Content Potluck:

Bringing Everyone to the

Community Table

Laurel Nicholes — Director, Tech Comms Services, F5 Networks

Niki Vecsei Harrold — Director, Community Strategy, TransAmerica

Agenda 1. A little history...

2. Community Maturity

3. Problem to solve

4. Content Potluck, defined

5. Find your Champions

6. Gains for you and your audience

7. Success Stories

A little history...

Internet BBS UseNet IRC Forums Blogs Social &Community

Maturity of

CommunityAdvocacyDrives Marketing

effectiveness

•Product Seeding

•Content Creation

•Sharing

FeedbackDrives innovation, product

quality and financials

•Ideation

•Product Testing / Customer Experience

•Community Building

SupportImproves customerexperience; reduces

cost of support

•Question and Answer

•Search Results

•Collaborative Help

E

V

O

L

U

T

I

O

N

Problem to solve...

51% of companies

surveyed

do not ensure

consistent content

across channels.

Why?...

• No unified content strategy

(42%)

• Tool chains don’t connect

(41%)

• Manual terminology

management

(71%)

Co

nte

nt

Po

tlu

ck

● Interlock between siloed teams

● Mine your own content

● Enterprise-wide content ideas

● Content managed from a centralized location

● No one can hide!

● Social Media promotion

Results?

● A rich assortment of

content

● Support for different

information foraging

styles

●Unified team and

strategy

●Diverse content types

Solve

the

Problem

A single forum can address:

● Unified Content Strategy○ Common content goals ○ Audience identification

techniques

● Disconnected Tools○ The current state ○ A roadmap forward○ Build enterprise solutions

together

● Terminology

○ Collaborative term definitions○ Terminology compliance

automation

Find your Champions

● Inventory current content owners

● Identify groups that have rich

insights

○ Who is passionate about

customer experience?

● Identify barriers to entry

A list to get you started

TraditionalContent Developers

● Digital & Product Marketing

● Information Development

● Training

● Knowledge Base Authors

Broaden the Scope

● Customer Service

● Sales Engineers

● Evangelists

● Professional Services

● Engineers

● No slides!

● Discuss:○ Projects in flight.

○ SR themes

● Build an editorial

calendar.

● Identify gaps and

solutions.

POP:Potluck

Operating

Principles

Inte

rlo

ck A

ge

nd

a

• Set specific goals

• Track attendance

• Share and engage in real time

• Assign action items

PO

LLHow do you track content projects today?

A. Editorial CalendarB. SpreadsheetC. SmartSheet or other cloud collaboration toolD. Other toolsE. We don’t track content projects.

Editorial

Calendar

● Color coded by

content type

● Assigned to owners

● Hard delivery date

with reminders

Ch

am

pio

n

En

gag

em

en

t • MBO’d & Recognition

• Badges

• User Meetups

• Super User programs

• AMA sessions

• Tweet Chat

• Facebook Live

• Blogs

Use

All t

he

Co

nte

ntNow What?

Syndicate your content for better exposure:

● Social Media

● Communities

● Webcasts/ Webinars

● Customer Meetings

● Channel/ Partner marketing

● Intranet/ Internal Wiki

Ga

ins f

or

cu

sto

me

rs:

● Real world, trusted content

● Diverse points of view

● Networking and career growth

● Rich variety of content types

● Platform to co-create

● Caveat: clearly mark corporate content

PO

LLHow do you gather feedback today?

A. SurveysB. Ask Me Anything DiscussionsC. Community or Social MediaD. Customer UX ResearchE. None of the above

Ga

ins f

or

yo

u:

● Grow content audience, community membership.

● Real-time feedback

○ Sentiment analysis

○ Gap and depth analysis

● Avoid duplication, build consistency

● Content investment ROI

What to

Measure?● Unique views

● Time on page

● Video views

● Most liked (Kudoed) content or author

● Traffic referral source

Wh

at

to m

easu

re:

Co

nte

nt

Wh

at

to m

ea

su

re:

Co

mm

un

ity

● Repeat vs. new visitors

● Traffic pattern within the community

● Depth of conversation threads

● Questions resolved by peers or SME’s

● Time to resolution

Success Metrics

• Uptime Bulletin (pdf) to HTML: 111 views to 8,901 views

• Marketing video: 50 views vs. SME blog post: 10,005 views

• Social Media Sharing: 250% growth in engagement (raising 5.3x per post)

• AMA thread on average 4,053 views vs. regular pages ~2256 views (~80% growth)

Best Practices for a Potluck

• Keep Champions engaged

• Keep the meeting periodical

• Share feedback on success and failure with the Interlock Group

• Identify rewards for participating

Thank you for your attention!

Nikoletta Vecsei HarroldDirector Communities Strategy,

Transamerica@Nikschen

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikolettavecsei

Laurel NicholesDirector, Tech Comms Services,

F5 Networks@LaurelNicholes

https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurelnicholes