Being on a mission to grow a warm, engaged community that’s going to be meaningful for both your organization and your community members is one thing. But actually making it happen? That requires planning. Specifically, community planning.
That’s a whole new ball game.
Because just as an architect doesn’t build a house without a blueprint, neither should you try to build a solid community without a framework to guide you. Here’s where community strategy comes into the picture.
3 reasons why having a solid “blueprint” — AKA using community planning — can help you ensure its success.
It ensures your organization is clear on the value of what you’re doing
Think back to the last time you were at a meeting without an agenda. Chaos, right?
It’s exactly the same if you don’t have a solid strategy in place for your community.
By providing a clear, concise framework on which you can pin the long-term goals you’re looking to achieve by building this community, you can easily communicate the value of what you are doing to your organization.
Which also makes getting the funding and resources you need to make it happen, much easier.
It helps you stay focused on doing
Again, simply having a long-term community strategy in place will help you and your team stay focused.
The reason being is that people who write down their goals are (according to one particular study) 42% more likely to achieve them.
And writing down your community strategy will force you to get clear on even the “muddiest” elements: the who, what, where, when, why, and even how you will go about achieving your organization’s goals.
This is also a subtle motivation tactic. With your community strategy solidified and made available for anyone to see, you can ensure you and your team will make the right micro-decisions every single day to incrementally improve your community and increase its value for members.
It helps you fix things on-the-go
Even though “people” and “metrics” aren’t two words most community managers like to see in the same sentence, having a clear community planning will help you evaluate your progress at any point in time.
By relating your strategy to some (even minor) key performance metrics, it will help you objectively evaluate how you and your team are moving forward with your objectives, as well as your community.
It also takes the pressure off you as an individual and keeps the focus on the success or progress of the program as a whole.
Hungry for more?
If you’re ready to dig into developing your own community strategy, then join the Mobilizers community and check out our short (10 min) video training on How to build a successful community strategy.
Plus, you can download the full walkthrough and supporting worksheets to help you build out a winning community strategy faster than you’d imagine.