Recap notes from CMX 2023 Summit session. Grammatical errors and typos are my own 🙂

Abstract

Are you struggling to get everyone in your organization on board with your community-building efforts? Do you feel like your small team is always understaffed and overworked? Fear not, because I’m here to help. In this talk, I’ll share my tried-and-true tips and strategies for building and nurturing communities that add value to your business while also making your community members happy. And the best part? You don’t have to do it alone. I’ll draw from my experience working with small community teams and share strategies for mobilizing the entire organization to support your community-building efforts. We’ll talk about how to get buy-in from executives and other stakeholders, how to build cross-functional teams to support community initiatives, and how to measure the impact of your community efforts on the business. Plus, I’ll explore key KPIs for measuring the health and growth of your community, and share some best practices for setting and achieving community goals. So join me for this fun and informative talk, and let’s build some amazing communities together! – Sam Hepburn, Global Community Manager, Snyk

Notes

“If you don’t get a whole company involved, you don’t have time to do anything.” – Sam Hepburn

The art of scaling your team

• DevRel, R&D, Customer Success, Marketing, Product, Sales, Everyone!
• You know community can help. So speak their language and create different presentations and go to their meetings.
  • Product teams – user testing + product feedback
    • Didn’t add more work, but added integrations
  • Customer Support – reduction in tickets + help them scale + peer-to-peer support
  • DevRel – content ideas (white papers) + help them scale
  • R&D (software developers) – subject matter experts + career development
    • As managers what skills they need to develop their careers – ability to explain complex topics to an audience. Lead a team – get involved in open-source projects.
  • Sales – demonstrate how community is influencing growth.
    • Shared data (but not too much) + educate (do’s and don’ts) + trust (softer approach will help them close deals later) + we win (scaling your team)
  • Marketing teams – WIIFM? + Help them scale
    • Create a playbook on how to promote events
    • piggyback on their conferences to help grow community
    • Educate them on what we learned engaging with software developers
• Present to teams once a quarter. Identify community advocates to present community to their team and sharing their success stories to their team.

How to tap into broader organizations resources?

• Chapter Programs take a lot of work.
  • Access to tools + Limited budget + Lack of skills (marketing, writing, and promoting)
  • Concern with how much time it was taking.
    • Updated workflow: Automation and integrations. Fill out form > ChatGPT for abstract > AI writes social copies and recommends scheduling time.
      • Able to scale. Are you doing the same thing over and over? Consider AI and automations

How to showcase business value and gain buy-in from the top

• “I won’t buy you pots and pans, but if you teach me how to cook, I’ll buy your pots and pans”
• Data will be your best friend. Make decisions based on data
  • Ran 2 conferences
    • % of reg are linked to open opportnities
    • Finance opportunity allocated to those accounts
    • How much pipeline?
  • Show value in terms of financial opportunity

Summary

• Scaling team – use other members of org. Speak their language
• Tapping into org resources beyond expanding the team
• Showcasing business value by demonstrating how community work aligns with the organization’s overall goals

Rewatch session for presentation slides (flowcharts)