THE STATE OFCOMMUNITY
MANAGEMENT

2020

y
a
W s
e
h o rktgni ld Wgn oraCh e WthWith support from:er logic

higher logic logo is all lower case, gotham font
tracking set to -50

the human-focused engagement platform
THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2019 •2• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

About Our Partners
FEATURED

The Higher Logic engagement platform delivers powerful online
communities and communication tools to engage your users at
every stage of their journey. With Higher Logic, you get a robust
platform plus over a decade of experience in building sophisticatedcommunity engagement programs. We serve over 3,000 customers
across 21 countries worldwide and support over 2.7 billion community
interactions annually.
Learn more: www.higherlogic.com

The power of Verint Customer Engagement Solutions with theflexibility and scalability of Telligent Community. Verint Community
gives organizations 100% control of their online brand experience.
We’re the world’s most flexible and scalable platform for powering
innovative online communities and forums for engagement,
support, web self-service, agent to agent collaboration and insights
available Cloud or On Premises. As part of Verint’s Intelligent SelfService portfolio, Verint Community can be deployed standalone,
integrated with or embedded into other enterprise systems to makethem more socially engaging to increase adoption and deliver highimpact experiences.
Learn more: www.verint.com/communities

PREMIUM

Jive unleashes employee productivity,
harnesses corporate knowledge andbuilds institutional memory with its
open, secure, enterprise-scale intranet
and collaboration hub. Many of theworld’s most successful organizations
unite their people, knowledge, andcontent with Jive, bringing out the best in
their employees and making work moreproductive, engaging and rewarding.
Learn more: jivesoftware.com

Igloo is a leading provider of digital
workplace solutions, helping companies
move beyond traditional intranets
to inspiring digital destinations that
improve communication, knowledge
sharing, collaboration, and culture. Igloo
is 100% cloud-based, mobile-enabled,
and integrates with the leading systems
and enterprise apps your business relies
on. Igloo provides a single-source-oftruth, enabling a more productive andengaged workforce.

Khoros is a global leader in customer
engagement software, helping brands
stay all-ways connected with theircustomers. Khoros Communities, one ofthree powerful Khoros solutions, gives
brands an interactive platform that fosters
peer-to-peer engagement to enhance
the customer experience and improve
support efficiency through self-service.
Learn more: khoros.com

Learn more: www.igloosoftware.com

Yammer is the social layer within
Microsoft 365 that connects andengages people across the organization.
Yammeruses
communities
andopen
conversation
topower
leadership engagement, corporate
communications, and open knowledge
sharing to drive organizational change.

At Social Edge, we build beautiful
online communities that empower
our clients and their customers. Fromcustom design and development tostrategy, community management, andtechnical services, we have created350+ communities for enterprise and
SMB clients across all industry verticals.

Learn more: products.office.com/en-us/
yammer/yammer-overview

Learn more: www.socialedge
consulting.com

Vanilla provides a one-stop-shop solutionthat combines the power of customer
community, Q&A, knowledge base, andideation to help brands improve CX andbrand loyalty while reducing costs.
Since 2009, Vanilla has helped hundredsof top brands provide a great community
experience to millions of people aroundthe globe.
Learn more: vanillaforums.com/en/

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •3• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION TO THIS RESEARCH

5

Welcome to the State of Community Management 2020

6

Executive Summary

7

Methodology

8

Demographics

KEY FINDINGS

10

Advanced Communities Create Generative Value• Recommendations• Impact of the Global COVID-19 Crisis on Community Programs

26

External Communities Elevate the Customer Experience• Recommendations

38

Internal Communities Reveal Untapped Potential• Recommendations

CONCLUSION

49

What’s Next for Communities

50

How to Use this Research

52

About The Community Roundtable• Community Maturity Model• Community Engagement Framework

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •4• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

Welcome to The State of Community Management 2020
2020 is the year of reinvention. Organizations were already concerned about adapting to the digital andknowledge economy. Those that invested in change are finding adaptation easier. Those that resistedchange or stalled in making investments are experiencing a forced and rapid transformation.
Community approaches are critical in transforming how organizations work, manage, and lead. Strong
community business and governance models harness the enormous untapped capacity in ecosystems
by replacing hierarchical bottlenecks with shared purpose and trust. Instead of constraining productivity,
organizations employing communities enable distributed leadership and promote self-directed
management in both their employees and customers. Where executives once controlled information, we
now see them inspiring, guiding, and negotiating boundary conditions. Instead of acting as a cage andconstraining growth, this operational trellis unleashes individual and organizational potential.
“Communities Are Change Agents” was a key finding of this research in 2018 and we see this trend
accelerating. Community programs are changing how organizations evolve. This year, we see community
business models driving generative value by liberating potential from the constraints of centralized
decision-making. This research data is an exciting milestone, but it is only seen in Advanced Community
Programs. Many community programs are still struggling to articulate value, secure resources needed tobuild productive communities and optimize community management. This finding is both a challenge
and an enormous opportunity during the current crisis.
The COVID-19 pandemic has, in fact, prompted many community programs to accelerate plans. However,plenty of programs and staff are still at risk, likely because many communities are not well-integrated into
their organizations. Notably, members of TheCR Network feel far more energized and empowered to act
than community professionals generally. This difference also hints at the impact of strategic community
approaches versus reactive and tactical positioning.
In times of crisis, we are uniquely called on to focus on what matters. When our employees and customers
feel seen and heard, they will move mountains to ensure the success of organizations that are meaningful
to them. Like the person who only networks when looking for a job, those communities only offeringtransactional benefits are unlikely to inspire loyalty. Healthy communities have the resiliency, helping theorganizations that support them to bounce back stronger than ever.

Rachel HappeJim Storer

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •5• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

Executive Summary
Communities change the way the world works. They are unrivaled in their ability to unlock
human potential. Communities rapidly pair needs with support and expertise, allowing
individuals to learn incrementally and iteratively. Communities remove bottlenecks inherent
in hierarchies by making tacit knowledge and conversations transparent and accessible. This
broad access to knowledge empowers and distributes leadership, allowing more individuals
to seize and respond to opportunities. Executives shift their focus from making decisions to
optimizing organizational culture and maximizing currently constrained human potential.
This year’s research yielded a breakthrough in measuring community value and its generative
business model. That value can now be represented in financial terms. This breakthroughrevealed critical differences between the success of internal, employee-facing communities andexternal, customer-facing communities. This year, we explored each independently to increase
relevance and tailor recommendations to each use case.

Key Findings
1. Advanced Communities Create Generative Value
Advanced communities generate outsized returns and return more value to each set ofstakeholders than is invested. As these communities age, costs decline and returns increase,creating a self-propelling and generative business model.

2. External Communities Elevate the Customer Experience
External communities deliver value throughout the customer experience. External
communities improve customer value by providing access to other customers, increasing
trust, delivering solutions, and generating new ideas. External communities empower
customers and contribute positive brand impact, all while improving profitability.

3. Internal Communities Reveal Untapped Potential
Internal communities have vast potential to transform organizations by changing how
employees work and learn. The most successful Internal Communities deliver complex
business objectives like culture change, communications, brand awareness, and productivity.
However, tantalizing indications of potential with Internal Communities are squanderedby underinvesting in community management, even though there is more invested per
member than in External Communities.

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •6• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

Methodology
The data in this report were collected from 324 community programs between January andMarch 2020. Data from an additional 213 respondents were collected in April 2020 to provide
additional context on the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on community programs.
Members of TheCR Network State of Community Management (SOCM) Working Group helped
define the research scope, refine the research instrument, and prioritize the most meaningful
data. This group’s contributions improved the scope, delivery, and depth of the research.
Members of the State of Community Management 2020 Working Group

Research participants are solicited from The Community Roundtable’s contact list, members,
and clients. Because this is a self-selected group of respondents, the data may not reflect overall
industry trends. It reveals what a portion of the community management space is experiencing
and tends to represent more mature community programs.
Once collected, The Community Roundtable’s research team cleans, segments, and analyzes
the data. This year we segmented the data in the following ways to reveal additional insights:

Average Overall

average of all communities in the research

Advanced Overall

average of communities with strategies that are approved, operational, and measurable

External Average

average of customer- and market-facing communities

External Advanced

average of customer- and market-facing communities that have an approved,
operational, and measurable strategy

Internal Average

average of employee-facing communities

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •7• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

Demographics
The State of Community Management 2020 research participants represent a wide range of community
programs that include internal, employee-facing, community programs, and external, customer-facing
programs. They represent different sizes, ages, industries, and use cases. To effectively analyze thisdiversity and identify insights, we segmented data based on some of these demographic differences.

Industry

Organization Size

The industries represented in this year’s research are relatively
consistent with previous years. The technology, non-profit,
and business services sectors are most prominent. Education
is growing in its representation, while media/entertainment/
publishing has decreased somewhat.

