The document provides tips for building and growing a new online community. It recommends starting small with a specific goal, designing for members, preventing anonymity, seeding early content, gaining influencer support, incentivizing participation, appointing a community manager, planning for growth, allowing organic evolution, making registration easy, connecting to outside resources, and creating a superuser program for top members.

1. Hello!

2. How to build & grow a new community
1) Start small: Focus on a specific goal (such as
creating a peer-to-peer support forum).
2) Design with potential members in mind:
Consider your potential members’ motivations
and interests as you build spaces for interaction.
3) Prevent anonymity: Require people to register
and log-in before participating in the
conversation.
4) First impressions are important: Seed the
community with members, groups, activities, and
content before launching.
5) Get early buy-in from internal influencers:
Recruit a business sponsor who can maneuver
within the organization, maintain key
relationships, and secure resources.
6) Incorporate gamification to incentivize activity.
7) Designate a full-time community manager.
8) Plan for growth: Identify the mechanisms (in
both process and technology) that will enable the
community to expand smoothly.
9) Evolve organically: Leave room for unintended
positive developments, such as member groups
that emerge from the ground up.
10) Make it easy to register: Make the
commitment small -- don’t ask for too much
personal information up-front.
11) Connect to the outside world: Link to related
sites and articles, and keep members informed
about conferences and events.
12) Create a super-user program. In time, you’ll
identify & invite the most active members.
How to build & grow a new community
1) Start small: Focus on a specific goal (such as
creating a peer-to-peer support forum).
2) Design with potential members in mind:
Consider your potential members’ motivations
and interests as you build spaces for interaction.
3) Prevent anonymity: Require people to register
and log-in before participating in the
conversation.
4) First impressions are important: Seed the
community with members, groups, activities, and
content before launching.
5) Get early buy-in from internal influencers:
Recruit a business sponsor who can maneuver
within the organization, maintain key
relationships, and secure resources.
6) Incorporate gamification to incentivize activity.
7) Designate a full-time community manager.
8) Plan for growth: Identify the mechanisms (in
both process and technology) that will enable the
community to expand smoothly.
9) Evolve organically: Leave room for unintended
positive developments, such as member groups
that emerge from the ground up.
10) Make it easy to register: Make the
commitment small -- don’t ask for too much
personal information up-front.
11) Connect to the outside world: Link to related
sites and articles, and keep members informed
about conferences and events.
12) Create a super-user program. In time, you’ll
identify & invite the most active members.

3. GridGain support
forums (2019)
• Launched June
2019 (Higher Logic)
• Gamification
rewards
engagement
• Nucleus for
downloads; release
notes & news
• Slack, email
integration makes
participation easy
• Event registration
simplified (SSO)
• Forums-focused
search to find
answers fast
• Hub for meetup
news & discussions
• Intuitive dropdown
navigation
• Connections
option for
networking

4. Case study (2008):
Cadence Design Systems
• Created community from scratch in 2008 on Telligent
platform. Customers told us they wanted a mailing
list/forums & blog only. We simplified our plans as a
result.
• Promotion of your new community is key. At Cadence,
we put the community front and center on
cadence.com! Yes, directly on the homepage.
• I promoted the new community at local user group
meetings, other events, newsletter blasts, a PR
campaign, blog posts and social media campaigns.
• I looked at blogs in a new way: treating them like a
newspaper with an editorial calendar and “sections”
(categories).
• Blogger Bootcamp: I created a workshop to turn
engineers into content creators. About 1 in 10 become
regular contributors.
• I invited existing customers who had volunteered for
user experience studies to join an early pilot program.
They seeded the forums with answers to commonly
asked support questions and more.

