Development and Community: A Happy Marriage or an Ugly Divorce?
Often times as Community Professionals we are forced to work with what we have and accept that there are some things that are just out of our control. More often than not we are contracted to staff an environment, engage users, manage content, ensure users safety, execute QA testing and a whole slew of other services, but we are left out of key decision making and have to make the most of what we get. As a Community Manager I’ve been in a situation in which I was simply reacting to an already existing development schedule and I’ve also been able to work with development staff to enable them to integrate community and development into one cohesive package. Success can be found with either situation, but one thing is generally true, when community and development are in-sync the chances of a happy marriage is much higher.
Even if development and content creation are off limits there are still things that can be done as a Community Manager to ensure the message you are sending to the community is closely linked to the content that is coming down the pipe. It’s wise to look at a development schedule as far into the future as possible to have full understanding of where your product is headed and making sure to connect the dots. One key part of managing a community is making sure that your community is always happy today, but it’s great to have a good idea of how you’ll make them even happier tomorrow. A flexible game plan is a great way to structure your community engagement strategy so that you have a general understanding of what you’ll be doing down the line, but will also be able to make changes on the fly as needed.
Although it’s very important to never breach any boundaries, things can really take off for particular products when Community Managers are able to provide input and be more involved in creating content that matches the engagement strategy. Except for very rare cases, Community Managers will generally not be in charge of production (otherwise we’d be producers!), but a little involvement goes a long way. While we’ll probably never drive all of the development or content creation that occurs, some suggestions and input at key moments can allow you to match up your engagement strategy with content that you know is a great fit.
As with most community responsibilities communication is paramount. Often times there are entire channels of communication that are not open to a Community Manager and opening them can streamline creating the right content in the right way. As always, it is up to our clients to determine exactly what our roles are, but it is possible that our communication can enhance their product and optimize processes. It never hurts to ask!
— Teddy Boxberger