Tahd Frentzel Portfolio

“Community” is such a vague word, but one that encapsulates much of the human existence, as every one of us partakes in some sort of community, and every one of us is as unique as our fingerprint.

As such, communities are a reflection of those who are in it, bringing with them their best attributes, and at times, their worst.

How a company treats their community in the best and worst of times is a key indicator of a community’s success. Be too tough, and you risk participants feeling that the company doesn’t care. Be too lenient, and they may feel like the company isn’t fair.

The importance of finding a consistent “voice of reason” is essential to connecting community members to the company. You want to portray a fair, but firm, identity. You want to be liked, trusted, and consistent.

There will be times that large numbers of the people in your community will be unhappy about one or more of the things your company has done. Most of these things can be overcome in time, but it’s important that the reasons for their upset are addressed in a calm, respectful way, even if nothing changes.

Most of the time. You will, of course, have to deal with some members who are not able to see reason. They may be full of rage about the issue and cannot, or refuse, to accept whatever decision has been made, and nothing you can say, short of “Okay, we were wrong, we’ll do it your way,” will appease them. Or they may just be a troll, latching on to a controversy for attention. In these cases it’s better to NOT to provide them with more attention than they deserve. Reasonable people will recognize that these folks are unreasonable, and will understand why your time trying to console them or address them is fruitless.

A community manager’s success is often aligned with the community they serve.

The first community I created was a volunteer program made up of mostly males between 18 and 35, the most-sought demographic at the time, who were excited enough by our product to volunteer a few hours a week to help other new players learn the system. This was for Total Entertainment Network, and we, like everyone else at the time, had a preconceived notion that gamers were mostly young males. What I liked about this particular demographic is that they were technically skilled and didn’t need a lot of handholding. What I didn’t like so much is that many of them were finicky, prone to find the next best thing, could be quite snarky, and getting them to show up was often a challenge.

When we launched the pogo.com casual web games, we had an entirely different audience made up of mostly women, but some men, over 35. They were nowhere near as technically adept, but they were loyal, polite, good-natured, and truly a lot more fun for me. These were my people. And finding “my people” allowed me to be far more successful in my job. I was better able to recruit them, keep them interested and entertained, and grow the program to over 350 volunteers. Plus, they were generally a lot friendlier and made a much better impression on our newer players.

When your best-laid plans go astray – be ready to pivot and jump in to damage control.

When I was the Editor for the Pogo News, we’d secured a deal with Rosie O’Donnell to raise money for her Charity, Rosie’s For All Kids Foundation, which had a goal of bringing childcare, education and happiness to American’s kids. Electronic Arts agreed to donate a hefty sum of money to the foundation, and she agreed to promote Pogo on The View. So, we packed gift bags full of Pogo swag for every audience member, promoted the charity all over the site, and promised an online meet-and-greet to take place on the Pogo site for some lucky winners.

And then, while we were busy preparing, she had a spat with Elisabeth Hasselbeck on the View and Donald Trump became involved. Rosie said some disparaging remarks about the Iraq war and then left the show before we had our moment in the spotlight. Ultimately, that might have been a good thing, given the sentiment of the majority of the American people. They may not have supported the war itself, but they definitely supported the troops and most felt Rosie had been out of line.

And so, the feedback we were receiving from many of our players included a plethora of negative feedback ranging from the polite to the all-caps enraged not-so-polite. It’s safe to say that a good majority of our players were unhappy about this alliance.

Alas, the deal had been signed, so we carried on with the meet-and-greet, which I hosted online, typing faster than I’ve ever typed before. Those who attended were fans of hers, so aside from one hate-filled comment which we quickly deleted, there wasn’t any negative feedback directed towards her during the event.

But afterwards I fielded a number of angry comments and some questions in our Letters to the Editor Column. The challenge was to acknowledge what had happened, make sure that our players understood that we knew how they felt, yet still explain the benefits of Rosie’s foundation. These responses had to pass muster with both our players, and Rosie’s people. And they did. Choosing my words carefully, I was able to give enough players confidence that we were not siding with Rosie on this issue, but that we did support her cause.

No doubt, we lost a few players due to this, but ultimately it blew over and we were careful not to align ourselves with any polarizing celebrities in the future.

No two days are ever the same.

That’s the thing about communities – they’re made up of all sorts of people with differing opinions. For community managers, our challenge is not only to accept the differences, but to embrace them, acknowledge them, and recognize that this is the way of the world.