Show Notes:

• Community manager is now a broad term that can't be limited to network management
• Currently communities are not just places where people hang our, it's a knowledge hub for a specific segment and a specific niche
• To manage the community effectively the manager should know how the 'market' works in terms of knowledge distribution
• Community management first of all relies on effective management of the content creation pipelines
• Understand the primary and secondary communication channels for your market niche
• Your existing network is one of the biggest assets you can use to launch your community
• Don't hesitate to connect to other creators in your niche 
• Community is not only a content pipeline. It's also analytics, memberships, knowledge pipelines that you need to manage. 
• Monetization strategy is highly tied to the customers buying habits in your market
• Subscription and memberships are not the only ways to monetize your community

Useful links:

• A media operator newsletter
• A media operator: episode with Packy McCormick 
• Community Weekly newsletter

Transcription

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining. I'm Anna Grigoryan and you're listening to CommunityOps podcast. During the show, I will talk to community managers and founders who have successfully integrated community into their products stacks. What will you learn? Well, we're going to discuss community building, pros and cons of starting a community, how to create, grow and launch a community from scratch, community buildings stacks, content creation, community podcasts, blogs, content libraries, and anything that can help you successfully jumpstart the career in community management and become a part of passionate economy.
[00:00:37]  Today is the first episode of the second season of CommunityOps podcast. You might have noticed that the name is a bit changed it's because,  the Community Finder there is going through a bit of a branding. if you can call it that like that. So. 
[00:00:55]Community Finder podcast is now called CommunityOps, just because community ops is more reflecting of what I'm doing on my podcast and on my platform. Called Community Finder still. But, yeah, that's just a little update about the new stage of Community Finder is going through and great cheerful beginning of the second season. So a lot is going on in the world right now, and I really don't want to go through the. 
[00:01:28] Whole mess of the world that it is right now. I'm from Armenia and my country's going through war. And all I can do is just.  Try to donate, try to keep myself sane, keep myself with my family. And yeah, and just continue, move on and. Try everything. Try to do everything that I can in my power to at least support the economy support the state that I'm in support my family and my friends in this very unusual times.
[00:02:00]The first episode of the second season, I am alone here. I have no guests, although I have a very interesting lineup coming up for the second season. I already have booked a lot of people. So stay tuned for that. But, for the first episode, I just want to sit here and talk through about community building in general. What is community building? What I know about it, what I would love to share and what are the things that you can learn from the, for my blog and from this podcast in general. 
[00:02:35] So community building is something I have,I have done for a very brief amount of time. In my professional career, I was a community manager in a local VC. And my main responsibility was not that much of a community management. 
[00:02:51] It was 2017 and at that time, and I feel like right now, still a lot of people think that community manager is just this person who is organizing events, organizing networking events, mainly like connecting people from, different industries, for example, as a community manager in my local VC, I knew like the startup ecosystem, because Armenia startup ecosystem is pretty small. Like basically, maybe I don't know, 1000 people.
[00:03:24] Yeah, it's pretty small. And I knew majority of them, and I knew the members of our VC. I knew the members of our VCs acceleration program, and I kind of knew what starup needed what kind of help. And I often connected people from like if the startup needed a talent, I connected them with the developers. 
[00:03:47] Or if the startup is feedback from some, from a person who is deep in their industry, I've connected them together. So that was the gist of community management and my experience of community management. However, if we look into the landscape of community is right now in 2020, everyone is basically online and has nothing else to do with their free time. Community management really shifted. 
[00:04:12] Now it's not only the event management. Now, it's not only the networking, the knowing who is up to what or any, something like that. It's more of a broad term.  For example, if you, if you are in technical world and I'm sure that you are community manager is somewhat a product manager or project manager. And, it's like knowing, how processes work in your mind for example,  if the community is in the finance, then the community manager, most likely they should know how laws work, how deposits work, how like, a convertible notes work, how you can invest in something, how you can take out a loan and don't get a lot of fees. So community manager is more of a, not a person who is connecting people, but the person who has deep knowledge in the industry and can kind of manage that knowledge in a way that a lot of people benefit from it. 
