Community Signal

If you've ever Googled a medical condition or a new symptom that you've experienced you know that the search results leave much to be desired. When  Nina Lorez Collins  posted about symptoms of perimenopause on Facebook, she saw that many women in her network were looking for a space to talk about the same symptoms that she was experiencing. The conversation flourished into a Facebook group of ove...

Communities are good for business, but are businesses good for communities? This question has come up on the show before, specifically when  we spoke to community hosts losing their Yahoo Groups  and when  IMDb's message boards were closed and erased . What happens when corporation-led communities are determined to have outlived their usefulness to the corporation, but not to the members? Does thi...

Earlier this month, Verizon Media, the parent to Yahoo,  announced that users of Yahoo Groups had until October 28th to continue posting in their groups and until December of this year to archive all of their conversations . After December, 18+ years of conversations will be erased from Verizon Media's servers and the internet entirely. Obviously, the community is fighting back. Administrators of...

For communities that come with a membership fee, direct revenue might seem like the top benefit for your company. But the  Daily Maverick's  membership program gives them direct access to their most engaged readers, which has created benefits beyond revenue. The  Daily Maverick  has hired employees through its community, grown new company verticals thanks to the support of its community, and has g...

On this episode of Community Signal, community management consultant  Tanja Laub  gives a full report on what it's like to work as a community manager in Germany. And perhaps not too surprising, the experience is not dissimilar to what guests from the United States and other countries have described. Tanja shares a breakdown of community manager responsibilities, typical salaries, and the limitati...

On Community Signal, we talk to community professionals across all industries, from gaming, to healthcare, to photography, and more. And while our respective communities might convene over different topics, the tactics and tools that we employ to foster healthy communities are largely the same. In this episode,  Craig Dalrymple  shares how his community career started in gaming and how that knowle...

A few weeks ago, the Community Signal team was discussing the upcoming schedule for the show and talking about the then recent news that  Ravelry had decided to ban any pro-Trump related content . Community guidelines and how we moderate conversations in our respective communities are frequent topics on Community Signal, and it's also something that we work on everyday as community professionals....

If you work in games, social media, or community management, then you know that running any communications or programming around conventions like E3 and PAX requires intense planning and coordination. Fresh off of his first on the ground activation at E3,  Joe King , social media manager for  GameStop , shares the ups and downs of working conventions and of working in games community management. H...

How would the internet change if  Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act  is repealed? For U.S.-based online communities and the professionals that work for them, not for the better. In fact  David Greene , senior staff attorney and civil liberties director at the  Electronic Frontier Foundation , argues that some websites and communities would disappear altogether. They simply wouldn't be...

When did you first realize that community management was an actual job? Many of the guests on Community Signal, including Patrick and this week's guest,  Shreyas Narayanan Kutty , got their start in community management by volunteering for causes or topics that they were passionate about. After building communities as  a volunteer for the Mozilla Foundation , Shreyas found himself surrounded by co...

When Trello was acquired by  Atlassian ,  Erica Moss  went from being a team of one to a community manager with a supportive and specialized team. With this came the challenge of supporting  Atlassian's Community Leaders program , a group of Atlassian experts that share their knowledge with others. Tasked with taking the community from a Q&A forum to something more, Erica focused on what she thoug...

For all of of the convenience and value that tech companies and platforms provide, we're also starting to see just how much they take away. In this episode,  Michael Wood-Lewis , the co-founder of  Front Porch Forum , shares how big tech facilitates connections between people, but at both a monetary and social cost. In this episode, Michael and Patrick discuss how tech platforms optimize for engag...

If you're working on launching a new community initiative, there are so many case studies, tools, and knowledgeable community professionals to help you along your journey. But what if you're tasked with sunsetting a community? In this conversation, Patrick and  Luke Zimmer , manager of the educator community for the  National Geographic Society , discuss both instances. Luke has been tasked with m...

When was the last time you thought about that blank text field where members of your community can leave comments? That text field and blinking cursor are the closest we have to pauses between human interaction on the internet. In this episode, Perspective's product manager, Cj Adams , encourages us to think about how we might innovate that text field and blinking cursor in hopes of having more in...

When you're booking your next flight and wondering about your in-terminal dining options or which seat will give you the best takeoff and landing views, check to see if you're preferred airline has a community that can help out with those questions.  Southwest Airlines  does, and it might be the only online community hosted by a major airline.  Airlines are always managing customer-facing and publ...

With a global network of content moderators, it seems that Facebook might be the largest employer of community professionals in the world. But even with these resources, their content moderation practices continue to make headlines. Outsourcing this work barely seems to help Facebook keep up with the volume of content that needs to be reviewed, not to mention the toll that this takes on the often ...

Major social media platforms are using algorithms in spite of the best interests of their users, says Bruce Ableson on this episode of Community Signal. They are focused on serving you an ad at the right moment, or putting something controversial in front of you, "gaming the experience against the users to make money." Throughout the conversation, it becomes clear that this is emblematic of their...

In 2018, a common thread across Community Signal conversations was knowing how to clearly communicate the success of community across an organization. It's fitting that for our first show of 2019, we're joined by  Tammy Armstrong , someone who is passionate about using data to solve problems. Tammy and Patrick met on  KarateForums.com  and from her years as a community member and moderator, she le...

This week, Patrick and  Scott Moore  continue  their conversation commemorating three years of Community Signal , touching on a topic that's important to the work of all community professionals but that doesn't necessarily get a lot of attention: the laws and regulations that govern our work. You're probably familiar with GDPR and Section 230 of the Telecommunications Decency Act. And for those of...

This week, Community Signal proudly celebrates three years of conversations with community professionals. We're taking this opportunity to talk to Patrick about his experience running the show and giving him a chance to reflect on the state of online community management and how he's seen it develop over these past few years. We're also grateful to be joined by past guest,  Scott Moore , for this...

Over the past few months, Patrick has spoken to several leaders in the world of journalism and for this episode, we're welcoming back  Bassey Etim , community editor at the  New York Times . Bassey was originally on  Community Signal  in December of 2015 and it's overwhelming to think about how public perception of the media and the  Times , in particular, has changed since then. To give you some...

Jason Falls  knows where your customers are talking. He's studied conversations for several years and, time and time again, he's shed light on an inconvenient truth for brands: If you're ignoring online forums, you're probably ignoring a substantial part of the conversations happening in public – maybe even a majority of them. And it usually doesn't matter what industry you're in. Banking?  90% ....

Spotify's Rock Stars  are super users, officially recognized by the company and given tools, resources, guidance and perks for answering questions and starting conversations in their online community and helping users on Twitter, through the  @AskRockStars  account. With more than 150 members, the program will celebrate its  fifth birthday  next month. Each year,  Spotify  hosts  Rock Star Jam , a...

Local newsrooms are tasked with representing their local communities and the issues and topics that matter to them. For that reason, it seems especially important for there to be reader advisory boards and feedback loops in place to ensure that the local community can share feedback with the newsroom. But if your newsroom or publication is in a pre-community state,  Rebecca Quarl  has suggestions...

As community professionals, we have more tools than ever to help us do our jobs. That said, the qualities that make an online community and an online community professional successful are likely largely the same today as they were 10, 20, or even 30 years ago. This episode of Community Signal focuses on those exact qualities and opportunities to delight. If you're applying for a job in community,...