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Your Community Manager’s done a fantastic job building engagement in your social community but now wants to leave to go travelling round the world. How do you handover to a new Community Manager without upsetting the community members and its champions while maintaining a high level of engagement? Elena Goodrum, senior Community Manager at SiftGroups, facilitated Ambitious about Autism’s community, Talk about Autism, and managed the smooth handover to a new Community Manager. Elena believes there are five key steps to take.
Brief
Ambitious about Autism wanted to build a community that enabled people facing the challenges of living with autism to share their experiences in a trusted environment. The charity also needed to build the community to such a point where they could employ their own Community Manager on a full time basis to facilitate the discussion. Ambitious about Autism wanted to reach everyone in the UK dealing with the challenges of autism through its online community.
Strategy
Ambitious about Autism employed SiftGroups, a digital agency specialising in community engagement, to build its Talk about Autism website and community. The digital agency’s Senior Community Manager, Elena Goodrum, was employed on a part time basis to help build the community and ensure a high level of interaction and to identify key community champions. The community champions would be critical to a smooth handover to a new Community Manager.
Execution
SiftGroups designed and developed the website and community, Talk about Autism, for Ambitious about Autsim in 2009 to launch on World Autism Day, which takes place in April each year.
While the charity was keen to reach a worldwide audience of people living with the challenges of autism, its key objective for Talk about Autism was to provide a trusted environment where people could share their experiences and gain expert advice. Talk about Autism was created to give people a voice and so quality of interaction on the site was key.
Ambitious about Autism employed SiftGroups’ Senior Community Manager, Elena Goodrum, for one day per week to act as Talk about Autism’s Community Manager from May 2009. Elena facilitated the community on its website and managed its Facebook and Twitter pages.
Elena’s responsibilities included day-to-day community maintenance such as meeting and greeting new members, liking and following people on Facebook and Twitter and reposting worthwhile content to the communities, such as local events. But most importantly, her role required lots of listening to the community members about the challenges they faced and the type of advice they required. Elena would then research appropriate content or feed the concerns and her recommendations back to the Ambitious about Autism team so pertinent articles could be created and discussed.
As Talk about Autism developed, this process expanded to include feedback from the members to Ambitious about Autism’s policy team who would visit Government to lobby and inform policy recommendations on behalf of the community. Elena’s time also increased to three days per week to allow for the growing community and extra work it brought. These activities continue today as the responsibility of the new Community Manager, Mike Stuart, but a key part of SiftGroups’ work for Ambitious about Autism was ensuring a smooth handover from Elena to Mike.
After two years deeply embedded in Talk about Autism and growing the community across all platforms to over 6000 members worldwide, Elena needed to hand over to a new Community Manager with the full support of the community. There are the five steps she took with Ambitious about Autism, which as an organisation was very supportive of Elena’s recommendations. Without this support, the handover to a new Community Manager would not have been as smooth. Thoughtful planning and a close working relationship with the host organisation is essential for the following steps to work:
Step 1. Let your Community Champions (or volunteers) know as soon as possible
Let your Community Champions know that change is coming and what this will mean for the community, as well as how you intend to hand over the community to the new Community Manager. I’ve found that people don’t like surprises and early warning gives time for folks to grow used to the idea. Give as much information as possible, as this will instill a sense of confidence that every detail will be very carefully considered. Invite input and feedback.
Also, between now and the time when you notify the rest of the community make a list of key influencers or sensitive people whom you know you need to notify quite early on.
Step 2. Invite your Community Champions to help in the recruitment and interview process
In the ideal scenario, your Champions should be involved in this process. Let them review the job description and feed into it. Ask them to feedback on applicants. Even better if you can get a couple of them to attend the interviews and assist you in the selection process. This is just another nice way of giving back to your volunteers.
Step 3. Work alongside the new community manager for as long as possible
Change must be managed very carefully so as not to affect the day-to-day life of the community. It’s really important to hire someone and get them started while you are still on the job. This means you can create a plan to train and mentor the new manager while you work alongside each other. Share the work from the start by handing over one day of your time simply to moderate the community. This familiarises them with the conversations, personalities and atmosphere of the community, as well as the rhythm of interaction. Likewise the community members get to know the new name and face. Behind the scenes you will brief the new community manager on your daily routine, what tools you use and how to use them, the history of the growth of the community, key members and all the dramas and sensitive situations and issues. Continue to gradually decrease the amount of time you work and increase the time the new community manager works.
Step 4. Let your community members know in advance
About a week or two before the new community manager officially takes over, let your community (and all social media outlets) know when you will be stepping down. You may want to increase this amount of time in communities of circumstance where members are motivated by emotional and social reinforcement. Your members will most likely want to know why you’re going, so just be honest with them. Not saying anything at all may raise a few eyebrows or arouse suspicion that something has gone wrong. People understand that jobs change and life situations change, and you’ll probably find that they are happy for you and may even encourage you to do well in your new role.
Step 5. Introduce your new community manager – but don’t run off just yet
When the day comes to officially hand over the reins, introduce the community to their new community manager. You should do this in your community, and also on your social media outlets. People will most likely want to say goodbye to you and talk to you, and you should try and give them time to do so. For example, announce that it is your last day and that from the day after tomorrow the new community manager will be looking after the space. Plan to be very available until then so that you can interact with people who will want to speak with you. It may be difficult for you to understand how much of a presence you have been for people online, particularly for those people who rely heavily on online social connections, and leaving the community may be a very big deal for them (you may therefore wish to give a few days for this).
Results
After two years managing Talk about Autism and due to the steps Elena took prior and during the handover, the community is now facilitated by Mike Stuart. It is established as a trusted and safe space to discuss any issues around autism and has established a strong voice with a community of over 6000 members. Talk about Autism’s reach has expanded from the Web to influence policy and decision-making in Government and most importantly it has a high degree of quality interaction between members with little need for moderation over the two years it has been running.
From community member, Leanne: “I feel that as parents of autistic children we are isolated and the powers that be rely on the fact that a majority of us don't know what our rights are etc. So to come on here and be told the facts is very empowering.. I really do feel that I have a fabulous team supporting me…”
From Ambitious about Autism policy team member, Kate Williams: “Having such direct access to people’s views and experiences is gold-dust as far as I’m concerned in terms of getting our messages across to policy-makers. Also keeps us on track, making sure we’re representing what’s really happening out there, rather than being stuck in a policy bubble!”
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