[00:05:07] So that's the definition I would like to give to a community manager. So.  the community manager at least should have an understanding of how the market is working. So if it's a FinTech community, then. think what things are going to change or where are the people are hanging out or what are the events that the people in that industry where most likely. Go where these people are getting knowledge where these people are. Sharing their knowledge. How the people in this industry are communicating with each other, because that is also a culture. 
[00:05:47] For example in cryptocurrency. people are making the communicating in telegram because there are lots of telegram boats and a lot of private telegram chats and channels for crypto currency trading and stuff like that. So, It's more community manager is more of a, a person who holds the culture of that industry. 
[00:06:05] So how to navigate that and how to manage all of this. It's obviously not an easy task and it's obviously, if you're just starting as a community manager in any space, be to professionals pace, or it's just your community that you have started to build for yourself or for. Another person.
[00:06:22] The first thing I would like to suggest is to think in pipelines. And I think that, especially in 2020 and 2021, if we're still alive and everything is okay, so pipelines will be. More of a buzzword than it is right now. So a lot of people liked to use CRMs. And I don't know if you have noticed, but maybe around 2016, 2015. 
[00:06:49] Everyone was building a CRM for something. So,  one of Armenia's because companies Service Titan is actually a very deep and very. Very well organized CRM for plumbers. And what do you say, have you ever thought that plumbers would need CRMs? And,  actually it turns out yes, and it's $1 billion company. It's unicorn. It hits. 
[00:07:11] Purely on dollar, I think last year. Yes last year. So while CRM is a very good term to organize your staff, to organize your content, to organize your contacts and your processes. But still, I feel like pipeline is a better word because well, CRM is inherited in inside of it. This notion that it should be a sales  place, that it should be. I don't know. A place where you store all your spam emails. We've subjects. Like ha. Just checking in to see like, something like that. I, what I say pipeline, I mean, not only that sales staff, I mean, everything basically. 
[00:07:56]As I mentioned, community is a knowledge base. So you like it or not. if you kind of look at the communities as a whole, you will see that each community is holding knowledge of a specific segment of a, of a specific industry. And it's very, very niche segment of that industry. 
[00:08:12] So if you're a community manager of a very niche community in a specific industry, you need to understand a few things about that industry. So to set up the content pipeline, pipe pipeline. You need to know where the content about that industry is distributed. For example, in machine learning and the AI industries,  It's very, very private chats on Slack. It's very, very private groups on Google. Yes. There is such thing as Google group and people are using it a lot. And I have seen a lot of AI and research communities is on Google groups.  You don't know. Tom told me need to understand how they are distributed, but also how, where the people are hanging out. let's come back to a very much simpler industry like podcasting. 
[00:08:58] In podcasting it's very, very open. There are a lot, a lot of communities around podcasting, mainly on Facebook. I don't know why on Facebook, but okay. and as podcasting is a very vibrant industry where a lot of tools are, and people like to geek out about their tech stacks about like what,  microphones they're using WhatsApp, upstair using what are, what is their camera how they're starting up their live streaming for this is, so that's why a lot, there can be a lot of groups. There can be a lot of places. Where you can go and get an advice.  but again, podcasting on the other hand is very young industry. So if you can.  it's around for a very long time, but it's becoming mainstream just right now because of a lot of tools that made it accessible. And you can't deny Anchor. When they build this very big, only one platform from podcasting and made it accessible for virtually everyone. So you need to understand this kind of changes in the industry as well. 