This year’s research sample has fewer of the very largest
organizations, and the average population of community
programs may show less maturity as a result because thoselarger organizations tend to have more operational maturity
generally. That operational maturity typically results in higher
performance and has an impact on average performance asa result.

Community Age

Community Membership

Overall Internal External
Average 557,304 29,495

As in prior years, this year’s population represents a wide rangeof community ages. Community age, however, does not havea consistent correlation with maturity or performance. Older
communities do tend to be, on average, larger than younger
communities.

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •

574,819

The average community size is consistent with previous years,
with about 20% reporting below 500 members or above
1,000,000 members. Internal communities are significantly
smaller – about 5% of external communities.

8• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

Community Audience and Use Case

Primary Community Platforms

Like past years, this year’s research sample includes amajority of external community programs, with internal andboth splitting the difference. Internal and external community
programs are more differentiated than in past years, andthis is, potentially, why we are seeing fewer program teams
managing both.

This year’s research population uses a variety of platforms.
The research specifically asked about over twenty different
platforms and the biggest option selected was “other”,
showing the fragmentation of the platform market. Above are
the top five primary platforms used in this research sample
for internal and external programs.

Top Reporting Departments
for Community Programs

Community Ecosystem

There is no dominant functional reporting structure forcommunity programs, although internal and external
communities tend to report to a different set of functional
areas. Many community programs are independent
departments without direct functional oversight.

As they mature, many community programs represent notjust one shared purpose but many, creating an ecosystemof sub-communities that may interact, but also function
independently. This structure is more common for internal
community programs that typically address more use cases
for more functional groups.

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •9• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

Shared Purpose

unity Manageme

Programm
$682

lt
Cus
to m e r L oya e
Cu
ang g
Awa lt u re C h andin
re n e s s & B r

I n f ra s t r u

Organizational
Objectives$67

ct u reyMemberObjectivesAnsw
Ide e rsas
Tr u stertise

nt ,

i ng

m
Com

t i o n , Q u e s t i ons,tA ten

Exp

,

$153

$614

Shared Value

Dedicated Budget
HR-Approved
Community Roles

Community Teams

Cross-Functional
Engagement Objectives

REPORT to Cross-

45%

Functional Executives

61%

Ability to Measure Value

Integrated Platforms

MEASURE

55%

88%

51%

OF THE TIME

OF THE TIMETRAIN CrossFunctional Experts

70%

42%

70%

OF THE TIME

TI
AV
RED VALUE & INNO
A
H
S
G

TIN
A
R
LE
E
C
C
A
...
1469%

Community ROI
echoes the patternof innovation

4782%

4136%

2778%

85%

Community Members Feel:
SEEN:

72%

.
N
O

HE A RD :80%© 2020 The Community Roundtable

Communities Positively
Impact Culture & Brand

5315%

Advanced
Communities

CREATE GENERATIVE VALUE
Community structures create abundant, organic, and regenerative growth.
Thriving communities generate more value for individuals than is contributed tothem, driving loyalty, generosity, advocacy, and reinvestment.
The limits of extractive business models, with the disproportionate losses and gains
they produce, are becoming increasingly apparent. Organizations using community
models to empower and collaborate with employees, customers, and otherstakeholders are seeing outsized gains. This success is prompting organizations to
expand community investments and extend the impact of community programs.
Community leaders have witnessed this generative dynamic for thousands ofyears. The power of communities created some of the most influential institutions
in history – religious communities, new models of government, the craft guilds ofBelgium and The Netherlands, universities like Oxford and Harvard, and secretive
clubs like the Freemasons. More recently, commercial models like Airbnb, social
movements like Burning Man, and the political campaigns of Bernie Sanders andElizabeth Warren are examples of organizations generating influence and powerby using a community model that incorporates non-financial value exchanges. Allof these communities, on the whole, produced more value for individuals thanthey contributed, and organizations were rewarded with the loyalty, generosity,
advocacy, and reinvestment of those same individuals.
Until recently, much of the community value exchange was difficult to quantify andtranslate into financial figures. It was impossible to project the offset between theinvestment required and the generative impact. As a result, those organizations
that undertook community approaches were mostly mission-driven. Commercialorganizations operate with metrics and accounting, and because the community
business model could not be translated into financial metrics, community

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •11• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

operating models were not included in
traditional accounting and financial reporting.
As the community business model becomes
better understood, it is becoming a morecommon operating model, especially inorganizations
whereknowledge
andinnovation are vital assets.
Historically, organizations with community
operating models were motivated bysomething more than profitability, and yet,those who apply this approach well, enjoy
extraordinary financial success. Examples ofthis include many professional associations,churches, and private schools. Ironically,
many of the most successful organizations
have forgotten their community roots in arace to maximize financial returns, which has
undermined their original operating modeland increased risks as shared value diminishes.
Examples are rife in associations, religion, andeducational institutions.
Successful community approaches create
equitable,
generative,
sustainable,
andinnovative organizations. These organizations
empower, engage, and reward the potentialof everyone in their ecosystem, unlocking thecapacity of their network to do more.

Community Business Models
Can Be Measured
Over the last few years, this research has begun
to tease out financial metrics that document
community value, first confirming an approachto community return on investment (ROI) andthen showing how ROI changes and grows
as communities mature. This year’s researchgoes one step further and shows how financial
investment and member investment married
together generates compelling returns
for both. This data validates what we’ve
anecdotally witnessed for a long time – thatTHE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •thriving communities yield more value forevery participant than they contribute.
Comparing Advanced Communities – thosewith measurable strategies – to Average
Communities reveals this generative financial
dynamic. Advanced Communities are 22%of all communities in our findings and areweighted slightly more than Average toward
external, customer-facing use cases.
Advanced Communities consistently show
more management maturity and better results,
both for the organizations that sponsor themand the community members who participate
in them. These communities typically
represent slightly larger organizations,and have three times more members than
Average Communities, although they are
not significantly older. They are more likely
to integrate their community platforms withother channels where their members engage
and with business systems. This integration
makes communities easy for members to use
and effective for community teams to manage
and measure. This ease of management may
account for some of the size differential
because it allows community teams to manage
bigger communities efficiently.
Advanced Communities can often directly
connect community performance to key
strategic business objectives for both external,
customer-facing communities and internal,

12• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

employee-facing communities. What’s more,these communities are impacting some of
the most complex and, what were previously
somewhat intractable, business challenges
like customer loyalty and organizationalchange. Advanced Communities do this byintegrating and aligning multiple stakeholders,creating a shared understanding of needs andsolutions, and streamlining and rationalizing
the employee and customer experience.
Communities improve efficiency and speed
across an organization’s ecosystem.

Community Financials Confirm
Generative Dynamics
Advanced Communities show the highest
ROI in our data set – this is unsurprising given
their ability to measure progress and success.
This success results in increased budgets
and hiring. Advanced Community teams arebigger than Average Community teams - butwith communities that have three times thenumber of members. As a result, they pay
less per member and get more in return. Their
strategic maturity yields generative value. In
short, they get more for less.
Members contribute value to communities
through their attention, time, and expertise.
This contribution is measured most easily
by the answers they provide. Members of
Advanced Communities provide slightly
more answers than members of Average
Communities. However, the value of theseanswers is significantly higher because they
are accessible to larger communities, resulting
in more reuse. This expanded use of answers
increases the value but not the cost of eachanswer. Advanced Communities generate
more value by generating more search anddiscovery activity.

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •13• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

This generative value dynamic becomes evenclearer when looking at cost per member bycommunity age. New communities require a
lot of investment and start with a relatively
small number of members, so the cost per
member averages almost $300. That figuresuggests a less compelling business model
when we imagine an online community to
be hundreds, thousands, or even millions ofmembers. This initial investment is required
to introduce new behaviors – prompting
members to do their work in a different way
and, in the process, capturing conversations,connections, and answers. Investment
increases as infrastructure and governanceare developed and rolled out. As communities
age, however, the cost per member decreases
dramatically. This decreasing cost per
member demonstrates how communities
normalize new behaviors as they mature, andbecome generative, requiring less centralized
investment per member over time. As
membership continues to increase, the cost
per member is reduced even further.
Investment is required to reach this generative
tipping point, where operating costs decrease
and stabilize. Our data shows that the cost

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •per member starts relatively high and begins
to drop after the first year, falling significantly
between the third and fourth years. As thishappens, the community budget growthslows. If an investment is not made earlyon, especially in community management,
communities can stall before reaching thisgenerative inflection point.

Generative Value Accelerates
Innovation
Digital channels excel at making the workof communities efficient. This work isdeveloping and acting on shared meaning,
purpose, and value. This work is thefundamental driver of innovation. The
Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, andeven the technology market took decades
to develop and were dependent on thephysical concentration of their communities
and the speed of information technologies.
The Internet has dramatically sped up
innovation and adoption cycles by increasing
the speed of communications. Today’s
constraint is the trust required to createshared meaning, which is often left mostly tochance. Communities are changing that asthey create intentional webs of relationships,
trust, and collaborative behaviors.

14• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

By looking at community ROI over time,
we see this dynamic at work. Earlyon, communities attract only the most
passionate because there is less explicit
value to gain in return. As those early
members start to develop and articulateshared value, it becomes more accessible
and useful to others, prompting thecommunity to accelerate and grow rapidly.
As the knowledge generated in thecommunity is more broadly adopted andstandardized, growth slows, creating theclassic S curve of innovation.
Communities are engines of innovation
and, because of that, can stimulate rapid
organizational adaptation – a pressing needbecause of the complex and quickly moving
challenges faced by our society. Being
able to articulate the financial dynamics ofcommunities is critical to helping executive
stakeholders and financial controllers
understand why, how, and when investment
pays off. While we see a willingness forboards of directors and c-suite executives toapprove budgets for community programs,
it suggests those budgets are exceptions
to standard operating budgets. Programswith Advanced Strategies are less likely
to have their budgets approved at thislevel, suggesting they can prove theireffectiveness. This difference also suggeststhat investment and budget growth can bejustified, establishing community programs
as a standard operating function, which willgrow with the value they generate and lesslikely to be seen as expendable or optional.
This operational normalization demonstrates
how communities are changing the way

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •When I started here, it was challenging to get approval formonitoring equipment. Now that I have access to a communityof peers working on similar problems, they can give me the dataand evidence I need to demonstrate the value of preventative
investments. While I still need to make the case, the approvals aremuch easier to secure.
LUIS PANIAGUA
AIR LIQUIDE

organizations engage with customers
and employees and, in turn, evolving theirbusiness models. Critical to operational
maturity is the maturity of metrics. 88%
of Advanced Communities can calculate
community value, and 70% can directly link
it to business outcomes. For communities
that can connect engagement directly tobusiness value, 77% of Advanced ExternalCommunity programs impact customer
loyalty – a top line, complex objective being
pursued aggressively in today’s businessclimate. For Internal Communities that canconnect community performance to businessobjectives, 54% can connect it to culturaland organizational change, another complex
objective being prioritized as organizationsof all kinds pursue agility and innovation.
Historically, the biggest challenge facingacommunity’s
abilitytomaximize
potential was their narrow use case andrelative isolation within their organization.
Communities were originally used fordiscrete, tactical use cases like self-service
customer support. While value was relatively
easy to calculate, it represented bottom-line
cost-savings, not top-line growth potential.
As such, communities typically did not get
visibility beyond their functional context.

15• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

The power of communities, however, liesin their ability to align across divisions andboundaries. Over the last decade, moreorganizations have recognized this potential
and applied them to broader and morestrategic challenges. This recognition has
integrated communities into many crossfunctional processes. Communities change
the way organizations work by increasing
access to opportunities and distributing
prosperity across an organization’s entire
ecosystem.

Communities Propel
Organizational Change
The structure of traditional organizations– hierarchical management, accounting
standards, and legal policies – was primarily
optimized for standardized and efficient
production. As human work moves away fromproduction, old operational structures act
like cages, restraining human potential, andpunishing adaptation and diversity. Efforts
to create cultures of innovation are typicallystymied by control functions designed fora different purpose. Liberating people from
centralized control and constraints throughchanges to governance, infrastructure, metrics,
and management is necessary to make agility
and innovation core organizational strengths.
Indeed, it is required to keep up with howquickly market changes happen now thatpublic communications channels are nolonger controlled by organizations.
Communities offer a compelling model for amore fluid organization. Regular engagement
and alignment with markets maintains
trust, credibility, and relevance. Ongoing

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •engagement with employees ensures rapid
expertise development, alignment arounddecisions, and distribution of leadership andresponsiveness. While organizations havebeen using communities for many years,
it is only in the last few that executives see
community structures as a new governancemodel for the ENTIRE organization. This
year’s data reveals both the growing breadthand depth of this operational integration.
Communities are being extended andintegrated into more use cases. While
External Communities still most often
address customer support objectives, theyalso address an average of 3.4 different
functional use cases. Internal Communities
address even more – an average of 4.2 use
cases. That diversity of use drives more
complex structures, with 43% of InternalCommunities structured as a network ofmany communities compared with only 25%
of External Communities.

Cross-functional integration is often seen informalized community performance goals forindividuals outside of the community team.
45% of Advanced Community programs have

16

• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

formalized cross-functional performancegoals, while only 28% of Average Community
programs do. Externally, it is most common
for customer support, marketing, andproduct groups to have these goals. In
contrast, internally, communications, learning& development, HR, and marketing are themost common functional areas with formal
objectives.

Community Skills Are Essential to
LeadershipManaging communities is becoming ageneral leadership skill as communities
and networks become pervasive inside
and around our organizations. There isa significant increase in the number ofcommunity Centers of Excellence to support
community management skill development.
While community teams have been acting

as support centers for individuals acrossorganizations for years, in 2018 only 8%of research participants reported having a
Centers of Excellence. This year, that number
jumped to 28% for Average Community
programs and 48% for Advanced Community
programs. These Centers of Excellence
provide metrics and reporting, training,coaching, consulting, and templates thatare often delivered through communities ofpractice. We expect to see well-resourced
Centers of Excellence become a defining
characteristic of high-functioning community
programs of the future.
The evolution of community programs
introduces new challenges. Community teams
now require business, program management,
consulting, strategy, analytical skills, andthe tactical skills of engaging, administering
platforms, and content curation. Advanced
Community teams are less likely to be teamsof one and more likely to have roles like
Directors of Community, Community Analyst,
Community Strategist, and Engagement
Specialist. However, 16% of communities still
have no full-time community management
staff, and 33% only have one full-time teammember. Advanced Community teams
average six full-time staff, who are more likely
to fill specialized positions. This growth inroles is both a challenge and an opportunity
for experienced community leaders, many of

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •17• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

whom thrive as generalists. These community
leaders are often well-suited to program
management and director roles if they gain
sufficient business and strategy skills. As
programs mature, there will be more demandfor community professionals with deep
expertise in engagement, analytics, content,
technology, program management, and/or
business strategy.
Critically, 61% of Advanced Community
programs have formalized roles thatare approved by HR – an indicator that
community approaches are becoming
normalized and essential to the organization.
Only 34% of Average Community programs
have formalized roles, which suggests a levelof instability and uncertainty.

Systemic Inclusion Empowers
Potential
Thriving communities ensure that all
members have access, are seen, feel validated,and have the opportunity and support tolead. Inclusion is regularly rebalanced ascommunities grow and evolve. Transparency
keeps understanding, expectations, andboundaries aligned so individuals can choose
how they wish to participate based on theirneeds and interests. Advanced Community
programs are significantly more likely toinclude key cross-functional stakeholders indecision-making. This structure comprises
members, advocates, member leaders,internal cross-functional teams, and theorganization’s leadership team.

with many stakeholders in mind. Including adiversity of perspectives encourages fewer
and more broadly-applicable decisions.
These broader guidelines distribute more
power and authority to those closest to thework. A great example of this is when Mary
Barra, CEO of GM, simplified a complex tenpage dress code into two words, “DressAppropriately.” This policy demonstrates
trust in individuals, empowering them tomake decisions and prompting them tothink for themselves. Critical to this decisionmaking inclusion is access to training andsupport that reinforces community values.

Broad inclusion ensures that decisions are
informed by a variety of perspectives and

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •18• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

That access to training at all levels of theorganization ensures alignment aroundvalues in a way that supports engagement
and advocacy.
Inclusivity, support, and transparency
require active alignment with, as well as
the support of, senior executives and otherstakeholders.
Advanced
Communities
report more metrics to a broader variety
of stakeholders. Advanced Communities
are also more than twice as likely to track
unique visits, questions, answers, searches,
response times, and net promoter scoresthan Average Communities. These metrics
represent the breadth of impact, value,
quality, and sentiment – a comprehensive
view of progress. Advanced Communities
are likely to report to senior executives more
frequently than Average Communities. 71%
of Advanced Community teams report tosenior executives, and 54% do so weekly ormonthly. Only 45% of Average Communities
report to senior executives with only 41%
doing so weekly or monthly. This reporting
pattern demonstrates the strategic visibilityof communities and the inclusion of seniorbusiness leaders.

These webs of communications and decisionmaking channels require investment incommunity management, but that investment
is richly rewarded. The potential unlocked byempowering a diverse network, aligned andsynced by core principals, is enormous andcorrelates with community ROI and positive
cultural and brand impact. It requires comfort
in releasing decision-making control from thehierarchical bottleneck and making criticalconversations transparent. More than giving
up control, this leadership change requires
a mindset shift that enables executives toviscerally understand that empowering others
does not diminish but instead enhances theirown value.

