Engagement is the #1 challenge facing community managers.
This Resource Bundle includes assets focused on how to increase meaningful online engagement and examples of successful online engagement strategies.
This resource bundle is a living asset, with new content added throughout the year.
The Engagement Resource Bundle is built for community managers who are facing online engagement issues in their internal or external community program. You'll learn how to:
- get lurkers to engage
- make sure new members come back
- measure engagement
- communicate more effectively
- increase traffic
- deflect support requests
- and more!
The Engagement Resource Bundle contains 25 resources to help community professionals tackle common engagement issues. It includes:
- seven Roundtable Reports
- nine years of the State of Community Management Report
- high-res versions of two of our most popular models and frameworks
- seven additional resources including examples of engagement playbooks, business models and book recommendations.
You don't need to reinvent the engagement wheel. We've spent the last nine years working with hundreds of global community leaders and have distilled the most proven engagement boosting tactics into one resource bundle.
Instead of wasting time searching for ideas that might help, you can start solving your engagement challenges today.
The 25 resources in the Engagement Resource Bundle will help you hit the ground running and make a tactical impact on engagement immediately.
Two Ways to Access the Engagement Resource Bundle:
You can access the resources in the Engagement Resource Bundle by either subscribing to the stand-alone bundle or subscribing to TheCR Library. By subscribing to TheCR Library you get unlimited access the Engagement Resource Bundle and the rest of the Library content (including dozens of Reports, webinars, case studies, podcasts and other resource bundles. Choose the best option for you below:
I just want the Engagement Resource Bundle.
I want to subscribe to the entire Library.
The Foundation
Community Glossary
Like any work discipline, online communities have jargon. Get up to speed with the glossary of terms.
Community Engagement Framework
We talk about engagement as a ladder, not an on/off switch. The Community Engagement Framework details how members grow, mature, and contribute to a community over time.
The Language of Engagement
A primer on how to communicate to encourage engagement.
Roundtable Reports
One of the biggest lessons we have learned is that engagement = success. Here are some examples of organizations that used effective engagement strategies.
Aetna: Plain Language
How you speak in your community matters. This resource on plain language explores how to engage with your community effectively.
Shepley Bullfinch: Measuring Adoption
Learn how Shepley Bullfinch used the Engagement Framework to measure adoption internally.
Know Your Audience - Designing an Editorial Calendar for Your Ecosystem
Learn how an editorial calendar is an effective tool for managing content in your community program that increases the value and volume of engagement.
Exploring Engagement: The Dance Floor Theory
Kevin Prentiss of Red Rover explored engagement through the analogy of a dance floor.
Engagement Games: Gamification in Your Community
This report offers an introductory look at how to implement gamification into your online community, along with best practices and things to avoid.
Northwestern MSLOC: Ask Great Questions
Empower your audience to ask the questions that get great answers, and boost long-term engagement at the same time.
Removing The One-Way Mirror: Transparency & Engagement In Social Business
Kirsten Laaspere shared best practices for supporting transparency and engagement in social business.
Engaging Executives: The Power Of Content
A report of best practices and lessons learned on using content to engage executives from a roundtable call with guest expert Roanne Neuwirth.
Undeniable Story: The Science and Intuition of Engagement
Michael Margolis shares a six-step storytelling framework for crafting engaging narratives and capturing peoples attention.
Giving the Golden Ticket: Getting Creative With Gamification
Monique van den Berg shares a look at Atlassian's Golden Ticket gamification program.
In Content We Trust
Margot Bloomstein shares ways to empower your audience, and what to do when your brand is vulnerable.
Case Studies
Don't reinvent the community wheel. Leaders from global brands like Yahoo! and Electronic Arts share success stories and offer insight on how to recreate that success in your community.
Yahoo!: Community Engagement: Turning Customers Into Fans, Yahoo Case Study
Robyn Tippins, the community manager from the Yahoo Developers Network, discusses how to stretch marketing dollars and create great events.
Electronic Arts: Driving Community Participation and Engagement With Gamification
Learn how Electronic Arts built a gamification-based support hub and a two-tiered super-user program that increased traffic, converted lurkers and deflected contacts from Live Support channels.
Autodesk: Getting the New Member Experience Right
Autodesk community team took on redesigning its entire Customer Support Community, a peer-to-peer platform built over 30 years ago to support their software technology/web applications customers.
Using Gamification to Increase Engagement
Learn how Heifer International launched a points and status gamification feature within their digital workplace.
Models + Frameworks
We have spent the last ten years working with global community leaders, and have developed proven, research-backed models and frameworks for community success.
Research
The Community Roundtable publishes the industry's most respected, and most widely read research. This Resource Bundle includes downloads of all ten years of the State of Community Management, and our widely-cited Community Careers and Compensation report.
- State of Community Management 2010
- State of Community Management 2011
- State of Community Management 2012
- State of Community Management 2013
- State of Community Management 2014
- State of Community Management 2015
- State of Community Management 2016
- State of Community Management 2017
- State of Community Management 2018
- Community Maturity Model
- Community Engagement Framework
- Community Careers and Compensation Report
TOOLS + TEMPLATES
Use these tools and templates to jump-start community initiatives, and craft thoughtful programs, without reinventing the wheel.
Question of the Week Prompts
Use a Question of the Week program to get members to engage, and create a regular cadence with low-lift. Here are 52 ideas to get you started.
ARTICLES
Expert perspective on global community trends and best practices.
Why Community Programs Matter
Kelly Schott shares insight on why regularly occurring programming helps online communities thrive.
Managing Teams Who Are Suddenly Remote
Rachel Happe shares tips for anyone managing a team that is #suddenlyremote.
WEBINARS
Archived recordings of our most popular webinars.
Five Things You Need to Know About Member Onboarding
In this webinar, Kelly Schott shares five best practices for onboarding new members into your community.
Managing Remote Teams: Ideas and Advice for Thriving Online
Join Rachel Happe and two special guests for best practices and advice for managing remote teams.
Additional Resources
Sometimes you just need an example of how a sucessful program is contructed. These additional resources include examples of proven playbooks, models and recommended reading to help you get started.
- Radian6 Monitoring & Engagement Playbook: Radian6 shares their own processes for engaging in the online world with their Social Media Monitoring and Engagement Playbook.
- An Open Source Playbook For Building Welcoming Communities: This is an open source guide that reviews building a community that encourages people to use, contribute to, and evangelize your project with chapters: setting your project up for success, growing your community, and resolving conflicts.
- Red Cross Social Engagement Handbook: A handbook outlining steps that Red Cross units can take to have highly engaged and successful social engagement programs.
- Grundfos Social Business Cookbook: Grundfos created this cookbook to discuss the greater social business environment.
- SCARF: A Brain-Based Model For Collaborating With And Influencing Others
Two Ways to Access the Engagement Resource Bundle:
You can access the resources in the Engagement Resource Bundle by either subscribing to the stand-alone bundle or subscribing to TheCR Library to access the Engagement Bundles and the rest of the Library content (including dozens of Reports, webinars, case studies, podcasts and other resource bundles. Choose the best option for you below:
I just want the Engagement Resource Bundle.
I want to subscribe to the entire Library.
