Community Management is About Kicking Field Goals
Community management is about small stuff. It’s about a lot of small actions adding up to a bigger goal. It’s not about home runs, it’s about base hits. It’s not about touchdowns, it’s about field goals.
For those who might not appreciate the sports analogies, in the game of American football, a touchdown is usually good for 7 points. A field goal is 3. It is not uncommon for the team who made the most field goals to also win the game, even if the other team scored more touchdowns.
Field goals are small victories and small victories can add up to big wins. Don’t try to make it more than it is. There are occasional touchdowns, but those come in between the many field goals. In other words, don’t manage your community looking for home runs or case studies or big moments that you can trumpet to your boss.
Those will come and when they do and it’s fine to note them and to showcase them. But sometimes I think the “digital” space, of which I’ll include community management, is too in love with case studies. To get the good stuff, you have to bring it back to the essence and that’s making a lot of field goals. Which means that you have to do the stuff that matters, but that the general public usually doesn’t see or appreciate.
Welcoming someone to the community, sending someone a private message thanking them, spending time reading through a discussion to make sure it was moderated properly – these aren’t big, flashy things. But they are how you win.