Operational Maturity Demonstrates
Commitment
Communities are beginning to replace morerigid processes for functions where creativity
and innovation are more critical thanstandards and production efficiency. This
shift indicates that executives understandthat leadership too needs to change.
Leadership becomes less about structuralcontrol, force, and extrinsic incentives andmore about creating energy, momentum, andcommitment around a shared purpose. This
structure prioritizes those who opt into theshared purpose and see their work as morethan a transactional exchange. Because ofthis dynamic, leadership is open to anyone
with motivation, influence, and access to thecommunity.
This shift is reflected in Advanced
Communities that are more likely to havededicated and growing budgets, budget

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •19• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

approval moved into operating budgets,bigger community teams, and fundedroadmaps. Average Community programs
are less likely to have mature budget
processes, see their budgets grow, or havefunded roadmaps, and their budgets are
more likely to be approved by exception. For
Average Communities, this makes planning,
investment, and hiring more challenging.
55% of Advanced Communities havededicated budgets, but only 38% of Average
Communities do.

made by Advanced Communities is apotential explanation for why they are threetimes larger than Average Communities
despite similar age and use case distribution.
Commitment and investment translate into
clear purpose, easy access, more training,and obvious benefits for members. By giving
employees and customers motivation,access, ease, and rewards, Advanced
Communities streamline and improve theemployee and customer experience. This
improvement in experience delivers higher
productivity, innovation, and loyalty.

Empowered Cultures
Seize Opportunity

Notably, only 16% of Average Communities
have funded roadmaps even though 38%
include budget requests in strategies. 54%
of Advanced Community programs include
budget requests in strategies and are
rewarded 41% of the time with funding. This
success in funding suggests that the ability tomeasure strategy is a key factor in securing
the investment required to deliver it.
The
investmentininfrastructure,
management, integration, and programming

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •Communities are the structure of broad anddeep empowerment. They help individual
members feel seen and heard. When they
feel valued, members feel less vulnerable andare more likely to share their experiences,knowledge, and perspectives.

Culture Change Can Be Measured
Measuring the breadth and depth ofengagement behaviors by the categories in
the Community Engagement Framework™
allows community leaders to communicate
how collaborative their culture is. Measuring
culture allows it to be seen, understood,
communicated clearly, and influenced. Gaps

20

• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

and issues can be pinpointed, attended to,and tracked. Management has actionable
data that points to progress in collaborationand trust. More strategically, this focus shifts
from the production of more content tosolving new challenges. This system becomes
more productive, more flexible, and moreinnovative.

The power of communities is in theirboundaries – attracting and often verifying
members that have a strong interest in andexpertise related to the community’s sharedpurpose. This pull creates a distinguishablesocialenvironment
withagreed-uponguidelines and scope. As people connect
and build relationships, they extend theirtrust to the community as a whole. Thus, thevolume of higher value engagement in wellmanaged communities tends to outstrip thevalue of engagement in open channels. The
average community engagement profile has
seemed to stabilize, with about 25% actively
engaging versus passively consuming
or not returning. This profile can change
dramatically by use case, context, size, andmember profile. Communities are immensely
diverse, and as the discipline of community
management matures, we see more consistentdifferentiation between uses cases. The mostsignificant distinction between communities
is between those developed for external/
customer participants, and those focusing on
internal/employee participants.

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •Active Engagement Creates
Shared ValueHigh rates of engagement in communities
propel generative value. Each member
extracts more value from the community
than they contribute to it; by connecting,validating others, sharing expertise, asking
questions, and discussing challenges. As thisengagement is captured, members accessit by searching and browsing, and over timethe information increases in relevancy andvolume. This captured value drives down
community costs per member over time
as investment focuses less on generating
value and more on curating it. Experienced
community professionals know that the mostactive members create considerably morevalue than average members – and our datashows a 12:1 ratio between active and average
member contributions. That contribution
ratio is 15:1 for Advanced Communities who
do a better job cultivating and rewarding
active members.
42% of Advanced Communities have formal
advocacy and member leadership programs
compared with only 28% of Average
Communities. These advocacy programs,
like communities generally, require upfront
investment in management but yield more

21

• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

captured value more quickly. This rapid
increase in value for new members may be
one reason Advanced Communities are threetimes larger than Average Communities.
Community engagement supports every
member’s success by giving them accessto the knowledge and value of the entire
community. By supporting them in theirwork, it inspires their loyalty. It exposes
people to new ideas, prompts product andservice use, and rapidly surfaces shiftingneeds. Constant, iterative conversations
help everyone understand quickly changing
situations and adapt appropriately withouta centralized directive. By changing howorganizations change, communities are aninvaluable strategic asset as markets churnand change abruptly.

Empowerment Motivates
Contribution
Understanding the interplay of emotions,empowerment, and behaviors is where great
community leaders excel. The best leaderscraft cultures that validate individuals,
encouraging and rewarding them for sharing
their expertise and perspective. In turn, thetransparency of sharing prompts connections
with others who need and want their uniquevalue. The validation and value exchanged
between members reinforce individual
confidence and empowerment. Theseexchanges create a positive feedback loopthat sustains and increases engagement.
High-functioning communities start with acompelling shared purpose – a mission thatis meaningful to both the community and

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •its members. By validating, sharing, asking,answering, and exploring, the community
creates a shared understanding of its
opportunities and sets about addressing
them. By doing this in a shared space,progress is transparent, solutions areconsolidated, iteration happens quickly, andeveryone benefits. The community generates
innovation, and individuals learn, develop
credibility, increase their influence, and garner
opportunities. Everyone wins.

Communities Generate Positive
Emotional Impact
The greatest fear in giving up control andenabling an environment of self-directed
work and distributed decision-making is that
it will devolve into chaos, damaging the brand,
and leaving the organization exposed. Left
without leadership, online communities canquickly become a place for self-promotion orconflict and, as a result, either uninterestingor anxiety-inducing. Intentionally- andwell-managed communities are far fromchaotic, however, and leave members feeling

22• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

confident, knowledgeable, supported, and empowered. Good community management is thedifference. By intentionally cultivating and facilitating a community from the start, community
managers reduce the risk of both nothing, and too much, happening. They are extraordinarily
effective at encouraging valuable contributions, mitigating poor behavior, and reducing the needfor moderation, saving the organization from headaches and unnecessary ongoing expense.
Well-managed communities have an overwhelmingly positive impact on culture and brand, withlittle downside risk. This positive impact does not mean that there is no conflict in communities.
Conflict, however, is constructively resolved andused as a prompt to learn, align, and innovate.
The generative model successfully used by
thriving community programs to deliver win-winwin value gives us a window into what is possible
for organizations that are bold enough to rethink
corporate governance, seizing the opportunity
presented by community.

ExploreSubscribe

Jo inwww.communityroundtable.com

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •23• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

Recommendations for Executive Stakeholders:
Research Finding

Recommended Action

46% of Average Communities do not havean approved strategy.

 Ensure the community strategy is discussed,
vetted, and approved.

78% of Average Communities cannot
measure their strategy.

 Create a strategy with clear, actionable
metrics.

49% of Average Community teams include
one or fewer full-time professionals.

 Secure community resources to address
engagement, technical, strategy, business,and content needs.

84% of Average Community teams lacka funded roadmap.

 Provide the resources to realize
strategic goals.

Only 38% of Average Community programs
have dedicated budgets.

 Commit to a dedicated community budgetthat ensures its success and sustainability.

Recommendations for Community Leaders:
Research Finding

Recommended Action

Advanced Communities are more likely toreport Active Members, Total Activity,
Unique Visitors, Questions and Answers,
and Net Promoter Score (NPS).

 Track metrics that reveal breadth anddepth of activity, value, and experience.

Only 31% of Average Community teams
report to cross-functional stakeholders.

 Define and track how the community
addresses cross-functional goals. Report
this informally to stakeholders.

72% of Average Communities lack a formal
advocacy and leadership program.

 Develop an advocacy program thatencourages and rewards member leaders.

43% of Average Community platforms are notintegrated with other channels or systems.

 Audit and identify other primary member
channels and data sources.
 Secure commitment for integrations
with business and technical stakeholders.

30% or fewer Average Community programs
have formal training for multiple stakeholder
groups.

 Develop formal community training for
sub-community owners, subject matter
experts, advocates, and executives.

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •24• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

Impact of the Global COVID-19 Crisis on Community Programs
The COVID-19 crisis is impacting a majority ofcommunity programs but responses are mixed.
12% of programs have significantly accelerated
plans while 9% have significantly stalled plans.
The rest are almost equally split between someacceleration, no change, or some stalled plans.
Given the dramatically negative impact the crisis
has had in many sectors, this is a relatively positive
outlook for community teams, although it is unlikely
to feel that way to anyone directly impacted.
Not surprisingly, the hiring outlook is more tempered with 20% of programs putting hiring on
hold and 10% of programs reporting lay-offs or expected lay-offs. 14% of community programs
are still hiring or expecting to hire, especiallycontract staff that preserves flexibility.

The community program is dead in favorof panic sales and product pushes.

