the ExpertCreate an “Ask the Expert” event around your campaign or product launch featuring a senior level executive to attract the target audience to your community.

Cross PromoteFeature links to the community landing page in all campaign materials (both online digital and offline print).



Home BaseCisco.com

$

$

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3.6 Promoting Communities via Social Media

The User Journey

_______________________

1. Business to Business Social Marketing: Community and Social Media Influence on Revenue, Impact Interactions, September 12, 2011.

I t is important to promote your community using multiple platforms. Using social media is an excellent way to reach a

broad audience.

Match the Content to the ChannelThe rise of social media sites like Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook and Pinterest gives community managers another new way to reach new members, engage with existing members and drive engagement overall. The key is to use those sites where your audience (or potential audience) is active. For the B2B community, that means LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook primarily. But each of these sites has different uses for community and you should not simply syndicate your community content on each channel; rather, create content unique for each site.

Drive Back to the CommunityThe objective in using social media with communities is to increase the reach of your message to new audiences with the goal of driving them back to register and engage in the community. To do this, feature content that is interesting and

on topic with links that guide the follower/group member/friend back to the community where they can read or contribute.

Highlight AnnouncementsOne of the benefits of community membership can be access to announcements and events before they are public. Use these opportunities to recruit new partners or members.

Casual Users versus Invested UsersResearch1 has shown that:

✔ Casual users spend their time on third party sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter

✔ Invested users spend their time on branded company websites and communities

IT buyers begin their purchase journey reading commentary on social media sites. When they are ready to move forward in the purchase process, they will engage on your site. Smart community managers understand and prepare for this.

Users visit corporate Facebook pages for information, posts and dialogue with other followers; allows product users to collaborate globally.

Users follow Cisco and other industry leaders for updates, links, and stories.

User can see what products and programs colleagues are working on.



4.1 How to Nurture a Healthy CommunityDefining Engagement For many teams, engagement is defined as robust comments or discussion posts by members of the community. For others, it is the number of downloads of content. The key to understanding engagement is to relate the activities or behaviors of members to the objectives of the community.

Aligning Community BehaviorOnce the team understands what activities and behaviors they want to drive, there are tactics the team can use to meet their objectives.

For example, in communities focused on discussions, the community tactics would involve driving members to read or watch content on the site and then discuss it with other members. This is the traditional message board or article commenting model of community. The content spurs members to create additional content.

Community managers must have the support of SMEs to build upon existing conversations either by contributing content in the discussions or by creating original content to start new conversations. It’s a fine line, however, between nurturing and creating. Dominate the conversations and the community becomes a Q&A site rather than a place where ideas are exchanged and discussed. Ignore Cisco’s role in building the correct behaviors, activities and conversations and the community becomes stale and uninhabited.

Track Active MembersBest practices for nurturing the engagement level within a community fall back on metrics. Community managers should look at the behavior metrics with a specific focus on defining active members, then tracking these members as a percentage of total visitors to the community. Depending upon the focus of the community and the definition of active members, the percentage should be approximately 10–12%.1 Support communities are much higher due to the Q&A functionality of the community versus the longer discussions of a marketing or learning community.

If the engagement level is lower than 12%, consider the following:

✔ Are the Cisco community manager and SME actively participating in discussions?

✔ Are follow-up questions and polls being used to stimulate the conversation?

✔ Are community members looking for more technical support? If so, refer them to Cisco Support Communities.

✔ Is the content stale or not inspiring conversations?

Chapter 4: Engagement


_______________________

1. Business to Business Social Marketing: Community and Social Media Influence on Revenue, Impact Interactions, September 12, 2011.

Cisco Community Playbook - Chapter 4: Engagement


4.2 Increasing Engagement Levels

focus on engagement is critical for the successful management of communities. At the beginning of

the community, engagement is more reliant on the host company than on members. This is especially true with B2B communities. Over time as the community matures, members will begin to demonstrate more control over engagement activities such as posting, commenting, helping each other and acting as a resource for the community manager. But this doesn’t happen overnight and can often take years to develop, so be patient.

To continue to elevate your engagement levels, the following tactics are recommended:

Thought LeadershipIn discussion-based communities, content that presents ideas and has an opinion provides members with an opportunity to engage whether they agree or disagree.

Writing StyleWriting for community should be short, to the point and easy to understand. The more jargon that is used, the less members will engage.

FeedbackAsk the user for feedback. In support communities, the use of the checkbox to demonstrate the successful resolution of an issue is a powerful feedback mechanism.

But for marketing communities, we want user-generated content, not issue resolution. That requires asking for and responding to feedback instead of relying upon the platform’s rating features.

