The Community Roundtable’s Community Management 101 for Associations Course outlines the scope of the community manager role in association communities and provides prescriptive approaches for successful community management.
Learning objectives for this self-directed online course include:
- Recognize and implement strategies and tactics for advocacy (including leadership development)
- Identify how online community programs help associations promote change and innovation
- Understand the role of an online community as a knowledge resource center
- Develop ways to maximize an online community program as a productive communications channel for members, volunteers, stakeholders, and employees.
You will have 120 days to complete the course.
This course includes eight sessions, with associated quizzes and worksheets, covering these topics:
- Community Management Definitions
This session explores the characteristics of online communities and the role and scope of community management. You'll explore what defines an online community, the dynamics of online communities, the role and scope of community management, and the risks related to poor community management.
- Community Strategy
This session focuses on preparing, communicating, and acting on your community strategy. You'll learn, the elements of a community strategy, how to articulate goals in a way that sets your community up for success, how to understand your community’s context, and how to turn strategy into action
- Community Technology
At the end of this session you'll understand the three layers of community technology, the importance of integrating community technology into the overall management of a community program, and best practices for using the Community Technology Framework™.
- Community Personas
. At the conclusion of this session, you'll understand how to identify potential member segments, how to prioritize them, and how to profile them.
- Community Content and Programs
In this session, you'll explore content and programming as important elements of a community that help members find value and make connections. You'll learn the role of content and programming in a community, how to develop effective community content and programming plans, and how to use member-generated content to build shared value.
- Kickstarting Online Engagement
At the end of this session you will understand the key practices in building engagement in online communities, examples of those key practices, and an action plan for the first few weeks.
- Building Community Value
At the end of this session, you will be able to define the kind of engagement you need, understand how and why individuals engage, and build engagement recipes that are aligned with your goals.
- Measurement and Reporting
This session focuses on understanding what to track and measure as well as how to communicate community performance. You'll learn: what to track, how to align measurement and reporting to community maturity, how to identify and communicate value, and how to report appropriately to different audiences.