One of the most fascinating things to me about social practitioners is the journey that led them to this space – and how the roads they traveled inform their approach.
I suppose my interest in this topic comes from my own odd path to social.
For two years, I had both the privilege (and often daunting responsibility) of serving as Chairman and President of the IPsphere Forum — an independent, international standards organization (it later merged with TM Forum) founded by my former company, Juniper Networks. At its peak, the forum grew to over thirty member companies, including some of our largest customers, partners, and even competitors.
While that experience had almost nothing to do with social media or online engagement, it completely shaped how I thought about communities and the human behavior at the heart of them. When I was done, I felt that I’d discovered my own little immutable truths.
And thankfully, a few folks at Juniper saw these experiences as both portable and relevant to the Juniper’s digital mission, too.
So what exactly did running an international standards consortium teach me?
- Lean into it. The first thing I had to accept was that I couldn’t hide behind my Juniper badge. The community had primacy even over my status as an employee of Juniper Networks. Online is no different: the organization has to lean into the conversation and earn the trust of the community all over again.
- Have goals and share them. In my experience with the IPsphere Forum, I found goal sharing to be a huge turning point in our organization. Communities exist for a reason, and they should have aspirations. Why?
- It gives members purpose
- It creates a sense of responsibility & accountability
- It creates roles for members to select and play
Goals don’t have to be intimidating or onerous; in fact, they can be pretty galvanizing.
- Content is still king. One of the biggest challenges with running a flesh-and-blood, brick-and-mortar community is incenting and motivating members to create content. There’s a misconception with online communities that everything should be user-generated. IPsphere gave me a different view: if you are responsible for the community, then you’re responsible for creating core assets. Sorry, there’s just no way around this. So, get ahead of it and start creating a content calendar. Your content should inspire members create and contribute.
- Don’t be “transparent,” be human. One of the most important lessons I learned from my IPsphere experience is that relationships truly, truly matter – and those can’t be faked. But to move beyond just “transparency” and into something more meaningful, one must also be prepared to accept that relationships are a constant work in progress and they are earned – not something you go out and capture, or own.
In my subsequent roles leading social and community teams at Juniper, these truths were my foundation and compass for how I made decisions about social and community strategy. They were great guides, but I also found they were inadequate on their own.
Why?
Because there were other social stakeholders who were equally steadfast in the social truths they brought from past lives. And not surprisingly, this sometimes led to organizational conflict, because as stakeholders, we were all looking through different lenses and positions grounded in different business truths.
So what does your personal social journey ultimately mean?
A successful social strategy is a journey informed by the collective wisdom and experience of the organization. But it’s also rationalized against the highest order goals of the business. Bring your truths and advocate for them vigorously, yet also be accepting that while these are very much necessary, they are sometimes insufficient.