Digital Community Leaders - Tiffany Oda
Our guest this week is an experienced community leader and expert in community operations. Tiffany Oda is currently the Chief Operations Officer & Head of Community at Talkbase, as well as a co-founder and Community Consultant at Community OPServations.
Throughout this podcast episode, Tiffany offers some inspiring advice with her expertise shining through. From community origin stories to strategies for growth - there's a wealth of knowledge shared.
Projection and Forecasting
When asked about growth - whether that be growth of community size or just general progression - Tiffany gave her number one tip specifically from the perspective of operations.
The immediate advice was to keep track of the projection of any processes within a community. From new user group leader applications, to budgeting, certain processes should be reviewed so that you can forecast development.
From there, you can implement automated aspects, or crack down on how much time is spent on such processes.
This can create headway for your community to grow and flourish.
“With community management, you never want to automate everything. But there are administrative tasks that really don't need to be taking up your time. ”
Operations and Community Management
Being such an expert in multiple roles - from ops to CM - Tiffany has often found that there can be a lot on her plate. This led to an interesting discussion - when do you separate such responsibilities into two different job roles?
According to Tiffany, it can really depend on the first hire. Ideally, the initial CM will be operationally savvy, so that when responsibilities are atomised into different job roles, the handover is seamless.
The point at which to bring a community operations person in is when the community is well established yet still growing.
As well as this, when there is cross-collaboration - such as from marketing to product - it can become important to have someone operational to oversee all those teams.
Tiffany Oda was a fantastic guest and really inspiring to listen to. Her passion for community is infectious and makes this episode inspiring for anyone involved in community.
Be sure to check out the Digital Community Leaders Podcast - available now on all platforms.
More Articles
How to prevent and manage spam in online communities
Spam can disrupt meaningful conversations and make your community appear unprofessional or poorly managed. Let’s look at some of the ways community managers can tackle this!
Setting and enforcing community guidelines: What you need to know
For an online community to work, you need to set clear expectations and boundaries for your members. That’s where community guidelines come into play.
How to keep a personal touch in a growing community
Personalisation in online communities isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s a must-have. But how do you keep that personal touch when your community begins to scale?