Membership RecognitionRecognizing members for their activities in a public manner often results in them engaging at higher levels. Just as importantly, there is a carry-over effect on other members. Membership recognition demonstrates that the voice and activities of members are very important to Cisco.

Direct ContactA community manager’s behind-the-scenes contacts with top members is an efficient way to drive additional engagement. By identifying and building relationships with top members over time, the community manager has a cadre of members to reach out to for additional content or to answer questions. This reduces the burden of work on internal SMEs while demonstrating to the community at large that members have a strong role to play in the community’s success.

Sample ObjectivesThere are other tactics as well, including seed posts, surveys on member interests, time sensitive events and polls. The ability to create conversation about specific member interests will solidify the community dynamic.

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4.3 Metrics and Engagement

ngagement is the result of matching your audience’s interests to relevant content. As such, it fluctuates during the life cycle of the community. To maintain an active community, it’s important to have a firm, agreed upon measurement strategy and run

metrics on your community in order to make adjustments to enhance the community for your members.

Metrics are accessed through your custom reports dashboard, which you receive as part of your community onboarding.

Auditing a community means using both qualitative and quantitative metrics to understand how members are using the community and what they desire from the community.

E

Qualitative Quantitative

This data helps the community team understand the needs of the members in order to increase the value of the community:

l Type of content that is consumed the most l Topics that are most popular l Information that members are seeking l Preferred format for the information l Customer satisfaction with the community

Measuring behavior involves ratios. The five most popular ratios for engagement in communities are:

l Page views per member l Active member ratio l Contributor by feature l Depth of Thread l Sharability



4.4 How to Manage the Troublemakers

ot all user engagement is positive. Effective community management teams understand this and are prepared to

deal with criticism, negative user comments and other issues that run afoul of community guidelines. The key is to have an agreed upon plan for dealing with these situations congruent with how Cisco communicates with its members.

The good news is that in B2B communities, the community is generally positive. We don’t see the flame wars and personal attacks which happen regularly in consumer-based communities. In the event that a situation like that breaks out, the best course of action is to remove the content and send a private message to the member requesting that they refrain from such behavior and tone in the community.

The majority of issues arise around:

Competitor product: The community team should not let the comment go unchecked. If the comparison is an apples to oranges comparison, state it publicly. The best way to do so is to have an external community member comment, with the second best option being an internal SME commenting. In most cases, members of the community will support this exchange of ideas and comments as transparency in action. The key for the community team is to not take the comments as a personal attack.

Pricing: The community team must set up guidelines for pricing. For example, is it okay to say that a product and installation costs “tens of thousands of dollars,” but not “$45,000”? There have been times in Cisco Support Community when a member quoted the price they were given by a reseller for used equipment. However, the bigger question is whether or not you want pricing discussions to take place in your community. This is an area for the community team to agree upon in advance, then enforce as needed. (Note—this is different than advertising for selling products. Advertising is not allowed and the post should be deleted with a private message to the member.)

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Take A Moment

Remember that people come to the community to seek information. Negative or critical content is a part of the information that members seek. Do not simply remove critical commentary. Instead, treat it as an opportunity to correct falsehoods and present Cisco’s view as a counter to the criticism or negative comments. This provides a necessary balance to the community which is generally welcomed by members.


4.5 When to Retire a Community

espite best efforts, sometimes communities fail. Whether the members find more value on other social outlets or

if it was as simple as bad timing, it is not uncommon for a community to close. Warning signs include:

✔ An anemic community

✔ Slow to non-existent participation over several months

✔ Dwindling membership

If your community is stagnant for 90 days, you will be encouraged to close your community. To ensure a smooth closure consider the following:

TimingGive your members a two month warning prior to shutting the community down. This gives members ample time to migrate any data they feel is relevant and to retrieve any social connections.

CommunicationIf possible, directly reach out to the power users or those members who will be directly impacted. Explain your reasoning and provide a clear communication plan of where relevant data will be migrated and how they can reach the old community manager if they have any questions.

For all other users, post your communication plan on the community home page and provide direction on where content will now be located, how to access it and, if appropriate, direct them to a relevant community where they can receive updated communications.

New CommunityIn some instances you can migrate your members into another appropriate community. Properly vet this new

community prior to sending your members. Discuss with the community manager their philosophies, registration process and any other factors that may impact your current user base such as international members. If you sense this new community may be at any risk for closure, do not refer your members.

If the new community proves viable, provide clear steps to your user base on how to register or re-register, what they can expect to find in the community and other relevant data. Make the transition for them as smooth as possible.

Blogs and NewslettersIf there are blogs associated with your community, they can help you communicate the transition plan. They can be an alternate destination for your members to continue to discuss relevant topics. You should also provide the members links to relevant newsletters they can sign up for that cover similar topics.

