A note from Khoros CEO Jack Blaha to celebrate the community managers and moderators that make every online community successful. Community Manager Advancement Day 2022 is Monday, January 24. This professional holiday takes place in January every year to recognize and thank community leaders for their hard work and dedication. Today is Community Manager Advancement Day, and we’re so excited to celebrate the people who make communities in every industry so vibrant and productive. Businesses use their communities to interact with customers along every facet of the customer journey — from top-of-funnel marketing all the way to product support. This has a huge impact on any brand, and it wouldn’t be possible without the people working hard behind the scenes to keep things running smoothly. Community managers step up for their brand to keep customers happy, help share new ideas, and make sure questions are getting answered. So I couldn’t be happier to take some time to celebrate their contribution to one of the best forms of customer engagement out there. Khoros customers have created some of the top performing communities in the world, so I’d like to give them some special recognition today. Hundreds of Khoros powered communities have been crushing it in the past year, generating incredible growth and retention for their companies. Powerschool, for example, added over 70,000 members to their community in 2021, and achieved a 97% CSAT. Esri, who built their community in 2021, saw a 150% YoY increase in new member registrations. And Sky used their Khoros community to achieve a 13 minute average time to resolution. I could go on and on about the incredible things our customers are doing with their communities, but today, I want to recognize the managers who make that magic happen. Thanks to them and many more like them, digital communities are vibrant spaces that encourage all types of interactions and help brands create customers for life. Of course, making a community come to life is a team effort, so I’d also like to recognize the hard work of the community experts on our Strategic Services team here at Khoros. Over 50 of these specialists are dedicated to helping our customers get the most out of this market-leading solution. As every community manager knows, the job is part science and part art, and I’m so grateful to the people who do it every day here at Khoros. Of course, we recognize the contributions of community managers all year long, both on Atlas, our internal community, and elsewhere. But today is an important day to acknowledge their year-long (often round-the-clock!) contributions. I hope you are able to spend some time today and throughout the year furthering your skills as a community manager. Our own community manager of Atlas, @BlakeH, has compiled resources to advance your skills along with ways to share appreciation.  All the best in 2022, Jack ... View more

Community Manager Advancement Day, formerly Community Manager Appreciation Day, is an important day at Khoros. We take today to acknowledge and celebrate both types of community managers: brand-owned communities and social network communities. We’ve always believed that online communities can change the way brands can achieve their purpose and connect customers, partners and employees. This past year turned into a shining moment for digital communities to prove just that. Amid the challenges of 2020, online communities stepped up and showed how valuable they can be. Digital communities allowed brands to address customer service needs at scale, perpetuate brand love, and foster genuine human connection online. None of that is possible without community managers. The people who, day in and day out, engage with customers and prospects, facilitate connections, solve problems, spark conversation, and maintain a constructive and collegial tone. This past year tested all of us, but put special pressure on community managers, so many of whom found themselves on the front lines of escalating tensions, increased volumes, and shorter tempers. Resilience is the theme for this year’s Community Manager Advancement Day and it’s a fitting word to describe the many quiet leaders who held their communities together through uncharted territory. One story that comes to mind is our award-winning customer, Intuit. There’s no pre-written manual for managing a brand-owned community during a global pandemic, but Intuit kept calm and carried on. Intuit’s brand purpose is to “power prosperity around the world,” so they advocate for and educate millions of small businesses and individual taxpayers. Intuit’s global team quickly responded to the crisis at hand by offering agent-staffed forums to foster discussions and peer-to-peer support, hosting Ask An Expert events, and quickly publishing a compilation of best practices and tips. Resilience isn’t just about getting back up again. It’s also about preparing for difficulty and being resilient from the beginning, and that’s exactly how Intuit and its community thrived and will continue to, on a go-forward basis. I want to send personal thanks to the community managers around the world who shepherd the many hundreds of brand-owned communities running on the Khoros Communities platform. At the beginning of April, traffic across Khoros Communities spiked nearly 50%, and in conjunction, so did community engagement and posts. People were going anywhere possible to get answers to undiscovered questions, as we all tried to figure out how to handle something so unexpected. Our own Khoros community, Atlas, was no different. I applaud our Digital Customer Experience, Professional Services, and Strategic Services teams who went above and beyond to support our customers with insightful content, relevant advice, and most importantly, a positive space for everyone to collaborate and simply connect. While Community Manager Advancement Day only happens once a year, community management can — and should — be celebrated everyday. If you haven’t already, join our Atlas Community where you can continue to connect, learn, and share ideas among fellow community experts. Here’s to resilient communities and their fearless community managers leading the way in 2021 — representing the best of human and digital connection. Thank you. ... View more