How Dedicated Community Management is Helping These 3 Organizations Level Up Engagement

We all want more engagement in our online communities. We all want our communities to be essential parts of our users’ lives. There’s nothing more disappointing than launching a community and seeing it sit there, inactive.

And it makes sense, because without people coming, engaging, and returning, how can we reap the benefits that we know our communities can offer our organizations, like loyalty, satisfaction, and advocacy?

Whether it’s a lack of insight about the proper approach to community engagement, or limited staff time, it may not always be apparent how to advance your community.

To meet this need, three of our customers chose to work with Higher Logic’s Strategic Services, one of the largest and most experienced community management and communications teams in the industry.

Dedicated Community Management for RAPS’ Online Member Community

When the Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society (RAPS) first started their online community, they didn’t just want it to become another marketing channel. They knew proper planning was necessary.

Since RAPS’ top goal for their online community was to get members engaged, they needed to think strategically. But leadership at RAPS identified a major gap in their setup: the lack of a dedicated community owner.

Want some of those strategies and tactics for increasing online community engagement? Check out our eBook: Getting More Engagement In Your Online Community. 

RAPS decided to work with one of Higher Logic Strategic Services’ community managers, who started by launching an ambassador program to encourage members to respond in the community, as well as a volunteer program to get more members engaged in the community.

Wesley Carr, Director of Stakeholder Engagement at RAPS, said, “Unless you’re going to have a dedicated staff member to manage your community, I highly recommend Higher Logic’s Strategic Services. A community needs time, focus, and energy to thrive, and we just didn’t have the bandwidth. Our Higher Logic community manager took our community from a communication channel to a top member benefit.”

Their community manager added several new community activities to increase engagement and help RAPS accomplish their overall goals:

• #TipTuesday: Every Tuesday, RAPS now shares a tip of the week
• Volunteer Appreciation week: Each day of one week, the community manager highlights a different RAPS member
• Community microsites: RAPS now has a dedicated place for non-members to get strategic guidance as a new channel for member acquisition
• Ask Me Anything: Every quarter, the community manager invites an expert to participate in a community AMA

Wes adds, “Because of our Higher Logic community manager’s efforts, we saw our engagement increase by a huge amount. For us, and for any membership association, we know that the more members are engaged, the more likely they are to renew, have their colleagues and join and renew.”

With Strategic Services, RAPS has seen:

• 96% increase in logins
• 277% increase in posts
• 102% growth in views per post
• 138% growth in replies per post

(By the way, measuring community engagement just got easier with our Engagement Benchmark Score.)

Hear RAPS explain their top member benefit, the online community, in their own words:

ASA Grew Community Engagement with Higher Logic’s Strategic Services

The American Staffing Association (ASA) launched their Higher Logic community over seven years ago, and although they felt like they had a fairly healthy community, they knew that it could both be more engaging and that there was untapped potential with some of the features the platform offered.

This came on the heels of one of their team members leaving, so they also didn’t have the bandwidth to dedicate the time they knew the community needed.

In short, it was the perfect chance to try working with a community manager from Higher Logic’s Strategic Services.

Diana Mertz, ASA’s Senior Director, Councils and Member Engagement, said: “As a long-time client of Higher Logic, working with Strategic Services has challenged processes that have been in place for years. We have always seen value in community, and it always comes up as a benefit on member surveys, but this has challenged the way we were managing the community. It’s allowed us to put a little shine on an old community.”

In a little over a year and a half, since working with Higher Logic’s Strategic Services, ASA has seen a jump in key metrics:

• 23% more posts
• 126% more views per post
• 94% more replies per post

Higher Logic’s community manager, Emily, has helped ASA create a strong engagement strategy, helping them nurture the community to help the strategy come to fruition.

She challenges their thinking about old processes and helps them utilize more features to grow engagement, like automation rules.

It’s been a great opportunity for ASA’s staff to learn best practices from someone who lives and breathes community every day.

Helping ASA Rethink Old Processes

The American Staffing Association is a trade association, and their members are very personable people: recruiters. When they launched in 2013, it was at the height of the Affordable Care Act, and many staffing firms were trying to navigate tricky questions, like how to understand ACA and temp workers. Members expected a lot from ASA and the community helped ASA meet their need for guidance and connection.

But Diana felt like their tone was overly corporate in the community, and she needed some outside perspective to shape that. So far, she’s loved working with Emily, because she helps her challenge traditional thinking and test new approaches.

Diana said, “My only experience with communities was my community, while Higher Logic’s community managers have touched hundreds of communities. It’s been a great opportunity to learn best practices from someone who lives and breathes community every day.”

Strategic Services Helps ASM International Advance Their Community

Carrie Hawk is the Community Engagement Specialist at ASM International. Carrie manages their online member community on a day-to-day basis, including moderation, updating the site design, and automation rules. She works with one of Higher Logic’s Senior Community Strategists, Laura, for guidance around community strategy.

Thanks to Laura’s help, like setting goals and giving ideas, ASM International has been able to keep their community moving forward.

Some of their strategic discussions have involved how to better engage consumers, or lurkers, how to write more engaging emails, and how to run Ask Me Anything sessions on the community.

Carrie said, “Our Higher Logic community manager brings fresh, new ideas to the table that help us to continually drive engagement. We’ve worked together to drive ‘lurkers’ to post, connect members during virtual events, and introduce emerging professionals with long-time, experience professionals. She offers encouragement, creativity, and keeps us on track to hit our goals.  The engagement reports produced by the team help demonstrate the value of our community – which has quickly become a top member benefit.”

Work with Higher Logic’s Strategic Services to Accelerate Your Engagement Strategy

When you work with our Strategic Services team, you’re leveraging the knowledge of one of the largest and most experienced community management and communications teams in the industry.

Our community strategists know how to build the right community foundation and help you execute the tactical, practical things you can do to encourage users to come, engage, and return.

We’ll help you set and exceed goals tailored to your organization’s desired outcome.

Find out more about Strategic Services.

Alex Mastrianni

Senior Manager of Product Marketing

Alex is the Senior Manager of Product Marketing at Higher Logic. Outside of work, Alex is a pop culture junkie, ice cream fanatic, and semi-pro vacation planner.