Many companies are keen to build communities of practice around industry thought leadership content and conversations. A major challenge is how to handle discussions of competitors and less-than-favorable product comparisons?

Some best practices and tips 👇🏻 If you're going to build this type of community, you have to accept that people are going to talk about your competitors and sometimes say things that don't reflect well on your products/brand. This is the essence of these communities. If you can't deal, don't start one.

We recently completed our selection and contractual negotiation process for a community platform vendor. This is a topic that I get asked about quite a bit given my professional history. So let’s talk about it. #cmgr 1/ A little context: I grew up (literally) on community platforms. I used them obsessively as a nerdy little kid in the 90’s, worked for Lithium/@Khoros for a decade, and have gone through the vendor selection process at two organizations wtih big plans around community. /2

One month into the new gig and our community strategy is nearly complete. I’m not going to share the actual strategy, but I can talk about the components in an effort to help anyone out there trying to put one together. Here we go. #cmgr 1/ Before you even think about forming a strategy, you have to LISTEN. Meet as many people as you can, attend as many meetings as you can take, dig into the minutia, don’t stop until your brain can’t accept any more information. Everything you learn will inform the strategy. 2/