What kind of community do you manage/facilitate as a Community Manager?
An Australian-based parenting community

Is this community independent (on it’s own) or subsidized by a brand/company/organization?
The community was started in 2000 and was acquired by a large media (traditional + digital) organization in 2007.

How many members does your community count?
We have 180,000 registered members and just over 100,000 active (UBs) per month. We have a volunteer moderation team of 27.

What is the ratio between active (the creators) and passive (the lurkers) members?
Although it’s contested by many I believe in the 90-9-1 theory of participation inequality, and feel it’s reflective of site activity.

What is the main goal of the community?
Sharing the real journey of motherhood. To provide friendship, support and assistance to parents (and parents-to-be) no matter what challenges parenting throws at you!

How did the community start?
The site originally contained parenting articles and also an e-commerce shop selling baby goods. The forums were only a small component of the site but they grew exponentially over the years.

When do you consider the community you’re responsible for successful?
When a community gets to a level of self-sufficiency and gains enough momentum that it doesn’t need you to be actively foster discussion and participate, I believe it’s successful. When your community gets to that level you find your job as a Community Manager shifts to other tasks, perhaps more administrative or strategic; so you are very much vital to its success behind-the-scenes, but the community itself has momentum without you. This will vary from community to community however, as success can be hard to define.

Does the rest of the organization feel the same way about that?
In a broader business perspective it necessary to measure the community’s success in terms of revenue and performance.

How would you describe the culture/atmosphere of the community?
Due to the huge array of forums we host (over 150) there is a different atmosphere from forum to forum. The popular general forums are full of heated debate and differ greatly from a needs-based forum such a premature babies or women using assisted conception.
For a huge number of members the forum can have a life changing impact on members. Some members are geographically isolated in Australia, others might have children with special needs, face relationship challenges etc, so being able to find others and seek advice can have a huge impact on their day-to-day life.
The forum is also known for a certain level of honesty, which can be affronting for some. We try to walk the tightrope between over and under moderation, whilst making the site friendly, inclusive and real, all at the same time. It’s tough!
Which techniques do you use to create a ‘feeling of community’ between the members (voting, karma)
The experience of being pregnant, having a baby and raising a child are such deeply personal events that serve to bond the community without needing to work at it. People reach out and help each other every day and karma is very quickly developed through these interactions.

Do you organize off line community meetings?
Members organize local meets in thousands of places across Australia. They are generally Mums-Group style meets and are often at local playgrounds or a members’ home.

What works really well in your community? (group dynamics wise)
One of the challenges of managing such a large community is maintaining the intimate atmosphere that attracted so many founding members. One way we’ve scaled the community is by breaking down the forums into sub-forums and also offering hundreds of “buddy groups” – threads dedicated to specific groups. Any group of members can request their own buddy group. Our team of Moderators also play a huge role at keeping each of their areas in check.

What would you like to see different or improve about your community?
It can be hard to make a lot of changes (development wise) when working in a large media organization, so it would be nice to have a quicker turnaround on improvements (and bugs!). Additional tools for members would be nice. All that said I think it’s a hugely successful forum in its own right so I’d have hesitations about attempting to “improve” it too much – by and large members don’t like change.

To what department does the community belong?
The Community Manager sits in a content/editorial/product team but reports directly to the General Manager.
How are department such as marketing, PR and customer service involved with the community?
Our marketing staff member looks after the community we have on Facebook, and we use it more as a tool to drive people to the site.

What does the future of the community look like?
In the space of two years we’ve grown from 120K to 180K so I imagine the future holds a lot more members! With 250,000 babies being born in Australia each year, we have quite a big target audience which is refreshed every year!
We are currently restructuring the moderation team and implementing a middle layer of Team Leaders, giving them more responsibilities within the community. So it will be interesting to see where this takes us, as I like to think we’re a best practice example within the world of online communities.

Which are your responsibilities as a CM?
Managing a team of moderators, reporting bugs/improvements, working with developers to implement changes, assessing overall performance of the community, integrating community/UGC content into the broader site and vice versa.

What do you like the best about being a CM?
Each day is different. Every day you are immersed in a living breathing entity made up of thousands of members with thousands of stories to tell. It’s a very real, very connected job and I take great pride in being responsible for helping support a forum which I know has a very real impact on so many people.

What is the hardest aspect about being a CM?
Knowing how involved to get in disputes can be challenging, often less is more and as CM you can too often fuel the fire!
I think the hardest challenge at this point, and it seems to be common amongs CMs, is getting broader recognition and understanding within your own organization. To those not familiar with online communities it can be very difficult to communicate the role and its intricacies.

Do you have colleagues that help you managing the community?
We have two casual paid administrators, a team of 7 volunteer Team Leaders, and 16 volunteer Moderators.

How do you see the role of CM in the future?
As all brands begin to participate in social media the role will take on different forms. I think we are already seeing that with the growth of the Social Media Manager role, which I see as having a more overarching/high-level focus and perhaps more of a marketing bent.

What are your personal ambitions considering the role of CM?
I have recently launched a social media moderation business in Australia. Being deeply passionate about online communities I am looking forward to being able to share my knowledge and experience with other businesses. (I will also continue to work with my current community).