[00:09:58] And, from the community management perspective, once you understood where your base knowledge is distributed. Once you understood where people are hanging out in your, in that specific niche. Then you can kind of start to build an environment for them. So what does the environment for community building means? It means, again, this is my pure perspective on that. it means to have a space where people can talk about themselves. And I honestly, I don't understand why red it made it. So so hard to talk about yourself. And I applaud to them because they really kick-started this community movement. And even if you don't, look at them as a community hub, Reddit is essentially a community hup. However, they started up this trend that you can't like talk about yourself. You can talk about your product, you can talk about the content you wrote or else you're doing self-promotion and you will be removed. 
[00:10:58] Which is I understand. I understand that after Facebook, when you're logging into some place and there is virtually no advertising, it's very, very refreshing. And I, myself, I love community building and communities is just for that because they're bringing more of a privacy focused.  mindsets. They are more of a sending for ethical marketing and stuff like that. But still when you're building a community, you need to clearly understand that you're not just building it for yourself or for like everyone as a whole, you're building it also for this individual people who choose to come to your community specifically for their needs. And you can't do that and get higher engagement by banning all types of advertising. Like, okay, not an advertising, but self promotion because. 
[00:11:46] Okay, you can do that. But. Peoples. Life to some extent, be it good or bad. They're evolving around their work. So by banning people from talking about their work. You're kind of creating a place where then they need to come up with this very tricky ways to talk about it. For example, in Reddit and my co-founder of Recoon podcasting platform she's,  the best on Reddit. She kind of can do anything there and get a lot of attention and traffic, but to do that on Reddit, she's creating every time, this new framework of how she can advertise things there without actually advertising it. So when you're creating that kind of a barrier for entry, let's call it that way. It's not always. Productive. 
[00:12:36] So if you're building a community, it's better to have a very specific place where people can engage and talk about there. Themselves, their products there. Something that they're selling something that are creating. So just to create this vibe, and again, I think that community co-creation can kick off from that kind of channels. For example, if I'm Anna and I can write a lot of blog posts, like  seven blog posts a week, but I can't promote them. And I'm sharing that link on a community and saying, "Hey, I have wrote this blog post, blah, blah, blah. But I have hard time promoting" maybe someone will say, Hey, Anna. 
[00:13:15] I am a Marketing manager. And here's the ways that you can promote this stuff. So.  creating this environment, not only to talk about your work, but also to freely talk about yourself of what are you doing is really helpful. So, coming back to community management. After you created your pipeline. And discovered your knowledge base, what, where it can be distributed, where you can gain people that are benefiting from the knowledge base and you have created a space. Where people can freely talk about it. Well, What's left. And where com kind of making this full circle and saying that you need to start distributing all of the things that were created inside of your community. 
[00:13:58] And do you need to understand what are the ways that you can creatively use this kind of content. And use the knowledge that you gained during the community management process. So this is doing a full circle. just because. The only way to show to the world what's how cool your community is basically is to share whatever you created there. 
[00:14:24] So again, to do this, you again, need to understand where, where you can distribute it. And basically there are a few ways you can do is for example, in Newslettercrew, people are doing. Like, Newslettercrew, if you don't, it's a community for our newsletter creators where I'm a part of, and people are creating community sourced, a podcast episode. So they are doing. I think weekly.  or biweekly, Community podcast. So coming members can be the co-host of that podcast episode, which is very cool. So it's creating a place where people can share knowledge in the same community about the same topic. So it's kind of this never ending cycle of creating product. So another way is to create members digest for  to share and reshare that  content that your members wrote, or to create a platform where your members can have been incentivized to write about.  themselves and their products on your platform. Again, very good for SEO. Everyone is gaining here and very good for backlinks. 
[00:15:30] And another way is to do a community source newsletter. For example, your community members can share links and you can create newsletter from it and just, this can be both community source and also curated newsletter about your industry. So lots of things you can do. 
[00:15:48] And after that.  you just need to go over and iterate everything you have already did. So. 
[00:15:56]So again, this rituals are very different for each community and for not only community, but for the market itself. 
