This weekend I had the pleasure of being one of the speakers at #CLASummit23 organized by Community Leads Africa, which is a community focused on Community Leads. In this article, I’m writing a summary of what I spoke about based on my experience as a Community Lead at SpaceYaTech and hoping it helps one or two people who are community leaders or interested in diving on the path:

As community leads it’s good to use technology to help leverage community engagement & effective communication through having regular meetings as leads, valuing feedback, and timely communication.

To help build trust with the community, enhance community channels, leverage technology like social media and productivity tools to optimize engagement & cultivate a sense of belonging.

Role of Community Leads:

• They foster engagement and build vibrant communities

• People join communities because:

  • They are looking for a common interest:

    • beginners looking for a community that can help them get started

    • Junior/mid-level tech talent(developers/designers/PMs/DevOps/CyberSec) etc looking for their peers in their area of specialization, or projects they can contribute to gain experience

    • Experienced tech talent looking to support a community or access junior/mid-level talent to mentor, refer to opportunities or avenues to showcase their projects/experience, etc

  • Since a certain Community Lead is part of the people leading this community

• Community leads: Have to ask themselves questions like:

  • How do we keep the community engaged?

  • Are the engagement strategy we are picking in line with our community goal?

  • Our community members are members of different communities too. How do we co-exist with other communities and keep the members engaged with their goal of joining the community in mind?

Tools

• Calls: Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Slack Huddles, etc

• Productivity/Documentation: Notion, Github, Google Sheets/Docs, Life Planner, etc

• Design: Canva, Figma, Adobe Photoshop, etc - Posters/Designs

• Community Engagement - Discord, Slack, Rocketchat, Whatsapp

• Social Media - Twitter, Linkedin, IG, Facebook, Discord

• Blog - Hashnode, Medium, Dev.to, etc

N/A: A community’s choice of tools will differ based on preference, what a community find works for them it doesn’t have to be the same.

Community in common voice and a way to relate to our goals and those of the user who is a community member:

• Content creation: content should be created prior and should be in line with the community’s goals and those of members

• Community leads should communicate frequently for sustainability

Building trust within communities through:

• Effective communication

  • Frequent meetings either weekly or bi-weekly

  • Make use of the tools: post messages, schedule calls, hold discussions, give each other feedback, identify loopholes, etc

  • Transparency: make major decisions open to all leads to avoid any rift, and not to put leads in awkward situations when they’re asked about certain details by community members.

  • Empathy:

    • Make it known as a Community Leads that anyone can talk about anything

    • Acknowledge mental health, family or work issues and the need for a break during such overwhelming times

    • Skill gap or overload the need for support

Optimize Communication Channels

• Having a big number of community leads, share roles/responsibilities based on strength.

E.g. Some can be community managers, content creators, technical leads(design/code/cloud/PM), etc. Others Leads can chip in conversations where they can share specific insights

• Share feedback with relevant/all community leads

• Appreciate positive feedback and also address the negative ones

Cultivating a Sense of Belonging and Inclusivity within Communities

• For a project to succeed or even the community itself, it starts with leads owning the community or any project within the community, from there it will be easy for community members to feel part of the community and even add community names on their bios and experience as contributors

• If a lead suggests a project they shouldn’t be the only one to implement and market it, other leads should also feel ownership and show support by taking part in making the project successful if it's in line with the community’s goals.

Measuring Community Engagement & Leverage data-driven insights for continuous improvement

• Community leads especially the community managers can be checking stats at the end of each month on platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, Discord, Spotify, etc based on areas of focus of the community. Then the community leads can:

  • analyze

    • Traffic made within the month

    • Specific posts that gained more engagement (did the community members relate well with the content or was it well structured?)

    • Where did we go wrong or right

  • Conclusions

    • Make plans/strategies for next month/period based on this

Case Studies & Real-Word Examples of Successful Engagement Initiatives

• Make use of user research (ask community members what they want based on you planning to work on, it can help with insights)

• Conduct case studies of successful communities/tools

In conclusion, empowering community engagement is essential for the success and sustainability of any community. By leveraging technology, implementing effective communication strategies, and fostering a sense of belonging and inclusivity, community leads can create thriving communities. Through measuring community engagement, utilizing data-driven insights, and drawing inspiration from successful initiatives, community leads can continuously improve and ensure the long-term growth and impact of their communities.

Attaching Summary points from SuperNormal App, an AI extension that writes your meeting notes.

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