January 23rd, 2017 marks the 8th anniversary of Community Manager Appreciation Day (#CMAD). This day is to appreciate and celebrate the work done to further the art and science of community management and online engagement. You know who these folks to be recognized are – they are present every day in the CA Community helping grow the membership and adding value by creating, curating and raising up the valuable content contributed by CA Technologies’ customers, employees and partners. They’re the people you first meet in a community – they are the eyes, ears, hearts, minds and soul of an online community – and what you see of their work is only what you see above the surface – we all know there is a lot more that goes on behind the scenes to prepare and execute on the day to day. I’ve heard of this collective group being referred to as an orchestra.
So there is the CA Communities Team – a group of dedicated individuals who work hard every day at being the online ambassadors for CA. They can be seen as the conductors in an orchestra – ensuring that things play smoothly and the different musicians come in at the right times and help shape the song. To do this, they build relationships, curate and create content, analyze metrics, and facilitate the many other day-to-day functions necessary to keep an online community healthy and thriving. While they are certainly deserving of recognition, where would we be without the orchestra?
Our CA Champions are the musicians at the core of the community. These are the members – both customers and CA employees – make the music happen. They do the heavy lifting throughout a community by answering the questions, building out ideas, writing blogs, engaging in discussions and providing engagement at scale. They have grown over the past two years from a chamber orchestra into a full symphony orchestra and, in turn, have helped our communities grow as a result. These folks deserve more than their share of the spotlight and we’re happy to let you know that the announcement for the 2017 CA Champions will be coming soon.
Finally, there is the audience – the folks who observe and appreciate the masterpiece and may even aspire to be in the orchestra or become a conductor themselves someday.
So join us in celebration - go ahead and share your thoughts and thanks below and maybe even go add a Tweet or two (if that’s your thing) – use the hash tags #CMAD and mention @CA_Community in your posts. Maybe even tag in a friend or two that have helped you out in the communities. It’s a day that’s all about sharing and spreading the online love!