Community transitions

Embarrassing fact: I have been trying to write this post since August, and it’s become pretty clear to me that I’m using it as a bit of an excuse to put off all the other posts I’ve been meaning to write, so here goes.

The past few months have been busy. Even when things haven’t been busy, they’ve felt busy, because that’s what starting a new job feels like. This summer I accepted a new position with an organization called GHDonline. GHDonline is focused on improving health care delivery through global collaboration and they have a large community of health care implementers from around the world who come to the site to exchange knowledge, information and resources to help patients and improve care. It seemed like the natural next step after nearly four years of building online communities over at WEGO Health, and while the transition hasn’t been easy, it’s been interesting, challenging, and actually pretty fun.

I won’t pretend to have it all figured out, and I’m sure each transition from one community to another has its own unique quirks and challenges, but I thought I’d share a few things I’ve learned so far:

It’s not all about you

The nicer version of saying this is: when you’re making this transition, so is everyone else around you. Your old coworkers, your new coworkers, you old community members, your new community members…you get the idea. Everyone’s going to have an adjustment period, and I think trying to keep that top of mind as you leave a community, and get started somewhere else, can be pretty important. Be nice, be patient, be yourself.

You’re going to make mistakes

Somehow, these mistakes will seemed more frustrating when during the transition period from one community to the next. I should know better, I thought. Maybe so, but how you handle the mistake is usually the most important part, so take a deep breath, get some good advice, and then figure out what to do about it. It’s easy to feel like the stakes are high in early interactions with new community members, new moderators and new team members, but that doesn’t mean those first emails and conversations will define your relationships completely.

You know more than you think you do

Sure, every online community is different. We’re all unique and beautiful snowflakes. But most online communities face the same kinds of challenges—if they didn’t, how could we have such a great community of community managers? Some of these common bonds are pretty obvious, What kind of content and conversations are most interesting for members? How can we create richer engagement? How do we keep members coming back? Other connections are harder to anticipate, but you’ll be surprised what jumps out at you, and what you didn’t realize you already knew.

I think what I’ve learned so far is most applicable for those who, like me, are going through this process for the first time, so I’d love to hear what other advice you would give to community managers getting ready to start up somewhere new?

Three reasons lurkers matter in health communities

Yesterday, while reading Richard Millington’s great post on how most online communities are designed for lurkers, I felt a familiar impulse: the knee-jerk reaction to come to the defense of lurkers.

I’m sure you all read Richard’s post too, and I think he makes a fantastic points—it’s easy, especially for new communities, to prioritize new members over active contributors. Most communities are optimized to get folks signed up. After that, it’s all up to your community team, and their strategy, for getting people truly involved.

Still, I’m a fan of lurkers. Here’s why I think they matter, particularly for health communities:

Lurkers read

Vanessa DiMaura wrote a great article about this last January—lurkers are often “active readers”, and they see themselves as a part of the community even if you haven’t been counting them. They’re loyal members of your site, have a stake in what you do, and see your content as relevant and valuable to their every day lives. In a community of patients or practitioners, providing information and conversation that helps members find support and solutions is often an important goal in and of itself, and lurkers help your community accomplish that.

Lurkers share

Whether they share your community’s content online in trackable ways, or they mention it in person, they’re spreading awareness of the topics your community is most passionate about. When you’re writing about a misunderstood illness, or important new research for your disease, more eyes is a good thing—even if they don’t jump into the conversation right away (or at all).

Given the right opportunity, lurkers will engage

They’ve been reading your blog, or following your conversations, for a while now. They’re the long-time listeners who become first time callers. In online health communities, the ability to remain anonymous is often important. But if you add community polls, ways to like or vote up content that isn’t tied to a login, or other “low barrier” engagement tools to your site—more of your lurkers will be able to speak up.

Maybe I’m a fan of lurkers because it feels like rooting for the underdog, but I believe that lurkers are an important part of any online community. Not everyone is ready to share their story right away, and many in the online health community describe the process of revealing their diagnosis and identity online as a coming out process—it’s a challenging decision, and there are very real risks. But when lurkers become contributors, they can become some of strongest advocates for the community and it’s mission—they understand where their whole audience is coming from, not just the section of the crowd that speaks the loudest.

So you’re listening—are you really hearing?

The lovely folks over at the Metaverse Mod Squad beat me to the punch on the title of their recent post, “Listening and Hearing Aren't the Same Thing,” but I wanted to go ahead and add a few thoughts of my own the matter, since it’s something I've been noodling on for the past couple of months.

I feel like the most common piece of advice given to companies looking to get involved in social media is “LISTEN FIRST!”

It’s obviously not bad advice, and there is a whole industry dedicated to supporting the growing need for social listening. I think it’s important to stress, however, that listening is worthless if you’re not ready to hear. Listening is great. It’s an extremely important first step to any social media program or initiative, but it’s an inherently passive activity.

Hearing, on the other hand, prepares you to take things to the next level. Hearing means:

Letting go of what you think you know

The online world is remarkably similar to the offline world, right? So, how much do you enjoy being stuck next to the guy at the party who thinks he knows everything you're going to say? If you go in looking only for confirmation of your preconceived notions—that’s all you’ll get. You’ll miss out on an incredibly rich opportunity to learn new things and you’ll make it that much harder to create a genuine conversation online. When you’re really hearing what your customers have to say, you’ll find new and surprising insights where you least expect them.

Seeing yourself in context

Whatever product or service you offer, it's only one part of your consumer’s world. This is something I see every day in online health communities. Maybe a medication only treats one symptom of a multi-faceted disease. Maybe insurance only covers a certain number of pills a month. Whatever the context is (and it certainly doesn’t have to be related to health!), be prepared to acknowledge it when you reach out to your customers.

Showing your work

Unless you’re prepared to do something with all this information, the fact that you listened at all is of little benefit to you, or anyone you listened to. Let your customers and community members know that they’ve been heard by showing them the changes you've made. Likewise, be careful of the reverse—don't ask for feedback if you're not really prepared to hear it.
Truly hearing what your customers and community members have to say about you, across the social web, is the foundation for any strong social media program—so if you’re listening, make sure you’re really hearing, too.