Anxiety is the norm for a majority ofcommunity professionals including 14% who
feel very anxious or paralyzed. This is not
surprising given the instability in the economy, the concerns for the health and care of loved
ones, and the potential impact of the crisis on personal finances.
Members of TheCR Network reported striking differences. TheCR Network members are 29%
more likely to be accelerating or significantly accelerating their plans, 3x less likely to havestalled or cancelled plans, and are 6x more likely to be adding resources than the survey average.
Members of TheCR Network are 2x more likely than average to feel empowered, proactive,and energized and a majority of them feel positive instead of anxious. This may be because
members of TheCR Network tend to be more experienced and in more senior roles, both ofwhich give them more perceived control. It may be that members of TheCR Network have ahigher level of strategic support. It may be that membership in TheCR Network community
empowers them with support and resources. Regardless it is notable that anxiety and stalledplans are not necessarily the default acrossthe community space – and plenty of
programs are seeing increased interest, use,
Community has become a life line for the organization.
It was already a key initiative for 2020 but is now
and support as their organizations transition
significantly
more essential to the our business strategy.
to digital engagement as a primary channelof collaboration.

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •25• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

Customer Loyalty
Lower Support Costs
Awareness & Branding
Product Improvements
Communications Efficiency

ADVANCED COMMUNITIES....
Invest More to Improve Impact:

Generate Higher ROI:

6130% 9888%

$115

$697

$822

$127

…HAVE SUPPORTIVE & ADAPTIVE STRUCTURES…
Higher Dedicated Budgets:

42%
56%

Measurable Strategies:

Key Metrics/KPIs Strategic Objective

Roadmap

56%
More Resources
71%
HR-Approved Roles…THAT ORCHESTRATE CUSTOMERENGAGEMENT & LOYALTY.
Overwhelmingly Positive
Impact on Brand Sentiment:
86%
71%

...S

Members Feel Empowered:
FEEL SEEN:

Resulting in 20%
More Active Members.

59%
73%

PROVIDE SOLUTIONS:

72%
81%

N
results in 1 5 0
u cc e s s% m o re F UDEOADMAPS.
R
D
Average External© 2020 The Community Roundtable

Advanced ExternalExternal Communities Elevate the

CUSTOMER
EXPERIENCE

External, customer-facing communities are the original way organizations usedonline communities for business goals. Initially, the technology industry usedthem to provide self-service support because they work particularly well forsharing complex code and specific instructions. As more organizations adopted
community approaches, they realized external communities not only lowered
customer support costs, but also generated new ideas, drove product adoption,and exposed brand advocates to buyers. This transition changed the role ofcommunities from tactical cost centers to top-line customer enablers that have asignificant impact on revenue and profitability.
Community focus has evolved from those early days. Increasing customer support
efficiency is no longer the dominant business objective communities serve –customer loyalty has taken the top spot. Communities are uniquely suited toaddress the complexity of the customer’s experience by aggregating information,
resources, experts, and peers across the customer lifecycle. Great communities
become the primary gathering spot and center of gravity for an organization’s
market. They generate a wealth of data that brings real-time market intelligence
into the organization and creates a connection to top-line financial impact.
Advanced External Communities – the research segment with 100% approved,
operational, and measurable strategies – reveal how successful communities
operate. While many External Communities impact a variety of businessoutcomes, Advanced External Communities seem to focus on and prioritize two:
customer loyalty and lower support costs. This focus positively affects both ofthese areas, in addition to having a higher than average impact on a range ofother use cases. In short, focus drives overall success.

THE STATETHE STATE
OF COMMUNITY
OF COMMUNITYMANAGEMENTMANAGEMENT
2020 2020• 27 • • 27
WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

Advanced Strategies Propel Value
Only 33% of External Communities havemeasurable strategies – ones that clearlystate what success looks like and how it istracked. Programs without these metrics
have a much harder time focusing theway Advanced External Communities canbecause of this gap. If strategic focus drives
overall success, the ability to measurematters. Advanced External Community
strategies are more likely to include
business objectives, roadmap requirements,
financial projections, and defined use cases.
Strategically aligned reports with clear
progress on objectives provide stakeholders
with easy to understand value.

approved roadmaps, and nearly half of
those roadmaps are funded. For ExternalCommunities generally, only 19% benefit
from resourced roadmaps. While Advanced
External Communities continue to thrive,
this investment gap will keep most ExternalCommunity programs from developing thestrategies and measurement they need toprove their value. For too many community
programs, a roadmap – with committed
investment – is still the exception. Leading
community
programs,
however,aredemonstrating why this matters and how it
correlates with the ability to generate value.

Strategic clarity is often rewarded withcommitments and investment. The majorityof Advanced External Communities have

While Advanced External Communities are
strategically mature, they tend to be slightly
younger than all External Communities andthree times larger. They generate more value
per member because their active members
contribute 30% more answers than Average
External Communities. The ratio of accessedanswers to new answers in Advanced

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •28• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

External Communities is 33:1, increasing thereuse and value of each captured answer.
For Average Communities, the ratio ofaccessed answers to new answers is lower at
27:1, which limits redundant conversations. If
the value of an answer is $100 in time saved,that represents $600 more in value for every
answer. If a community receives 10 new
answers a month, that increased reuse ofanswers creates an additional $72,000/year
in value. Advanced External Communities
are larger and they do better at maximizing
their value, resulting in higher ROI.

Thorough strategies, measurable objectives,
ability to articulate value, and the advantage
of funded roadmaps all correlate with one
another. While it is impossible to statistically
pinpoint the primary driver, experiencetells us that a mature strategy – one with abusiness plan – is the best place to start.

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •Investment in Operations
Expands Impact
Operational infrastructure reinforces strategy
and aligns organizational structures, whichremoves friction and increases capacity.
This infrastructure also aligns individual
motivations, promotes strategic behaviors,and creates supportive prompts. It translates
strategy into tactics. Because operational
infrastructure is typically expensive, it is
only developed and maintained once anapproach is proven. Comparing Advanced
External Communities to Average ExternalCommunities shows the impact operational
investments make.
Advanced External Communities are more
likely to have mature operational elements
like policies, integrated technology, frequent
reporting, leadership programs, and formal
training. They are more likely to havededicated budgets than Average ExternalCommunities, and significantly more likely
than the Overall Average to have them.
Dedicated budgets set an expectation of
ongoing funding and provide more spending
flexibility, which empowers community
teams to align resources with current needs.
Teams with dedicated budgets are larger
and have more formalized roles, which allows

29• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

for increased stakeholder collaboration,
advocacy programming, and mature metrics
collection and reporting.
As a result, fewer Advanced ExternalCommunities receive budget approval byboards of directors or c-level executives,
who tend to approve special projects rather
than operational budgets. Most are approvedby vice presidents or senior vice presidents,
who are more likely to understand thestrategic benefits of communities as wellas their operational needs. Advanced
External Communities prioritize community
management
resourcesmore
thantechnology in their budgets. This investment
prioritization is a consistent trend in our
research – programs with a solid strategy,
funded roadmaps, and dedicated budgets
tend to value and support community
management.

Inclusion is Explicit and Formalized
Communities are powerful when they
empower and engage individuals, increasing
the capacity to tackle meaningful work. Eachcommunity member who is empowered to act
and feels supported is more likely to contribute,and Advanced Communities are explicit intheir inclusion. This is best demonstrated
by their investment in defined processes,roles, and benefits. Incremental investment
in governance yields compounding valuethat offsets customer support and marketingcosts. Advanced External Communities
spend an average of $1,381 annually on eachactive member (those contributing vs. thosepassively consuming) and see a 768% ROI.
Average External Communities spend $1,094
annually per active member and see a 485%
ROI. While both are great investments, thedata suggests that increasing investments
to support, include, and engage members
maximizes financial returns.
The increased investment is seen in the size ofAdvanced External Community teams, 51% of
which added community staff in the last year.
These communities have, on average, about

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •30• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

six full-time team members. In comparison,
Average External teams only saw 43% growthover the past year, and their community
teams are relatively small. 71% of Advanced
External Communities have their community
roles approved by HR compared to only
42% of Average External Communities. Thisbigger team size suggests that the roles on
an Advanced External Community team are
better understood, supported, and valued bytheir organizations.

and while that role does exist on some teams,
it is not common.
Given bigger teams, it’s no surprise that
Advanced External Communities see moreof every type of community role on theirteams than the Average External Community.
Typically, community roles are seen as generalroles. Advanced External Communities are
more likely to have Community Engagement
Specialists, Community Strategist, Platform
Administrator, Community Analysts, andDirector of Community roles. This trend
reveals a different picture of community
positions; only two of the five, Directorof Community and Community Manager
are general roles. All the other roles arefor specialists in engagement, strategy,
technology, and analytics. Notably, not one
in this list of priorities is a content specialist,

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •Over 50% of External Communities sit in either
Customer Support, Marketing, or Productgroups with a smaller handful in ExternalCommunications, Operations, Learning &Development, Knowledge Management,
and about 10% operating as an independent
department. Regardless of their functionalarea, Advanced External Communities reportout more often to all stakeholder groups,
except boards, which is likely because fewerof them rely on boards for budget approval. Of
particular note is how much more commonly
Advanced External Communities report
to senior and cross-functional executives,
ensuring that decision-makers have a broad
understanding of community performance.
Advanced External Communities not only

31

• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

report to a more diverse set of stakeholders,
but they are also more likely to include
a variety of groups in their community
decisions. This inclusion of both inboundinputs and outbound communication requires
an investment of time and business skills, andmany Average External Community teams
likely just don’t have the capacity to spare.