[00:16:02] And as you have already seen during this episode, I have brought a lot of examples from other markets like podcasting, like FinTech 
[00:16:11] and do you need to take into account that so you, you, again,  the you're better for, to create as much of an engaged, creamy. Can you better be in the representative of their industry or it's less know how that industry works. So it will be relatively painless for you to go and find the distribution channels, go and find your early adopters or early members. 
[00:16:34]So  where CommunityOps and community find there is coming in in that space? Just really quickly without like a lot of self promotion. Although I already spent 10 minutes talking about how self promotion is good for your community. 
[00:16:51] So CommunityOps and Community Finder here is my only coming to cover the part of giving and the tools and the templates that you can use for your community. For example, What tools you can use for,  community knowledge base, for example, Airtable, for example, Dropbox can be a cool place. For example, Notion. Oh, I love Notion my whole life is a notion suddenly. And. 
[00:17:18] Coming to find her is also here to help you promote your community and give you tools to measure your community success coming soon, very soon.
[00:17:26] And now let's talk about community stack. So it's a thing that I resent talking about because it's very individual and also it's really is very tight up to the industry. You're creating your community in. Because for example, if you're working in a community to build a community for like tech workers or like gamers or.  again, FinTech. Again, I'm, I'm coming to FinTech every time. And, or,  Marketers. So for some of this. segments.   Slack for example, can be the best community to a B, just because it has low barrier to entry, just because it has this. 
[00:18:08]waste and environment that everyone is already used to. for other group discord can be a great place. My community for podcasters is on Discord and I love it. Just because it's very convenient. It has video chats and audio chat. For other people for marketers, for example, it can. 
[00:18:26] B no essential difference. the main thing that they want you to make more of an effort to understand is what is working with this tool? What is working with this core tool where you're going to host your community? And not only look at debt,  from the Zapier or Instagram out connections perspective, but also  for yourself. So because you are going to manage it, you will need, I'm sure you will need a lot of tools that you will. Need to track your community. For example, if you will start a community on telegram.  At some point you will need like invite member invites member is a tool that helps you to create landing page and to create, to like manage the members, charge for the membership. I suggest to look at your community, building stock in a few ways, first of all, the core product, so it can be Slack. It can be discard. It can be circled as. We should have a child that can be painting. It can be anything. The second is the distribution. So how fast and how.  painless, you can distribute content from that platform to other places. So for example, can you build an automation on the pier or on integral moment to post everything that you have wrote on a specific Slack channel to your Twitter, for example. Or how fast you can create a newsletter from the content that you have created or how fast you can set up a podcast from what have we created, for example
[00:19:56] And don't forget about analytics because. Whether you like it or not, you will need to understand how you're attracting your members. What are, where are the places that your members are coming from? How much they're engaging with your content, how much they're engaging with community platform and all of this, you can get another sung and gone on Slack, for example, but,  On the other places I don't know if you can, so you need to understand what will be the best analytics platform for you. Maybe it can be Fathom analytics, maybe you will need to hookup amplitude or Mixpanel a lot of things that you can use, Heap analytics, Hotjar a lot of stuff.  
[00:20:37] So I suggest to you and dr. Only think about the community management corporate platform, but also to the pipelines that you're going to use with that platform.  A content pipeline, event management, pipeline analytics, pipeline sales pipeline. If you're going to add membership. And while we are at the membership, let's talk about whether or not you should monetize your platform. 
[00:21:01] There are a few things you need to know about monetization. Monetization is highly tied. Again. To the industry that you are working in. And again, I have said this for the million times and I wilsay it again.  no, your industry and know how it works. you need to understand how people are operating in the industry. Not only for the,  like distribution channels perspective, but also from the spending habits perspective. And I have,  I've been listening to the media. 
