Chief Community Officer: An Emerging Role in the Evolving Digital Era

Not long ago, many communities were run by a single entity, community managers. But gone are the days when the community is a single Slack group. With evolving technology and changing customer expectations, the community landscape is taking a leap. And with this leap, an uncommon title has emerged, namely, the Chief Community Officer (CCO).

A CCO is not just any other designation. It is an important asset for any community to keep thriving in the long run.

But to appoint a competent CCO, you need to know the value they’d be adding to the community and what their chief role would be. Let’s deep dive to learn it all.

Who is a Chief Community Officer?

An organization includes various entities including employees, partners, stakeholders, and customers. And, they need a common-ground for building and maintaining relationships across various associated entities. That’s where a community plays its part. And, a CCO is responsible for managing it across the organization by understanding and measuring the community as a whole. Thus, the CCO is focused on the big picture instead of the day-to-day community operations and activities.

When a business is community-powered, its CCO is responsible for managing a multi-level community team. Not only do they understand business goals, but they also envision and execute strategies to achieve these goals. At the core, a CCO is the mastermind of all community initiatives.

What Does a CCO Do? Understanding the Role and Responsibilities

CCO enables you to cross-collaborate with your developers, designers, vendors, and customers. Also, it empowers you to evaluate the areas you need to focus on to achieve your ultimate business goals.

Here are some responsibilities that a CCO has to take up –

1. Form Shared Goals Through Solid DevRel

Creating a solid developer relations (DevRel) team is one of many vital responsibilities of Chief Community officers. Considering, DevRel is the most fluctuating entity in an organization, CCO is required to keep them anchored. That’s why a CCO is not only an intermediator but also a leader. And, the major role of a CCO includes acting as an intermediate between DevRel and guiding them toward the same purpose and mission that delivers to customers. Not only will it make the DevRel more impactful but help it meet customer needs.

Key strengths to look for in this role:

• Ability to oversee all community operations across multiple departments
• Make mission-critical decisions

2. Create a Solid Feedback Loop

What is the most common hurdle in delivering value to customers? It’s not being able to identify customers’ needs. A product manager would want nothing else but to know exactly what their customers want. And, a CCO can leverage communities to achieve. They can devise a solid feedback loop in the communities that product managers can use to collect feedback.

Key strengths to look for this role:

• Collaborate with community stakeholders including partners, vendors, and customers
• Ability to capture and assess community feedback

3. Build a Steady Stream of Qualified Leads

A thriving community can be a goldmine of qualified leads. The majority of brands know this, but only a few can actually make the most of it. It takes a strategic CCO to execute a customer advocacy program to have a steady stream of qualified leads.

Key strengths to look for in this role:

• Strategic thinking to create and execute advocacy programs in alignment with business goals
• Analytical skills for analyzing current community trends
• Ability to identify community engagement and collaboration opportunities

4. Recruit the Right Talent

Filling the recruitment pipeline with the right talent is a struggle almost all organizations face. A strategic CCO can engage your community for recruitment purposes as well. They can bring HR and the community together to build strategies around identifying the right talent for the team.

Key strengths to look for in this role:

• Financial means allocation skills
• Hold a board set
• Hire and structure community team as the community grows

5. Relay Clear Messaging

A successful marketing campaign is one that nails the right messaging. Relaying what your community leaders think to your community members can be a challenge. That’s where CCO works as the thread. They can bring community leaders and members together and execute marketing campaigns that impact your organization, notably.

Key strengths to look for in this role:

• Solid interpersonal skills to build relations with the team
• Sound communication skills to communicate the community’s vision based on community feedback

A Chief Community Officer is a crucial role that includes developing and executing strategy, content creation, community management, public relations, and more. These traits indicate that a CCO is no less than a super-employee. Thus, it’s imperative that you appoint a competent CCO to gain everything you’d hoped.

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