We recently participated in a fireside chat with our client, Lumity, hosted by our client and investor, Inside Partners.
Lumity is an end to end benefits solution that launched a community to support HR professionals—HR for HR. The chat explored Lumity's community journey from an idea to a vibrant, thriving HR hub.
You can watch the chat in full here. Tracy Hill, Lumity's Senior Employee Benefits Communication Strategist, explains how the HR for HR community was designed as part of the organization's high-level strategy and also gives a peek of its actual community platform!
However, if you're strapped for time, here are some of the key takeaways!
#1 Start with the why
Before going full steam ahead, you need to ask yourself why your organization needs a community. In Lumity's case, clients were asking questions outside of their areas of expertise. Lumity realized that with a community, they could connect HR professionals with their peers so they could help each other out. Plus, beyond providing a service to HR professionals, a community also offered an opportunity to raise Lumity's brand awareness and position itself as a thought leader within the industry. With the community's goals identified, Lumity was able to get the buy-in from its executive team.
#2 Do your research
Lumity was aware that HR communities already existed, especially on Slack. It needed to figure out how it could differentiate its community. It conducted informal focus groups and surveys on HR professionals to identify gaps in the existing communities. Through its research, Lumity identified the following needs:
- A better way of sharing tagged and searchable resources
- A simple way to search for HR experts based on specific criteria such as location and expertise
- The possibility to join the community with a personal email
- A vetting system for members to ensure the community was not overrun with sales pitches
Thanks to its research, Lumity was able to position its community as a complement to existing communities while delivering on the missing needs.
#3 Get feedback from community members
Lumity regularly surveys members with regards to the community's usefulness. It has also established a group of early adopters. This group gives feedback on how to best meet members' needs and deliver value.
This core group of users also help to promote the community as they feel strongly about its value. Feedback is treated as an iterative process that enables Lumity to continually improve its community as it grows.
The trends and challenges identified in the community, as well as feedback, help refine Lumity's overall marketing strategy, as well as drive product innovation.
#4 Be flexible and lean into opportunities to grow
A great community can adapt and react to any critical event that requires a change of schedule or plan. Whether it's an unexpected event or a breaking news story, there are many benefits to being agile.
Witnessing the impact of COVID-19, Lumity was aware that the mass switch to home office was inevitable. It was able to prepare its members with dedicated resources available within the community. By being able to react to different situations quickly, it can better serve its community's immediate needs.
#5 Be patient and expect the unexpected!
Lumity views its community as a long term investment. It has put success metrics into place, but it understands that it will take time to reach a critical threshold.
Bear in mind that expectations of the community and the reality of the community will not always be aligned. In Lumity's case, the community is a lot quieter than expected. However, this lack of engagement doesn't mean the community lacks value. It is simply because members are swamped with work and only have time to check in and consume the content. Plus, Lumity knew that members primarily turn to their Slack communities for instant discussions, which is why it designed its community to add other value, such as advanced member search and tagged resources.
Read Lumity's community success story in full here!
Hivebrite is an all-in-one community management platform. It empowers organizations of all sizes and sectors to launch, manage, and grow fully branded private communities. Schedule a demo today!
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