How to Build a Community Operations Team  ## Metadata - Author: [[Common Room]] - Full Title: How to Build a Community Operations Team - Category: #articles - Document Note: ## Summarize: This article focuses on the importance of community operations in nurturing and growing online communities. As communities become crucial drivers of business growth, organizations are adopting community-led growth (CLG) strategies due to the limitations of traditional marketing and sales methods. However, scaling communities presents challenges such as handling abundant data, driving membership and engagement, and reporting on community impact. Community operations play a vital role in overcoming these challenges by ensuring smooth functioning, effective communication, and goal alignment. The responsibilities of community operations involve both front-of-house and back-of-house tasks. Front-of-house tasks include member advocacy, empowering members through programs and events, while back-of-house tasks encompass project management, data processes, reporting, and building the community tech stack. The article emphasizes the skills to look for when hiring community ops candidates, such as project management, communication, community management experience, data analysis, knowledge of community tooling, and problem-solving abilities. Moreover, it suggests evaluating candidates based on company values to ensure a good fit. To staff the community operations team effectively, the article proposes a three-pronged hiring process, consisting of a take-home exercise, a cross-functional panel presentation, and a values interview. Once hired, community ops professionals need to be equipped with the right tools, such as communication platforms, project management tools, analytics, and customer relationship management tools. ## Bullet Points: ### Importance of Community Operations - Community-led growth (CLG) is a powerful strategy for business growth. - Challenges of scaling communities include handling abundant data, driving membership and engagement, and reporting on community impact. ### Responsibilities of Community Operations #### Front-of-House Tasks - Member advocacy and customer support. - Creating and managing community programs and growth initiatives. - Setting KPIs and ensuring goal alignment. #### Back-of-House Tasks - Project management and timeline tracking. - Data analysis and reporting on community engagement. - Building and scaling the community tech stack. ### Skills for Community Ops Candidates - Project management and multitasking abilities. - Strong communication skills for liaison with various stakeholders. - Experience in community management to understand community needs. - Proficiency in data analysis and reporting. - Knowledge of community tooling and platforms. - Effective problem-solving skills for both front and back-of-house challenges. ### Hiring Process for Community Operations 1. Take-home exercise to assess candidates' skills. 2. Cross-functional panel presentation to evaluate communication abilities. 3. Values interview to ensure alignment with company values. ### Equipping Community Ops for Success - Essential tools include communication platforms, project management tools, analytics, and customer relationship management tools. - Common Room is mentioned as a tool that helps community ops tackle various challenges. ## Paraphrase: ### Importance of Community Operations As businesses increasingly adopt community-led growth strategies due to the limitations of traditional marketing and sales methods, the role of community operations becomes crucial in nurturing and scaling online communities. Community operations play a significant role in overcoming challenges related to handling abundant data, driving membership and engagement, and effectively reporting on community impact. ### Responsibilities of Community Operations Front-of-house community operations involve member advocacy, ensuring timely responses to member queries, and maintaining knowledge bases. Community ops professionals also empower members through managing community programs and growth initiatives, setting KPIs, and ensuring goal alignment. Back-of-house community operations encompass project management, tracking program timelines and action items. Data analysis and reporting on community engagement and activity are essential to inform decision-making. Additionally, community ops are responsible for building and scaling the technology stack, including communication platforms and integrations. ## Conclusion: Community operations are indispensable in fostering community-led growth strategies. The role involves managing challenges such as abundant data, membership engagement, and community impact reporting. Front-of-house responsibilities focus on member advocacy and empowerment, while back-of-house tasks involve project management, data analysis, and building the community tech stack. Hiring the right community ops candidates with key skills and values is critical, and a three-pronged approach to hiring is suggested. Equipping community ops with the right tools sets them up for success in creating thriving online communities. ## Questions: 1. How does community-led growth (CLG) differ from traditional marketing and sales methods, and what challenges does it aim to address? 