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Community Roundtable Best Practices

  • 15 February 2023
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jessicadaniels
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Hi all!

 

As our community adoption continues to grow, I am looking to build out a stronger engagement strategy to keep our community members coming back more frequently. Our community is made up primarily of HR and People leaders (benefits, finance, talent, etc.) and we have had a lot of interest lately in the possibility of hosting Community Roundtables for folks to connect further.

We currently have AMA events every month that are community drop in style rather than a webinar style, but we would like to add community roundtable events to our list of engagements so our clients connect via Zoom rather than only through posts. We also hope this leads to our clients meeting up outside of the Community in real life, too!

Do any of you currently host roundtable events within your communities? If so, what are some best practices and strategies that you have in place or learned when hosting these? 

Appreciate any and all input on this :) 

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Best answer by DannyPancratz 15 February 2023, 22:52

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Jessica Daniels, Grove Community Manager

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DannyPancratz
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In a previous role, I did a lot of these. 

From my experience, the challenge is balancing the “Content is King” mindset and avoiding the roundtable becoming just another webinar. 

A format we used that I really liked is the “rapid case study.” It reverses the presentation format; rather than one person sharing expertise to an audience of many, they ask for the help/input/expertise of the audience. 

  • Speaker shares their challenge (brief overview of 2-5 min)
  • Audience asks clarifying questions to unpack it further (5 min)
  • Audience gives advice from their experience (10 min)

Through sharing their advice, based on past experience, the audience will introduce themselves and share relevant info that leads to additional conversations and forms actual connections. 

Alistair FIeld
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Hi @jessicadaniels 

I think @DannyPancratz pretty much got the points I would have also made.

If you are interested in talking 121 I would love to discuss it in person as I would also like to start similar events for the inSided / Gainsight customers.

Maybe we should hold a Roundtable on Holding Roundtables 😂

The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few. 🖖
jessicadaniels
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In a previous role, I did a lot of these. 

From my experience, the challenge is balancing the “Content is King” mindset and avoiding the roundtable becoming just another webinar. 

A format we used that I really liked is the “rapid case study.” It reverses the presentation format; rather than one person sharing expertise to an audience of many, they ask for the help/input/expertise of the audience. 

  • Speaker shares their challenge (brief overview of 2-5 min)
  • Audience asks clarifying questions to unpack it further (5 min)
  • Audience gives advice from their experience (10 min)

Through sharing their advice, based on past experience, the audience will introduce themselves and share relevant info that leads to additional conversations and forms actual connections. 

This is super helpful! The goal would be to have a topic before entering into the roundtable, and allowing folks to discuss it more in an open forum scenario, or even doing small breakout rooms if the group is large enough.

From a hosting perspective, did you host the roundtable or did you have community members do most of the lifting?

Jessica Daniels, Grove Community Manager
jessicadaniels
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Hi @jessicadaniels 

I think @DannyPancratz pretty much got the points I would have also made.

If you are interested in talking 121 I would love to discuss it in person as I would also like to start similar events for the inSided / Gainsight customers.

Maybe we should hold a Roundtable on Holding Roundtables 😂

I would love to connect and talk through this! Also wouldn’t be opposed to a roundtable about roundtables 😆

Jessica Daniels, Grove Community Manager
DannyPancratz
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From a hosting perspective, did you host the roundtable or did you have community members do most of the lifting?

 

It was a mix. Me or my team would be the host and facilitator, but we tried to coach 1-2 community member leaders to be the primary moderator. It’s good to have staff there as a failsafe, but ideally another community member can drive the conversation and coax more peer-to-peer sharing.

jessicadaniels
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Thank you very much for your insight @DannyPancratz I really appreciate the help on this! :)

Jessica Daniels, Grove Community Manager

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