Peers Over Beers - Community Experts Podcast Chris Detzel

As the year comes to an end, Chris and Nicole discuss best practices for community professionals to reflect on their accomplishments, communicate value to stakeholders, and set goals for the new year.
Key topics covered:
The importance of end-of-year reporting to benchmark progress, justify budget/resources, and set goals. Nicole explains how quantifying community ROI helps secure leadership support.Conducting quarterly reviews to zoom out from day-to-day tasks and ensure you're focused on the right priorities.Tips for end-of-year people management like giving timely feedback and documenting personal achievements.Recognizing community members' contributions through year-end impact reports and tokens of appreciation. Nicole shares examples like infographics, swag gifts, and social events.Collaborating cross-functionally and articulating community impact on business goals like product adoption, customer retention, etc.The episode ends with a recap of key takeaways to help community builders reflect on the past year and prepare for the new year ahead.

In this episode of Peers Over Beers, Christopher Detzel interviews Nicole Saunders, Senior Manager of Global Community Programs at Zendesk, about Zendesk's user group program.
Nicole explains how the user group program got started based on feedback from Zendesk customers who wanted more opportunities to connect with each other. The goal of the program is to drive customer retention by building meaningful relationships between Zendesk, its users, and partners.
She discusses how the user groups are structured, including interest-based and role-based virtual groups rather than geographic locations which was not what they initially expected. Nicole also talks about how they recruit and train volunteer chapter leaders, provide them with resources and assets, and help promote their groups.
Key learnings from the first year include the importance of regular cadence for meetups, starting small and letting groups grow organically, and transitioning leaders from active community participants. Ongoing challenges include sharing insights with customer-facing teams and automating qualitative data.
Overall, the user group program aims to provide a scalable way for customers to connect with Zendesk and each other, strengthening relationships and loyalty. Nicole reflects on the exciting growth after just one year, and opportunities still ahead to continue improving the customer experience.

This podcast episode is a discussion between Christopher Detzel and Nicole Saunders, two community professionals, about trends, strategies, and best practices for community management in 2024.
Some of the main topics covered include:
How community teams are adapting to doing more with smaller teams by prioritizing programs, leveraging cross-functional partnerships, and using technology like AI.Strategies for consistently engaging community members through innovative formats like "thought leader" sessions and getting customer feedback on new features.Optimizing virtual and in-person events to drive value, including hybrid models and facilitation techniques.Unifying data across platforms to get a holistic view of community metrics and tie back to business objectives.Leveraging community insights for product innovation by facilitating small group customer feedback sessions.Tips for community professionals like starting small by focusing on 1-2 metrics or partnerships to showcase value.Overall, Christopher and Nicole have an insightful discussion about community management best practices, especially around engagement, measurement, and showcasing value.

In this episode of Peers Over Beers, hosts Chris Detzel and Nicole Saunders are joined by special guest Jono Bacon, an expert in building online communities, to discuss how artificial intelligence and new technologies like large language models will impact the future of community building.
They explore how AI chatbots may take over some routine community management tasks like answering common support questions, allowing community managers to focus more on building relationships and delivering personalized experiences. However, they acknowledge the need to pivot community roles to focus less on simplistic Q&A and more on engaging users in diverse ways like facilitating thought leadership and fostering connections.
The hosts also dive into the influx of AI-generated content and how it may clutter community discussions. They debate whether the onus is on community managers to moderate bot-created content or if search engines will adapt algorithms to surface high-quality human-created content. Overall, they agree community builders need to embrace AI as an accelerator for engagement but must skill up on leveraging these tools to avoid disruption.
With his extensive experience across various online communities, Jono provides thoughtful perspectives on AI's potential benefits and pitfalls for community professionals. His insights help paint a nuanced picture of how to prepare communities for an AI-driven future.

Partnerships play a critical role in building successful online communities. But how can you effectively engage partners without them simply using your community as a marketing channel? In this episode, hosts Chris Detzel and Nicole Saunders dive into creative tactics for leveraging partners as community advocates.
Drawing from their extensive expertise running online communities, Chris and Nicole discuss the value partners can bring by sharing expertise, creating content, leading community groups, and more. However, they also acknowledge the common concerns around partner self-promotion and emphasize the need for clear guidelines.
A major focus of the episode is around measuring the impact of partner participation through goal-setting, data analysis, and surveying partners directly. Chris and Nicole stress the importance of collaborating across teams to quantify the value of partners as part of the broader customer experience.
With insightful stories and actionable advice, this episode explores how partners can become co-creators and advocates for community when given the right framework for engagement. Tune in to hear Chris and Nicole’s guidance on maximizing partners’ contributions while avoiding potential pitfalls.

In this episode, Christopher and Nicole discuss the idea that community exists everywhere, not just on a company's own branded community platform. They talk about how community management is evolving to be more cross-functional, with community professionals embedding in other teams like social media and customer success. Inspired by FeverBee: The ‘Community Everywhere’ Era Has Arrived: Don’t Waste This Opportunity
Check out the blog: The End of Walled-Garden Communities
Key points they cover:
Community happens across social channels, forums like Reddit, and other informal spaces online. Companies need to think about how to participate in these spaces, not just drive people back to their own community platform.It's important for community managers to align strategies and data across all community touchpoints, though this requires breaking down silos and working cross-functionally.No technology alone can solve the problem of managing community everywhere. Human insight is still critical to connect the dots.At its core, community professionals love building relationships and connections. The challenge is balancing that with showing business value.To understand your customers, you need to know them as whole people, not just their interactions on your community platform.They conclude that managing community everywhere is complex but critical for the evolution of community management. More collaboration across the organization is key.