2. What are the key responsibilities of community operations in both front-of-house and back-of-house tasks? 3. What essential skills and expertise should organizations look for when hiring community ops candidates? 4. How can community ops professionals tackle challenges related to limited resources, overlapping job responsibilities, and unaligned objectives? 5. What is the significance of the three-pronged hiring process for community operations, and how can it help in identifying the right candidates? 6. How can organizations ensure their community ops team aligns with company values while maintaining necessary skills and expertise? 7. What are some crucial tools that community ops professionals should have access to in order to succeed in their roles? 8. How does Common Room assist community ops professionals in overcoming common challenges in managing online communities? ## Auto-tagging: Community Operations, Community-led Growth, Scaling Communities, Challenges, Data Management, Membership Engagement, Reporting, Front-of-House Tasks, Back-of-House Tasks, Project Management, Data Analysis, Communication Skills, Hiring Process, Values Alignment, Tools for Community Ops, Common Room. ## Index Creation: - Community-led Growth (CLG): Importance and challenges, 1 - Responsibilities of Community Operations: Front-of-house and back-of-house tasks, 2 - Front-of-House Tasks: Member advocacy, empowerment, and engagement, 2 - Back-of-House Tasks: Project management, data analysis, and tech stack, 2 - Skills for Community Ops Candidates: Project management, communication, community management experience, data analysis, knowledge of community tooling, problem-solving, 3 - Hiring Process for Community Operations: Three-pronged approach - take-home exercise, panel presentation, values interview, 4 - Equipping Community Ops for Success: Essential tools for effective community operations, 5 ## Table of Contents: 1. Introduction 2. Importance of Community Operations - Challenges of Community-led Growth (CLG) 3. Responsibilities of Community Operations - Front-of-House Tasks - Back-of-House Tasks 4. Skills for Community Ops Candidates 5. Hiring Process for Community Operations - Three-Pronged Approach 6. Equipping Community Ops for Success - Essential Tools - Common Room's Role 7. Conclusion 8. Thought-Provoking Questions 9. Auto-Tagging 10. Index Creation ## References: The article doesn't provide any references or citations. ## Future Research: - How can organizations effectively address the challenges of limited resources and overlapping responsibilities faced by community ops teams? - In what ways can community-led growth strategies be optimized and integrated with traditional marketing and sales methods for maximum impact? - What are the long-term effects of community operations on sustained community and business growth? - How can organizations ensure that community ops professionals remain aligned with company values while performing their d - Document Tags: [[clg]] [[community ops]] - Summary: A look at the qualities of a great community operations manager, how to hire for the role (or roles), and how to set your team up for success. - URL: https://www.commonroom.io/blog/how-to-build-a-community-operations-team/ How to build a community operations team As a community leader, nurturing and growing your community is your number one priority. You may start off on this journey alone, but as your community grows, you’ll want to [build a team of community professionals](https://www.commonroom.io/blog/structuring-community-teams/) who can extend your program to bring increased value to your members and organization. As your community continues to scale, creating a dedicated role (or team!) for [community operations](https://www.commonroom.io/blog/guide-to-community-operations/) will become imperative. This function works across the program, often behind the scenes, to ensure everything is running smoothly for your members and that you’re able to effectively communicate impact back to the business. In this article, we reveal the qualities of a great community operations team, how to hire for it, and how to set your team up for success. To compare notes with 1500+ community and DevRel leaders on how they’re growing their teams, join us in the [Uncommon Community Slack](https://www.commonroom.io/join-slack/). #### Why operations are crucial to community growth Community is a powerful growth driver for your business. Many [top organizations](https://www.commonroom.io/customers/) are turning to community-led growth (CLG) as traditional go-to-market and product discovery methods are becoming less effective. * [65% of Google searches end without a click](https://searchengineland.com/zero-click-google-searches-rose-to-nearly-65-in-2020-347115) making it harder to reach prospects via SEO programs. * [Average blog growth rates are down 1.6%](https://www.digitopia.agency/blog/inbound-2022-summary-first-day) as there is an abundance of available content, making it harder for posts