[00:21:30] Operator podcast recently. And if you're going to be in community, industry, I highly suggest to you to listen to  that podcast, just because I found it very helpful for me as well. it was, with the founder of not boring. Newsletter. If I remember correctly. To kind of understand how to advertise everything on the newsletter more effectively, he decided to run a survey and he included in the survey the most interesting questions I have never thought I would ever ask to my subscribers, for example,  how are they buying products? Are they immediately buying or are they waiting for a bed or what kind of products are usually buying? So. 
[00:22:09] In that case. He already knew what kind of products to offer to their audience and which advertisers to work with. And for me, for example, I have always been very shy to ask that kind of questions to my audience. I would, I was afraid that I will be this kind of salesy person to them, but it is very important to know what people in your list or in your community are. 
[00:22:32] Are passionate about, but at the same time are passionate enough. to buy something. So it will also give an understanding or whether you need to monetize your. Per our community are not. First of all, you need to understand. If the people are.  ready to pay. And once you understood it, you can kind of just, set the pricing can see what happens. And as a, again, as a person who is managing a paid community. I would say that your community pricing and the whole strategy would change maybe 10 times in the first month. So don't be afraid of that.
[00:23:08] And don't be afraid to experiment because it can seem like, yeah, you don't have a sales force for example, $20 a month, but you may have sales for $10 a month. So. Yeah, don't be afraid to change that. And also don't be afraid to experiment with. One titration method as well, because again, subscriptions and membership fees  are not the only ways to monetize your. 
[00:23:33] Community, you can also be sponsored by brands. You can also be sponsored by VCs. For example, you can be sponsored by other community builders or other newsletters or other podcasts that are in that industry. So, the advertising model can really be hybrid and Kim be really different. For example, you can monetize it through,  cars and not, not necessarily sell a community, but sell a course where the feature is also a community. So don't be afraid to ask that kind of questions to your members and subscribers, and don't be afraid to feel like you're this sales person  because if you're doing things right, they. The whole environment will be geared to the management of the knowledge, the knowledge sharing the creation process. So you don't, you will not for sure. Be seen as the salesperson. 
[00:24:28] So we have already covered the stacks, the pipelines that you will need, and we have touched on monetization. And, think that the last thing you can kind of think about is the lunch. If you're launching a community, I have found this true for every type of community, product, life, communities, contact-led communities. It doesn't matter it's very, very important to utilize your existing network. It is very important to at least coordinate with some people who are in the same industry that, you know, and.  just ask them for help, ask them for feedback, ask them for maybe upward on product hunt. If you decide to do a big launch on producthunt and or if you decide to do peak launch on community finder, which I will soon be launching,  launching functionality. That sounded weird.  it's going to give you the initial boost and it will take the word out initially. You can be guests on podcasts in your niche. You can be like, You can ask, the newsletters or newsletter writers in your niche to include your content.  you can ask other communities, promote your community. You can be a sponsor of an event that is in your niche to promote your community. 
[00:25:44] There are a lot of ways to do that, but it's all always first great to utilize the people that you already know. And,  Second build a relationship with the people that you don't know, but there are also operating in your community. You're not necessarily competitors.   of course, there is some competition, but I feel like and I want to put some emphasis on this.  in community building and in content creation, especially a lot of things rely on your personal attitude and on your personality and on your approach to things. For example, I have a podcast on community building, but I'm sure that there are a lot of other people who are in the same industry. 
[00:26:26]at the end of the day, you're both enriching the same topic and.  Having competitors in the same space, especially in content creation it, it means that first year hitting the right spot. And second, it means that there are already people who are making money in the same industry as you so that's always a good sign. Especially if you want to monetize your community. 
[00:26:47] we have talked about content pipelines. We have talked about.  monetization and he raised the lunch. So this was the first episode of the second season of CommunityOps podcast. I'm  the podcast is called community ops, not coming to find her anymore. You're going to have an awesome lineup of guests, , starting from. next Thursday, no next Tuesday. And we will talk about everything coming to building everything that I'm passionate about, which means growth strategies, community stacks, their content pipelines and overall what led them to build a community.