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •Investment in inclusion is also seen in
the commitment of Advanced ExternalCommunities to formal advocacy programs.
These programs support and reward one
or more segments of community leaders.
Many communities have informal advocacy
programs that are active, vocal, and driven
byrelationships
betweencommunity
teams and community members. For teams
with more sophisticated strategies, these
programs are formalized, with consistentcultivation and recognition. 47% of Advanced
External Communities have formalized these
programs and defined specific benefits
for the individuals within them. The most32

• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

popular benefits include visual recognition,community team access, feedback oncommunity features, access to the community
team, private collaboration spaces, andinput into product decisions. Like the bestcommunity strategies, these advocacy
and member leadership programs provide
benefits to the community as a whole, by
distributing leadership, providing leadershipdevelopment,
andoffering
leadership
opportunities. This win-win approach costs
organizations more per member but also
increases member contributions and overall
ROI. Investment in community leadershipdevelopment is an excellent example of how
inclusion generates value.

Metrics and Technology
Reinforce Value
Metrics are a powerful way to help everyone
see community value, especially when metrics
can clearly connect to improvements in thebusiness model and the customer experience.
When metrics show that a community
improves the business model but not thecustomer experience, the community is likely
seen as a cost-containment measure. Whileworthwhile, investment in cost containment
is rigorously analyzed for effectiveness, andany new investment becomes challenging tojustify. When metrics show that a community
improves the customer experience but does
not improve financial or business impact,
investment in the community can also not bejustified financially.
For too long, community and engagement
metrics focused on activity volumes without
connecting them to business value. ThisTHE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •

disconnect is starting to change as Advanced
External Communities increase their focus
on strategic value. Looking at the metrics
Advanced External Communities reportsuggests that decision-makers are moresophisticated about understanding business
impact. The five metrics they are more likely
to report are Net Promoter Score/NPS,
Answers, Questions, Resolution Time, andUnique Visitors. Broadly, these five metrics
look at the breadth of impact, the value ofengagement, and impact on the customer
experience, giving executives a well-rounded
but straightforward set of metrics tounderstand the value of communities.

33• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

When community metrics focus on value andexperience, so too do community platforms.
Integrating
platforms
withcustomerengagement channels and business datasystems is critical to understand the value ofthe customer experience. Advanced ExternalCommunities prioritize customer data andbusiness system integration and its importancein decision-making and management.
Advanced External Communities have an
average of 3.2 integrations compared to 2.5 for
Average External Communities. For those that
do integrate, the most popular integrations arewith Single Sign-on/Identity, CRM, and content

this study listed their platform as “other,” which
includes a wide variety of small and opensource platforms. The external community
platforms used most by research respondents
are Facebook Groups, Higher Logic, Khoros,
Salesforce Community Cloud, Vanilla Forums,
and Verint.
Average External Communities gave theirplatform vendors an NPS score of -24. For
Advanced Communities, a -16 NPS scoreshowed some improvement. Community
teams struggled the most with community
analytics and event management functionality.
14% of Average External Communities and
19% of Advanced External Communities haveplans to migrate over the coming year. As
communities become mature, expectations
increase for technology and vendors. The
maturity of community programs also reveals
new opportunities to deliver community
value – one that vendors will be interested inpursuing.

management systems. These integrations
make it easier for the community teams todo their job - to see, understand, and manage
the community. They also make customer
engagement easier by linking activities on thecommunity platform to other communications
channels used by the community.
The options for community technology are
increasing as more customer- and marketfacing platforms add group and discussion
features. The largest cohort of communities in

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •34• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

In the past few months of 2020, numerous organizations around the globe had to operate virtually. Almost overnight,
workforces had to adapt quickly to working remotely, using digital collaboration tools, meeting exclusively via
video conference, all while maintaining a new work-life balance. Canadian Standards Association already had awell-established practice of being able to work digitally and asynchronously because of our online community;
it took some getting used to for some. But by mid-March, all that changed. Work-from-home began, and thecommunity saw an explosion of activity. There was a 300% increase in active users, 400% more participation in
the form of views, comments, and sharing, and an 800% increase in people creating new content. Very quickly thecommunity went from being a secondary channel to a primary channel, rising to meet these new challenges andhelping CSA adapt quickly to dramatic changes in the way we work.

PETER BROADLEYCOMMUNITY MANAGER, CSA GROUP

Empowered Customers Animate
Brand Value
Being seen and heard are the most potent
value communities deliver to individuals.
Communities actively empower members
by helping customers feel seen and heard
because they actually are seen and heard.
Customers are assured of their value because
the organization values them, not just theirtransactional importance. Customers in thesecommunities feel, more often, that they havesomething to contribute. Organizations
supported by these communities find that
customer contributions are not just helpful
but essential. Being seen and heard opens thedoor for the development of shared valued
and a positive brand impact, the “halo effect”
generated by great communities.

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •35• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

Advanced External Communities do a markedly
better job of helping members feel seen andheard. Not surprisingly, these communities also
have a higher percentage of members feelingempowered to provide solutions than Average
External Communities. When a member of an
Average External Community shifts from a
passive recipient of information to an active
participant, their activity increases by morethan 10x. Their ROI – the return they get for the time they invest – increases by over 200%.
This makes investing in advocacy and member leadership programs a no brainer.
Engagement profiles for Advanced External Communities are only slightly better than for
Average External Communities. Critically, however, that increase is in active members – thosethat are 10x more valuable. Because Advanced External Communities have 300% more members
who benefit from that activity, this difference is significant. The investments Advanced ExternalCommunities make in community management, inclusive governance, sophisticated metrics,
and integrated platforms, not only pay for themselves but also increase the value of eachmember, completing a virtuous repeating cycle.

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •36• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

Recommendations for Executive Stakeholders:
Research Finding

Recommended Action

67% of External Communities lack an
Advanced Strategy.

 Define community success metrics.

Only 19% of External Communities havea funded roadmap.

 Ensure community teams have the resources
to be successful.

58% of External Communities lackdedicated budgets.

 Commit to a dedicated community budgetthat ensures its success and sustainability.

Advanced External Community teams have
53% more full-time professionals.

 Secure community resources to address
engagement, technical, strategy, business,and content needs.

Only 50% of External Communities integratewith CRM systems.

 Fund integration, so value and impact can be
more easily measured.

Recommendations for Community Leaders:
Research Finding

Recommended Action

35% of External Community programs lacka community roadmap.

 Define the initiatives and programs
required to meet community objectives.

Only 42% of External Community teams haveroles approved by HR.

 Define community job descriptions andinitiate conversations with HR stakeholders.

67% of External Communities lack formal
advocacy programs.

 Develop an advocacy program thatencourages and rewards member leaders.

Advanced External Communities are more
likely to track resolution time, Net Promoter
Score™, and New Member Activity.

 Consider tracking resolution time, Net
Promoter Score™, and New Member Activity.

Only 49% of External Community teams
report to senior executives.

 Develop an easy-to-share strategic
dashboard that highlights community value.

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •37• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

Delivering Complex Business Outcomes:
Culture & Organizational Change
Communications Efficiency

35%

Productivity

Supporting Broad Use Cases:

Collaboration Community of Practice Networking

49%
43%

Awareness & Branding

Innovation

54%

27%

But are Underused:<1 Answer/Year

7 Successful Searches/Year

POOR OPERATIONAL SUPPORT LIMITS SUCCESS...

22%

Have NO Full-Time
Staff Members

O n l y 3 0 % h a ve a

40%

Only 24%
Have HR-Approved
Community Roles

Average InternalTeam Staff:

Have ONE FullTime Resource

2.8

DEDICATE
DB

80%

Lack Leadership
Programs

UD

GET& o n l y 11% have FUND
ED...DESPITE TANTALIZINGEVIDENCE OF IMPACT.
Positive ROI:RO
A D M APS.

Members Feel Connected& Empowered to Lead:

1,967%
20% More

Active Members© 2020 The Community Roundtable

57% Invest inCenters of ExcellenceInternal Communities

REVEAL UNTAPPEDPOTENTIAL
Communities have the potential to change the way organizations work, becoming
engines of agility, alignment, and innovation. Thriving internal communities
empower employees to connect and lead, and many can link performance directly
to business outcomes. Communities are also changing how organizations change.
By distributing leadership, including stakeholders, and empowering individuals,
communities become agile and adaptive operating structures – something everyorganization needs.
Internal communities are much
more than change agents. The
most successful deliver improved
communications

efficiency,

awarenessbranding,

andproductivity, and innovation. Why
then can only 39% of InternalCommunities

directlyconnect

their performance to businessresults?