User ContentBe precise about the migration plan for your community’s content. Give exact dates and URLs if it is to be migrated.

Third-Party SitesReach out to site owners who are currently linked to your community and ask them to remove or redirect their links.

Closing a community is not the end of the world. It does not mean that you shouldn’t try again in the future. In fact, you’ve probably learned some valuable lessons about your customer base and your community that will be beneficial to future marketing and sales programs.

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Chapter 5: Ready to Start? Let’s Go

5.1 What Do I Do Now?Once you have determined a Cisco Community is right for your customer base, we have a defined process to start your community.

1. You will need to complete the Community Approval Request Form a.

Once your request has been approved a confirmation email will be sent to you and the approving director to confirm the acceptance of the community request and begin the process.

You will be required to complete a one-hour training session with a community manager and a technical project manager who will facilitate the community creation process. You will be invited to a bi-weekly call that covers community management best practices as well as technical issues of concern.

2. Review the Launch Planner. It will provide you a week to week breakdown of needed action items prior to launch.

Congratulations on your decision to start a Cisco community.

Cisco Community Playbook - Chapter 5: Ready to Start? Let’s Go

http://cs.co/requestcommunity


5.2 Community Approval Request Form


Fill out this form online at: http://cs.co/requestcommunity a. Be prepared to answer the questions below.

1. Indicate the Director/Sponsor.

2. Identify the business goals of the community.

3. Identify what metrics you will use to measure your success in reaching those goals.

4. Who is your target audience?

5. How large is your potential audience for this community?

6. Indicate community manager(s) name(s), job title and contact information. Note: A Community Manager is required—that person is responsible for organizing a content schedule, ensuring that contributions receive responses, etc. We recommend a team of 3–5 people who are responsible for drafting and posting content with an identified Community Owner. We also recommend at least three SMEs responsible for fielding comments/questions for each theme/issue related to the Community Topic.

7. Identify the Community Topic and list 3–5 sample themes/issues that relate to the topic.

8. Is this related to a current topic on the Cisco Communities Platform? If so, why do you believe it should have its own discrete area (or sub-community)?

9. Include any information you have on existing topic communities (competitive/rivalry communities, related communities, etc.).

10. Why is the community important/relevant to Cisco, Cisco’s customers and other external audiences?

Sample Questions

http://cs.co/requestcommunity


5.3 Launch Planner

When What Who

Week 1

Week 3

Week 4

Week 4

Week Prior to Launch

Week Prior to Launch

Week 6

Two-Days Prior to Launch

Two-Days Prior to Launch

Week 2

Establish your community objectives: Who is your audience, what is your content strategy and calendar, what resources will you appoint to team. Identify SME. Read Cisco Communities Playbook. Read, review and agree to Cisco’s Global Social Media Policy.

Email the internal team with project updates every two to three days prior to launch. A WebEx meeting updating the team and answering questions is an excellent way to keep everyone aligned and on track for delivery of their content.

Seed content of interest into the forums two days prior to launch to spur conversations for audience members.

1. Ensure that there is progress in new content development and that your content is on schedule

2. Review all content that will be on the site at launch

Launch

Reach out to your top potential members with a description of the content that is available and let them visit early. (The idea is to allow these top potential members to get a head start and add content.)

Create spreadsheet for tracking metrics, top members and charting trends.

Design your community and decide on widgets.

Develop content calendar.

Once the Community is set up on the platform, use a two week closed beta or soft launch to test the functionality and train your SMEs in the use of the community.

1. Review the SME role and content requirements with your expert team

2. Ensure your team uses the beta to load content, check links and review all text for spelling and grammatical errors

Begin your outreach efforts by socializing the coming launch.

1. Add content to newsletters to the targeted audience announcing the new community and launch date

2. Post launch and teaser content on relevant Facebook, Twitter and Linked in pages

Ask your manager, team and SME to participate.

Consult with social leads as well as Cisco Communities lead if communications require management from their end.

Email the Cisco Communities team.

Work with social leads and team members to collaborate on the appropriate content.

Work with your main SMEs who will drive content as well as the Cisco Communities Team.

Use all your external social channels, blogs and internal communications to let organizations know about your community.

Consult with social leads as well as Cisco Communities lead if communications require management from their end.

Consult with the Cisco Communities Team and request access to Adobe SiteCatalyst, take SiteCatalyst training.

Fill out Community Approval Request Form.

Discuss plans with your manager and team.

Consult with the Cisco Communities team if widgets need to be customized to team’s needs.

Review with manager and team.

Submit to Cisco Communities team


© 2012 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco and the Cisco logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. To view a list of Cisco trademarks, go to this URL: www.cisco.com/go/trademarks. Third-party trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company.

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