How Enterprise Leaders Can Leverage Online Communities for Business Success
In my recent Talk About Your Community episode, I sat down with Dani Weinstein, a veteran community builder and strategist, to discuss senior leadership in online communities within large enterprises. Dani, with over 16 years of experience at organizations like SAP and HP, shared valuable insights on how senior community leaders can drive success, influence, and innovation in large companies.
The Four Pillars of Community Value
Dani emphasized the need for community professionals to understand how communities contribute directly to the business. He identified four critical pillars of value:
Support Deflection: Communities help customers find answers, reducing the need for direct support, which saves costs.
Content Creation: Accepted answers and community discussions generate valuable content for knowledge bases and marketing.
Advocacy & Super Fans: Building strong relationships with brand advocates drives upsell opportunities and customer retention.
Innovation: Engaged communities provide invaluable feedback and ideas, serving as incubators for product innovation.
Tying Community to Business Outcomes
Dani stressed the importance of aligning community strategies with business goals. Leaders must clearly articulate how the community adds value to customer retention, product development, and marketing. It's crucial to gather and use data to demonstrate community ROI and tie it to business outcomes like revenue growth and brand loyalty.
Navigating Senior Roles in Enterprise Communities
For those in senior community roles, Dani discussed the importance of understanding the broader organizational structure and building strong cross-departmental relationships. He highlighted the need for ongoing education of stakeholders on the community’s role and value, especially when working with marketing, customer success, and product teams.
Building Effective Teams
When asked about managing teams in large enterprises, Dani shared his approach to structuring community teams based on organizational needs. Whether inheriting a team or building one from scratch, he emphasized being strategic and resourceful, advocating for a lean approach that focuses on early wins to prove value and justify further investments.
Key Takeaways for Enterprise Leaders
Align Community Efforts: Ensure that your community strategy is tightly connected to broader business goals, such as customer retention, support savings, and product innovation.
Influence Across the Organization: As a senior community leader, build strong relationships with other departments to demonstrate the community’s impact across the enterprise.
Prove ROI: Use data to track community value in terms of deflection, advocacy, and product feedback, and communicate those results effectively to senior leadership.
Dani’s insights offer a clear roadmap for executives looking to harness the full potential of online communities in large enterprises. If you’d like to explore these strategies in greater depth, feel free to reach out for a conversation about how your organization can elevate its community efforts and drive long-term business success.
About Dani Weinstein
Dani Weinstein is a community builder, strategist and advisor with more than sixteen years enabling customer success and driving business value with customer communities at HP, Domo, Kaltura and SAP.
Dani recently completed his tenure at SAP as Director of Community Strategy. He is now offering services to capture the business value of customer communities as a partial C level hire or consultant.
Show Notes
Four Pillars of Value of Community (0:00): Dani Weinstein begins by running through his expansive career in the community world. The four pillars of the value of community include support deflection, efficacy, super fans, and innovation.
Key Value Factors (19:55): A question around community within the lifecycle marketing strategy is discussed. Data gathering and identifying key influencers in the space are two important factors, on top of continuing to tie community into the value of the business.
Managing Teams (29:44): Dani shares his experience over managing various teams, including virtual team considerations and various levels of community development. KPIs will determine where the energy needs to be spent as growth, and in turn budget, increases.
The Market for Community Senior Roles (40:47): A viewer question around best ways to prove ROI is answered. When it comes to the job market, Dani mentions leaning on his own community and connections for work rather than traditionally applying to jobs. Dani shares his final thoughts.