Community Health Check – You Need It

Your community has been running like a well-oiled machine for some time now. Your members are participating. Your metrics look good. Your content is steady. Your answer every time your leadership asks how the community program is doing is “everything’s great on the home front!” It appears that everything is coming up roses in the world of online community because your program is moving along nice and easy. You should be proud of that right?No noise doesn’t necessarily mean that you can sit back and relax. In some cases it could mean that your community program (including members and staff) is complacent and running on autopilot. At worst, your members are quietly leaving because their needs are no longer being met and your leaders don’t see the slow bleed yet. If things are a little too quiet (or if you’re noticing that you’re struggling to put together an operational plan every year), it’s time to check the health of your community to make sure you’re on the right track.Talk to your membersThere are a couple of things that I suggest you do, here. The first thing I suggest you do is have an actual conversation with some of your more active users AND those who were active but may have dropped off over the last 10-12 months. Start the conversation by asking them the following questions:

• What do you get out of the community?
• What would you like to see more of?
• What would you like to see less of?
• How can we make it better?
• What prevents you from participating as much as you would like to?

Don’t structure it too much. While you want to uncover some basic information, you also want to allow your community members to be open and honest about their experience. Allow for candid conversation and do not go on the defensive. Perception is reality, and, at the end of the day, the community is built for them, not you. This is not the time to be precious about your community program.On a larger scale, survey your community to see how they’re feeling. Do they feel a sense of community? Is there a sense of belonging? Community Science has an awesome Sense of Community Index that would be incredibly helpful, but, full transparency, you’ll need to request permission to use it and agree to share how you used the index and what you learned. If that’s not the route you want to go, check out this post on Feverbee that will help get you started.Audit your communityWhen is the last time you did a good community audit? From the site navigation and UI to the content that is being produced, you should be taking a good hard look at how your members are finding information, providing information, talking to one another, providing you feedback, etc. Not only should you look at the experience, you should re-evaluate your community’s intended purpose. Does the shared value you identified still ring true or have you strayed away from your why?CMX recently published an amazing resource called “The 7Ps of Community.” When I read this, my jaw dropped. All the questions you should be asking to determine whether you’re on the right path is contained within this resource. What are the 7Ps?

• People
• Purpose
• Place
• Participation
• Policy
• Promotion
• Performance

This is, literally, everything you need to be checking in on to make sure your community is moving forward (and that it’s helping to move your organization forward).You can review the full resource here.Ask your colleaguesI think one of the most insightful conversations I have with my colleagues is when I ask them to tell me what they think the online community is/does. In the beginning, I got a lot of blank stares or answers that revolved more around what the community has versus what it is. It can be a really revealing conversation, especially if you get a bunch of different answers or, worse yet, no answers at all.When you are supporting different parts of the organization, their experiences will be different based on their needs. However, their understanding of what the community can enable should not be different. Conversations around that enablement should be the same regardless of the tactic you use to help get work accomplished. From the top on down, everyone should be on the same page regarding the role community plays for your members and the association. If, when you ask this question, you’re getting a bunch of different answers, it’s time to go back to the drawing board in terms of education.I believe that it’s always a good idea to remind people why the online community is important. Not from a “hey, don’t forget about us” perspective, but more from a “we’re in this together” perspective. The purpose of your membership department is a no-brainer. Your certification department is rather obvious. Online community may still be a bit nebulous, as people try to understand the value in it and that it is not the same thing as social media engagement (that’s a conversation for a future post). Because of this, it may require a bit more conversation than any other program. And as your community program evolves, you should be revisiting these conversations just as any other part of the organization would be expected to.I do not believe that you should always assume that your community program is doing all that it should. I also don’t believe that you should assume that it isn’t. We always see things as we are versus how they really are, and when it comes to online communities I think that we, as community managers, can tend to be a little more sensitive to that. Your program may appear to be running smoothly, but that doesn’t mean that your members are satisfied or that you haven’t hit a roadblock disguised as community maturity. Take some time to regularly check in and make sure you’re on track. There’s nothing worse than realizing you need to pivot when it’s too late.How often do you perform a total health check-up on your online community? What are some tactics/resources that you use to do so? Tell us in the comments below!