Why

can

only

26%

measure their ROI?
While some Internal Communities
have

shown

that

measuringbusiness outcomes, value, and ROI
is possible; the vast majority are still
not able to translate community

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •39• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

performance into business and financial
terms. Calculating community ROI using

Potential is Thwarted by Low
Adoption and Strategic Gaps

The Community Roundtable’s model withsurvey data shows that Internal Communities
have an ROI of 1,967%. While this is positiveand encouraging, it is considerably lower
than the ROI of Average Communities. This
lower than average ROI is consistent withthe untapped potential we see in other data.
Internal Communities are, for the most part,not integrated into daily or even weekly

Employees
influenceorganizational
performance all day, every day. Data reveals
that Internal Community members contributeless than one answer per year and accessonly seven. If communities supported the way
people worked, this rate could be for a month,a week, a day, or even an hour. The rate ofadoption and use of Internal Communities isanemic yet holds intriguing opportunities.

workflows of most organizations that havethem. The opportunities to accelerate value
and transform the ways organizations workis vast.

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •When Internal Communities are used, theycultivate new behaviors that streamline
workflows, connect colleagues across silos,
improve quality, and change culture. InternalCommunities support broad communication
and work behaviors that apply to every
individual and function within an organization.
However, most employees and leaders do notunderstand how communities can improvetheir work, nor are they compelled to explore.

40• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

The challenge with community adoption
is translating the compelling impact ofcommunities in a way that motivatesstakeholders and provides them with thesupport and rewards to change behaviors. The
groups that most often include community
teams – Internal Communications, Knowledge
Management, IT, and Learning & Development– don’t typically have the consulting, businessanalysis skills, or capacity to do this work.
This lack of capacity in consulting, education,and translation skills is throttling adoption
and slowing the potential stream of impact
to a drip.

Internal Community teams are struggling. 62%
consist of one or fewer full-time staff, which
is woefully inadequate. Internal Community
teams are underfunded, under-resourced,
and are facing overwhelming challenges andopportunities. This lack of support suggests alack of strategic guidance and 81% of InternalCommunities lack measurable strategies. While
many Internal Communities have approved
strategies, only 19% translate their objectives
into metrics. Without understanding what
success looks like and having the ability tospot it, success is elusive and frustrating toboth those tasked with success and thosehoping for it.

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •Measurement is critical for community teams
to secure alignment and prioritize work.
Without it, no one knows when progress ismade or when it stalls. When stakeholders
can see the impact, they can justify budget,
advocate for the community, communicate
progress, and collaborate with others. In
the absence of measurable strategies,
stakeholders must invest on faith and few
have the latitude to do so. 28% of InternalCommunity budgets are approved at theboard of directors level. While that exposureis helpful, it demonstrates that budgets
for Internal Communities are exceptions,
not standard operating investments. As
exceptions, budgets are vulnerable, andthey are less likely to be integrated into
the governance of the organization. The
conspicuous lack of funding for roadmaps
reveals the ambivalent and vulnerable
nature of Internal Community programs
and suggests that community teams havelittle operational support. In contrast, 47%
of Advanced External Communities haveapproved and funded roadmaps – giving
them the tangible support and resources theyneed to make decisions and move forward
confidently.

41• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

Funding is critical to address the strategicand operational shortfalls we see in InternalCommunity programs. On the strategic side,
it is notable that the most significant gaps
between Internal Communities and Average
Communities are key metrics, community
roadmaps, and ROI projections. These areall elements that would allow executive
stakeholders to understand the costs andbenefits of success. Investing the time andresources to articulate value and develop
metrics is a critical milestone on the roadto valuable, productive, and generative
communities.

Underinvestment in Management
Hampers Impact
Accelerating the transformative impact ofcommunities requires changes to operational
infrastructure, leadership, management,
and performance measurement. TheseTHE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •changes require considerable investment,
led by a team of community professionals
to incorporate community approaches
into core operational processes in HR,
IT, finance, and legal functions. This corecommunity team needs strategists andanalysts. It requires technical, content, andengagement specialists who train, coach,support and reinforce the integration of
the communities into workflows. This teamfosters communication best practices while
also aligning infrastructure and experiences.
The community team effectively transitions
from directly doing the work of community
management to building the organization’scommunity management capacity while
managing standards and infrastructure.
They become Centers of Excellence
providing services and supporting teams
across the organization.

42• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

57% of Internal Communities report having
Centers of Excellence. The majority of InternalCommunity teams, however, have one or
fewer full-time staff. Stretched and without
much change in capacity over the years, it’s
hard to imagine how these teams can be
successful with the additional responsibilityof training and supporting everyone
across the organization. Additionally, theconsulting and training that help others
to learn community management requires
different skills and expertise, which simply
cannot be addressed by such a small team.
Investing in community teams is critical if
organizations expect them to support atransition to agile, engaged, and innovative
cultures.

The most significant barrier to community
adoption and use is organizational
governance and operational structuresthat are not aligned with the adaptive andtransparent work they enable. This tension
creates excessive and conflicting motivatorsfor members. This conflicting pressureheightens individual risk and results inpeople satisfying only the minimum and

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •obvious requirements of their role. The
impulse to do the bare minimum typicallygoes unarticulated because conflicting
incentives are felt rather than explicitly
acknowledged, compounding the problem.
In the absence of clarity and alignment,
people choose preservation – they would
rather do nothing than do something
wrong. It makes initiatives, like changing
the way people communicate, challenging,
especially when that behavior increases
their exposure.
Multiple operational areas need to adapt toaddress these conflicting motivations: legal
policies, HR policies, individual performance
objectives, business metrics, management
practices, and infrastructure. All of thesefactors influence motivations, ease of
behaviors, and prompts - the three elements
identified in B.J. Fogg’s Behavior Model that impact the frequency of behaviors.
Accomplishing this work requires new,formalized community roles and dedicatedbudgets. Today, only 30% of InternalCommunity budgets are dedicated, and only
24% of community roles are approved by
HR. Until organizations recognize the valueof internal community teams and commit totheir viability, internal communities will failto deliver on their potential.
One reason that Internal Community teams
are underfunded may be that they are lessvisible to their executives and stakeholders
than
AverageCommunities.
Internal
Community teams report less frequently
to these groups, which makes it more
likely that the community initiative goes43

• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

overlooked and underappreciated. InternalCommunities are also less likely than ExternalCommunities to have formal leadershipprograms for community advocates, anothermanagement mechanism that improvesawareness, credibility, and influence while
increasing activity. Collectively, this createsa picture of Internal Community teams as
more isolated and less inclusive than moremature and successful communities.
Where Internal Community programs doinvest is in technology, spending 39% of theirbudget in this category. They spend morein this area but seem to get less in returnthan Average Communities. This spending
might be due to enterprise IT requirements
for security, data, and performance, all ofwhich can add considerable cost. InternalCommunities integrate with slightly morechannels than Average Communities andtend to integrate with other employee
channels like single sign-on and content
management systems.
Most striking, Internal Communities give
platform vendors an NPSTM score of -22,
similar to the -21 score given to vendors
by Average Communities. Both have a lotof room for improvement compared to the

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •44• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

2019 Satmetrix NPS Benchmark for software
at 30 and the Retently 2020 NPS Benchmark
for enterprise software at 44. However, only
10% of Internal Communities plan to migrate
in the next twelve months. They are either
committed to vendors for reasons otherthan their performance or don’t feel likethey have good alternatives. Regardless,the investment Internal Communities makein technology does not seem to be yielding
high performance.
The strategic and operational maturityof Internal Communities is low, with anover-prioritization of technology. While
technology is required to enable highperforming communities, it needs to bebalanced with investments in community
management.

Communities Demonstrate theAbility to Empower and Engage
Despite low adoption, Internal Communities
do empower and engage individuals. Moremembers of Internal Communities are active
due to the relatively stable nature of employee
attention compared to the ebb and flowof customer interest. Internal Community
members also have a noticeably higher
percentage of validating behaviors, which
includes viewing, resharing, and reacting tocontent. This activity suggests employees
use communities regularly to access existing
content, but less often to contribute newmaterial by sharing, asking, commenting,answering, and discussing. While InternalCommunities
help
employees
feelempowered in some ways, the data showsthat there is an opportunity to help them feel
more seen and heard, which is the first step

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •in encouraging members to ask questions
and respond to others.
Internal Community stakeholders appear tounderstand the need for better community
management and its potential impact on
adoption and use. 57% of Internal Communities
now state they have Centers of Excellence,
which train and enable people throughout theorganization. This finding is in stark contrast
to our 2018 data, which revealed that 47%
of community teams acted like Centers of
Excellence, but only 8% identified themselves
as such. While this progress is encouraging,
Centers of Excellence programs are severely
constrained by lack of staffing and investment.

45• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

InternalCommunities
areprovidingtantalizing hints of their potential impact,which is suppressed by an over-emphasison technology and underinvestment incommunity management. 40% of InternalCommunity programs still have only one fulltime community management professional,
and 22% have no full-time staff. Interestingly,
this heavy emphasis on technology doesn’t
decrease the cost per member, much of whichmight be driven by enterprise security andcompliance requirements. However, InternalCommunities also have significantly lower
ROI than External Communities, in large part
because of low adoption. The most profitablecommunities, those in the Advanced Externalsegment, also spend more per member than
Average Communities, but that reflects inmore investment in community management
versus in technology, and, in return, they
get dramatically higher ROI. While ExternalCommunities are applied to different
business objectives, the business model anddynamic are similar. Internal Community
programs can learn from these successful
approaches in ways that will dramatically
impact their success.

Use High Performing Communities
to Inspire Breakthrough Gains
Investing in online communities, especiallyduring uncertainty, requires assurancesof success. But crises and challenges
also provide the impetus to rethink andreassess. There is now ample evidence that
community approaches are fundamentally

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •changing organizations in ways that address
their pressing challenges. Reaching thoseoutcomes, however, requires more thantechnology and systems administration.
Community programs need to integrate into
daily work in ways that complement existingteams and channels. They need to support
the shift in people’s mindsets and corporate
governance from a production mentality to46• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

a culture of innovation. Communities are the most effective means to support, reward, andsustain this shift if given the resources to do so.
Internal Communities are underfunded, but they are profitable, thanks to the enormous abilityof communities to deliver value. Investing in people who can motivate and reward behavior
change will positively impact that return on investment. Robust community teams focused on
promoting collaboration behaviors that align with business objectives can create self-sustaining
and generative engines of innovation.

As an international company with a distributed structure, collaboration acrossgeographies has always been challenging for Air Liquide employees. Our communities
of practice have increased the ability of colleagues to meet each other, build trust,and collaborate. One such community recently won an award for optimizing a key
product and included employees from Canada, Mexico, and Brazil. This type ofcollaborative innovation would not be realized without the community.
MARIA O’CONNORTECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT, AIR LIQUIDETHE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •47• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

Recommendations for Executive Stakeholders:
Research Finding

Recommended Action

89% of Internal Community teams lack afunded roadmap.

 Provide the resources to realize strategic
goals, including adoption and use.

Only 38% of Internal Community teams havemore than one full-time person.

 Secure community resources to address
engagement, technical, strategy, business,and content needs.

70% of Internal Communities lack dedicatedbudgets.

 Commit to a dedicated community budgetthat ensures its success and sustainability.

57% of Internal Community programs reportbeing a center of excellence in spite of low
staffing.

 Ensure the consulting, analyst, training, andstrategic capacity is available.

74% of Internal Community teams cannot
calculate ROI.

 Fund a community business plan that
includes ROI projections.

Recommendations for Community Leaders:
Research Finding

Recommended Action

Over 40% of Internal Community strategies
lack strategic objectives and key metrics.

 Define community success metrics.

64% of Internal Communities don’t reportto executives.

 Develop an easy-to-share strategic dashboardthat highlights community value.

80% of Internal Community programs lackformal advocacy programs.

 Develop an advocacy program thatencourages and rewards member leaders.

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •48• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

What’s Next?
A Future of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt
While the future is always uncertain, it currently feels more unpredictable and fragile than it hasfor a long time – especially for those of us who never lived through a world war, the Industrial
Revolution, or The Great Depression. The COVID-19 crisis has had such a broad and deep impactthat it might prompt a restructuring of our society and what we prioritize, but it is not yet clear.
Travel has come to a halt, both figuratively and literally. We have found ways to compensate,some of which have improved outcomes and others that are teaching us how much we needto change. While the COVID-19 pandemic is immense, it is only one of many monumental andcomplex challenges on the horizon.
And yet we need certainty to calm our anxieties and help us move forward. Community leaders
are navigators, uniquely qualified to guide us through ambiguity in ways that help us findmeaning and value. This leadership is not accomplished by having answers but by reminding
people of who they are, what they collectively value, how to create shared meaning, and how
to collaborate in ways that move everyone forward. Community leaders create certainty, notby delivering answers, but by weaving us together and helping us believe and use our inherent
value and skills. By empowering us, they give us the confidence to help ourselves, moving
forward confidently into the unknown.

An Emerging, Co-Created Future
The future will only bring more uncertainty that requires rapid transitions. Change is the newnormal. We have known that intellectually, but the COVID-19 crisis has made us feel the realityof it. It has shaken some people to the core. It has exposed hierarchical leadership models
as insufficient at best, dangerous at worst. It has elevated those that can help make sense ofchanges, connect with us authentically, speak hard truths kindly, and inspire us to think and act
together. These people are the community builders who are firm in their values but adaptable
and collaborative in their approaches.
Executives and boards would be wise to invest in this kind of leadership capacity and the community
governance structures that unleash human potential. Investing in these initiatives will promote a
new way to work that empowers each of us to engage, contribute, and thrive – together. We willneed leaders that know progress, not perfection, is how dramatic change happens.

“Perfection is the enemy of engagement.”

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •49• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

How to Use this Research
The Community Roundtable has delivered groundbreaking research for over a decade. Our
research explores communities and how to optimize them for engagement, inclusion, andinnovation. Online community managers pioneered early digital communities and learned
how to encourage and reward productive behaviors without the authority to mandate them.
To succeed, community leaders use governance models that act like a trellis instead of acage, empowering individuals and enabling their potential. These community governancemodels are now applied across industries, functions, and types of organizations, and, in manycases, community approaches are changing corporate governance.
Our research aims to help executives and community practitioners identify, strategicallymanage, and measure communities in their organizations. We do so by reporting current
practices, operational benchmarks, and community value.

Use this research to:• Validate and audit your approach• Prioritize your resources• Identify gaps & opportunities in your program• Build a roadmap• Justify budget requests• Inform conversations with stakeholders• Educate staff

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •50• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •51• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

The Community Maturity ModelTM: Measuring
Community Management Maturity
The Community Maturity Model
1

2

3

4

Hierarchy

Emergent
Community

Community

Networked

Competitive

Reciprocal

Cooperative

Interdependent

Leadership

Directive

EngagedInfluential

Inspiring

CultureResistantContributive

Supportive

Collaborative

Community
Management

AbsentEncouraging

Mentoring

Empowering

Content &Programming

Structured

Responsive

Emergent

Co-created

Policies &Governance

Rigid

Restrictive

Flexible

InclusiveTools

Ad hocDefinedIntegrated

Adaptive

Transactional

Experiential

Behavioral

Strategic

Strategy

Metrics &Measurement© 2019The
CommunityRoundtable
Roundtable© 2020The
Community

Community management has been an implicit responsibility of leadership for as long as humans
have cooperated to govern themselves. Communities have always been hard to measure
because of their diversity, complexity, and emergent nature. Online, however, the dynamics ofcommunity came into focus and allowed us to understand how communities formed, developed,
and evolved. This led to the more explicit role of the community manager and the discipline ofcommunity management.
The Community Maturity Model defines the eight competencies and four stages we feelcontribute most to the development of a healthy, productive, and trusting community. Thisversion of the Community Maturity Model was updated in 2019 to reflect a decade of researchin the updated descriptions.
Our clients use the Community Maturity Model to:•Train and educate stakeholders on the requirements of good community operations•

Assess their community approach•

Develop a roadmap and budget for their community program

More information about the Community Maturity Model can be found here:
http://the.cr/community-maturity-model

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •52• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

The Community Engagement FrameworkTM:
Measuring Engagement and Value© 2020 The Community Roundtable

The Community Roundtable’s mission is to advance the business of community.
Throughout our history, we have focused on measuring the impact of community leadership,
which we can see through engagement. Over the years, it’s become clear that organizations do
not really understand the dynamics of engagement, how to deconstruct and measure it, andhow to tie engagement to business outcomes and value.
We developed the Community Engagement Framework to help do just this and it helps to:• Deconstruct and categorize the range of engagement behaviors• Connect ideal engagement objectives based on business objectives• Link behaviors with qualitative outcomes: comfort, connect, trust, and partnership• Identify how to measure the depth and breadth of engagement types• Translate engagement to value and calculate ROI
Using this framework to measure engagement and track how it changes over time allows
organizations to see how trust is changing in their organizations and markets. Are people moreor less likely to ask questions and explore, requiring trust in the social environment?
This framework concisely articulates what we’ve learned working with hundredsof clients. You can download a high res version of this framework here:
https://the.cr/engagementframework

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •53• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2019 •55• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM

Connect with us:

Web: https://communityroundtable.com
Email: info@communityroundtable.com
TheCR Academy: http://the.cr/TheCRAcademy
TheCR Library: https://thecrlibrary.com
THE STATE OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT 2020 •56• WWW.COMMUNITYROUNDTABLE.COM