to stand out. With all the shortcomings of old school marketing and sales methods, organizations are looking to community to fuel business growth. And while [CLG is an effective strategy](https://www.commonroom.io/blog/why-community-is-an-effective-go-to-market-growth-strategy/), it is not without its own challenges, particularly as a community scales. Some of these challenges include: * Making sense of an abundance of data * Driving membership AND engagement * Reporting on community impact ##### Making sense of an abundance of data As your members grow in number, so too will the data around them and their activity within the community. It’s also likely you’ll need to build out and track new channels, like a new [Discord server](https://www.commonroom.io/resources/ultimate-guide-to-discord-community-management/) or Stack Overflow forum, but then you find yourself disorganized with information spread out all over multiple tools. Without a person responsible for bringing these disparate views together, whether manually or using a [community management platform](https://www.commonroom.io/blog/how-to-get-started-with-a-community-led-growth-platform/)—you’ll reach a point where you’re unable to keep up with your members to ensure they’re getting value from the community or effectively articulate the impact of community on the business. ##### Driving membership and engagement Having a large membership is a nice metric, but it’s only beneficial to your community if your online space is engaging so members receive actual value or benefit from their participation. Plus, without engagement, your company won’t be able to convert users to customers, or upsell in order to increase the lifetime value of each customer. ##### Reporting on community impact The larger, more engaged, and more distributed a community, the harder the reporting—at least when intelligence and automation aren’t employed. Stakeholders and leadership will want to continually see metrics and analysis as they relate to community growth. And it’s going to be hard, if not impossible, to deliver reporting at a regular cadence without a dedicated role managing this data and process. [Community operations](https://www.commonroom.io/blog/guide-to-community-operations/) supports the community program as a whole by setting goals, tracking top metrics, and making decisions about your community tech stack—as well as the execution of individual initiatives or events. Its purpose is to examine and optimize community functions and processes, allowing you to overcome challenges and meet your community objectives more effectively. In other words, community operations is the lubrication that allows your community to fire on all cylinders, free from the friction brought on by these pain points so you can hit your community and business goals #### The responsibilities of community ops To envision the role of community ops, think of a restaurant. In an analogy coined by [Tiffany Oda](https://tiffeoda.wixsite.com/commopsgal), co-founder of [Community OPServations](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuKhlXFC4bQ3kaSgTpWrzkA), there’s the restaurant front of house (where customers eat) which is similar to the public facing part of your community where members engage. Then there’s the restaurant back of house (the kitchen) which is similar to where project management, data analysis, and technical stack evaluation takes place. Community operations is like a restaurant general manager who goes back and forth between the front of house and back of house, making sure that everyone has what they need, remediating issues, and ensuring things are running as smoothly as possible. Front of house community operations involves: * **Member advocacy**: Community operations play a part in customer support, ensuring community members' questions are responded to in a timely manner. While they may not be responding to queries themselves, they ensure the community’s internal and external knowledge bases (help articles, documentation, policies, guidelines, terms of use, etc.) are maintained and up-to-date. All of these assets help community members and the company reps supporting them find answers when they have questions or concerns. * **Member empowerment**: Ops professionals lend a hand in creating and managing community programs (nurture and [champion programs](https://docs.commonroom.io/discover-popular-use-cases/build-a-champions-program)), events, and growth initiatives. They’re responsible for working with community managers to set KPIs and then ensure everything is in place so that a community can meet its objectives. Back of house community operations involves: * **Project management**: Community ops manage program timelines and action items. They also liaise between stakeholders and project owners, keeping everyone aligned and ensuring process execution. * **Data processes and reporting**: Ops track and report metrics and KPIs. The team analyzes data to identify trends and improve the community experience. They also create and develop responses to surveys about the community experience from an operational perspective. * **Building the community tech stack**: In today’s digital world, a community’s success often hinges on the [technology](https://www.commonroom.io/blog/building-your-community-technology-stack/) that enables it to thrive. Community ops ensures that conversation platforms, integrations, and community building tools are performing as intended. The team is also responsible for scaling the tech stack as required in order to meet the evolving needs of the community. ##### What’s challenging about community ops? Community ops individuals and teams are likely to face a few common internal challenges in the course of their job. Watch out for: * **Limited or lack of resources**: Nearly every department in an organization can relate to this challenge. Whether it’s too few personnel to meet the needs of the community, or not enough funding to execute on the community growth strategy (e.g., no budget to stage in-person events or run an ambassador program), a community ops manager will likely have to navigate a lack of desired resources. That is why a successful community ops manager is someone who is persuasive, and has the right tools and processes for articulating the impact of community to secure support and resources from stakeholders. * **Overlapping job responsibilities**: If it seems like some of the job responsibilities of a community ops manager overlaps with that of a [community manager role](https://www.commonroom.io/blog/community-manager-goals-responsibilities/), well, you’re not wrong. There are some shared responsibilities, which may cause friction, misunderstandings, and inefficiencies—but it doesn't have to be that way. An effective community ops manager is someone who can provide clarity around tasks and can ensure colleagues operate at maximum efficiency. * **Unaligned objectives**: Because community contributes to an organization in so many different ways, it’s common to find yourself with unaligned KPIs—both within your team and with the broader business. The front-facing community management team may not be totally in-sync with the DevRel, customer success, product, and marketing teams. Acting as the designated go-between, a community ops manager is someone who can liaise between the different parties to set expectations and balance the needs of the different stakeholders so everyone is rowing in the same direction. #### How to grow a community operations team While each community team will be different based on your organization and its needs, we’ve seen a typical pattern in how teams grow to add a distinct community ops role. Team growth will generally start with a set of community managers who also perform the job of community ops with part of their time. As membership scales, community leaders will be in a position to advocate for more headcount which will then include a dedicated community ops hire. ##### Skills to look for in community ops candidates If you’ve gotten the green light to hire a dedicated community operations manager—congrats! This is an exciting milestone and your community program is about to level up. When hiring for a community ops, teams should look for candidates with the following essential skills and expertise: * **Project management**: Much of the responsibilities of a community operations professional involves managing multiple tasks and projects. The ideal candidate is someone capable of juggling multiple projects and keeping track of important information and metrics. * **Strong communication**: Community ops professionals must liaise between many parties from peers on the community team all the way up to your executives, so it’s very important they have strong and persuasive written and verbal communication skills. * **Community management experience**: In order to understand the needs of the community and their CM counterparts, the ideal candidate will have community management experience allowing them to find solutions to problems they may have encountered in their previous role. * **Data analysis and reporting**: Community ops professionals should have experience with analyzing data and metrics. They must be comfortable crunching numbers as they’ll have to generate data-backed reports on community engagement and activity to inform decision-making. * **Knowledge of community tooling**: While community ops professionals often aren’t directly managing communities, they should still possess knowledge of [community tooling](https://www.commonroom.io/integrations/) including forums, chat, and social media platforms to succeed in their role. They’ll be responsible for sourcing and leading the purchase of these products to create the best tech stack for the community, and, as such, should have experience with them. * **Problem-solving:** Problems will continually arise both in front of house and back of house, so candidates need to be able to quickly identify and solve these issues to ensure sustained community and business growth. ##### Setting criteria for new hires But it’s not just skills and expertise, you want to ensure your new community ops hire will embody and amplify your [company’s values](https://www.commonroom.io/careers/#values). Be sure you’re evaluating with this important criteria