Step 2: Familiarize Yourself with Community Strategy

Now that you know generally what the community management world looks like and how your team thinks about community, you can start seeking out more specifics.

The good news for you is there are a lot of models you can start learning now that will serve as guides for you as you start doing your work. You may still be eager to jump in, but I promise you’ll be grateful for these frameworks once you start. You will build an organized structured strategy rather than creating disparate programming with no focus.

Here are a few frameworks that CMX offers to get you started:

The CMX Community Strategy Canvas. This is a simple guide that lays out the 9 fundamentals of community strategy in a canvas that you can fill out. This is perfect for the beginner. It will ask you all the hard questions you should think about in order to have a comprehensive community plan. Consider this your high-level roadmap. You can use it now, and refer back to it whenever you feel a little lost.

The SPACE Model. This is our most popular model that our training students say gives them the biggest “aha!” moment. SPACE helps you define the type of community you’re building and the value that it will bring your business. This is where you align community with your organization’s goals and start defining your metrics. Bring this model to your manager to discuss where you fit.

The Community Engagement Cycle. This model will teach you how communities are formed. We break down the experience that a member goes through as they become more engaged in the community over time. By understanding the community member experience, we can then start to plan out the content and programming that fuels the community experience.

Community Measurement Model. Measuring community health and performance is still the biggest challenge that most community professionals face. The truth is, it’s hard to assign metrics and dollar signs to human relationships. But it’s not impossible, and this simple model will help you wrap your head around how you can start to measure your community strategy.

As you’re reading through these models, don’t get bogged down in details just yet. There is a lot of information and it can feel overwhelming as you first read through it. We recommend you read through them so you can start to wrap your head around the best practices in the space.

When you’re ready to put these frameworks into a full-fledged strategy, you can take the CMX Fundamentals of Community Strategy Online Course, where we teach all of these concepts in depth and tie them together.