5. How to grow an
existing community
Planting the seeds = Promotion!!!
ü Measured
ü Prioritized
ü Effective

6. Starting from
scratch – almost
• Symantec inherited forums-based community from
Veritas acquisition in 2003. Built on Jive platform.
• The Veritas Architect Network (VAN) experienced 3 years
of autopilot mode until I joined in 2006 -- yet customers
kept it breathing: Namely three “super-users”
(customers) who answered 90% of all customer inquiries.
• Aside from the forums, all other areas of the legacy VAN
community were obsolete. They needed a fresh start. In
late 2006 I turned to the three super-users and we forged
an alliance. Together, we drafted the core elements for
the new community.
• Build or buy? SaaS was the answer. Compared several
platforms but it came down to Lithium, Jive or Telligent.
Lithium best fit our needs.
• My team at Symantec then took that blueprint drafted
with the super-users and in early 2007 we launched….
Case study (2007):
Symantec

7. The Symantec Technology Network (STN)
Tech news
Articles and white papers
written for our IT customers
and prospective customers.
Tech videos
Landing page includes an
embedded video player for product
demos, tech talk & coverage from
Vision and other industry events.
Expert blogs
An informal vehicle for talking
directly to customers and
partners on topics and issues
that matter to them.
Forums
Q&A and threaded discussion
on topics related to Symantec’s
products. Email enabled.

8. Ways to promote
your community
Website
(1st priority)
Email
(2nd priority)
Social web
(3rd priority)
Event/other
(4th priority)
SEO mojo: Public
communities get
70-80% of traffic
from search

9. “Draft” off events
& issues
• Capitalize on the momentum from
events like product launches,
conferences, webinars, meetups
(etc.) and issues (bugs) to drive
conversations to the community.

10. More community
growth secrets!
• Registration: Make it easy &
unitary (you become a
community member when you
become a customer)
• Engagement: Calls to action;
notification; recognition
• Superusers: Identify; invite;
engage; reward

11. Listen, triage, engage & analyze…
CUSTOMERS USUALLY DON'T SHARE
EVERY ISSUE WITH CUSTOMER
SERVICE. THEY VENT ON SOCIAL
MEDIA. MANAGE BRAND RISK AND
BOOST NET PROMOTER SCORES
RESOLVE CUSTOMERS’ NEEDS
QUICKLY, EASILY, AND PERSONALLY BY
BEING INSTANTLY ACCESSIBLE IN THEIR
CHANNEL OF CHOICE. DECREASE
CHURN BY ENGAGING MORE
CUSTOMERS.
INTEGRATED LISTENING:
OPPORTUNITY TO ENGAGE ON ALL
PUBLIC DIGITAL CONVERSATIONS. USE
AI BASED TRIAGING: EVERY MESSAGE
IS READ BY AI MODEL, FILTERING SPAM
& NOISE FROM THE INBOX OF
COMMUNITY MANAGER
…across all social & messaging channels

12. USAA turned social
rants into customer
service tickets
• Created a social media management support strategy to
drive support savings.
• Integrated platform data into their Client Relationship
Manager (CRM) to create a cross-channel, 360 degree
customer view for seamless service.
• Customized the platform with features that improved
customer experience, including real-time member name
to social handle match and advanced agent routing
• Drove support savings by removing 25+ manual
processes including manual internal social customer care
documentation.

13. Tom’s project/program
management process
1) Project Initiation Phase – a project is formally started,
named and defined at a broad level during this phase.
2) Project Planning Phase – a project management plan
is developed comprehensively of individual plans for –
cost, scope, duration, quality, communication, risk and
resources.
3) Project Execution Phase – a project deliverable is
developed and completed, adhering to a mapped-out
plan.
4) Project Monitoring and Control Phase – occurring at
the same time as the execution phase, this one mostly
deals with measuring the project performance and
progression in accordance to the project plan.
5) Project Closure Phase – A project is formally closed.

14. Nuts & bolts
I ask myself 5 questions before every project:
1) How do I visualize the end-goal? I visualize in
a concrete way what the end-goal looks like
and what it will mean for my organization.
2) Does the team share the same vision? I
make sure we are all on the same page.
3) Am I set to embrace change? Things happen.
Go with the flow but steer the ship. Make
the tough decisions and follow through.
4) Am I communicating with the team and
stakeholders? Craft a communications plan
to regularly share progress, challenges, daily
activities and achievements.
5) How is execution supported internally?
Project management tools such as Wrike,
Jira, etc. help to ensure that nothing gets
dropped and the plan stays on course.

15. Examples @social

16. More examples
@social….

17. …and a few more @social

18. Thank you!
Let’s connect
• Email: tdieds@me.com
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