in mind as well. When staffing our community operations team at Common Room, we prioritize candidates who are customer-centric, strive for simplicity, make it happen, and remember that we’re all in this together. In time and with persistence we were able to fill out a team that fit the bill in both skills and values. #### A three-pronged hiring process for community operations Ready to staff your community operations team, but not sure if you’ve developed an effective hiring process to land the perfect hires? We’ve got some experience in the area and have modeled a three-pronged approach that you can use or adapt to your needs. At Common Room, our hiring process consists of: 1. **A take-home exercise**: An exercise related to the position where candidates have time and space to deliberate on the material and deliver something they feel confident about. 2. **A cross-functional panel presentation**: Community ops roles require speaking with all types of people across departments, so a presentation provides candidates with the opportunity to show their talents in this area. 3. **A values interview**: In this stage of the interview, interviewers ask direct questions to gauge whether the candidate shares our company values. The three-pronged approach gives candidates different opportunities to shine, and hiring teams a way to better evaluate candidates to gauge whether they have what it takes to succeed in the role. #### Setting up community ops for success After you’ve made your community ops hire (or hires, if you’re especially lucky), be sure to set them up for success by equipping them with the right tools. These will empower your new hire to deliver their best work. You’ll likely have many of these tools embedded in your team already, but consider: * **Communication tools:** These chat platforms (like [Slack or Discord](https://www.commonroom.io/blog/discord-vs-slack-vs-discourse-as-your-community-channel/)) will span both your team and community, so teammates can communicate and collaborate effectively, as well as respond quickly to community members' inquiries and concerns to create more delightful experiences. * **Project management tools**: These internal-only tools (Asana, Monday.com) are designed to track tasks, deadlines, and progress on community-related projects. They enable the team to effectively manage and prioritize community-related initiatives, ensuring timely and successful completion. * **Analytics and metrics tools**: These include community management platforms (like [Common Room](https://www.commonroom.io/solutions/community/)) designed to track and measure engagement, sentiment, and other metrics related to community health and impact. These tools provide valuable insights and help community ops make data-driven decisions about community growth and engagement strategies. * **Customer relationship management tools**: CRMs (Salesforce, HubSpot) are designed to help you manage interactions with prospects and customers so that they enjoy a positive experience with your company. When [integrated with a community management platform](https://www.commonroom.io/blog/common-room-hubspot-integration/), you can extend these insights to track interactions with community members to give them a more seamless community and customer experience. #### How Common Room helps community ops succeed [Common Room](https://www.commonroom.io/) helps community ops professionals tackle many of the common challenges captured above. [Integrations with a wide range of tools](https://www.commonroom.io/integrations/), like Slack, Twitter, Reddit, Salesforce, and more, provide comprehensive visibility into your community. With Common Room, a community ops pro can easily access and leverage data from all community channels, providing a single source of truth for everything happening within the community. This visibility helps the team better manage programs, coordinate member outreach, and nurture relationships. With [robust metrics and reporting](https://docs.commonroom.io/discover-popular-use-cases/measure-and-report-community-impact), Common Room helps you prove the ROI of your community and tie community impact to business outcomes. The platform automates repetitive (and often unreliable) manual tasks such as data collection, analysis, and reporting so community ops pros can spend more time devising and executing strategies to hit KPIs rather than on data foraging and number crunching. [Contact us](https://www.commonroom.io/contact/?website_attribution=blog%252Fhow-to-build-a-community-operations-team) to learn more about how we can enable your team to better support your community and unlock it as a growth engine for your organization. If you want to learn more about community operations, check out our guide [**What does a community operations manager do?**](https://www.commonroom.io/blog/what-does-a-community-operations-manager-do/) Or hear directly from community leaders who have hired community ops team members (or from the ops pros themselves!) in the [Uncommon Community Slack](https://www.commonroom.io/join-slack/)., How to Build a Community Operations Team, Common Room, 01gvr0ef39h3x9v9w4ysc5sm55.