Photo by Laurie White
Denise Tanton is the Community Manager for the women’s blogging network site, BlogHer.com. She’s been rocking this role at BlogHer throughout some major growth and changes at the company, and has picked up a great deal of patience and wisdom in the process. I hope you enjoy her reflections as much as I did. ~Sarah Dopp
Q: How would you explain BlogHer to someone who’s never heard of it before?
BlogHer.com is an online community for women who blog, enjoy reading blogs, want to discuss (and debate) topics that are important to them, or are looking for a community of women to connect with.
Q: How would you describe your role in the community?
Oh good (and complicated) question! My role is to make sure that BlogHer.com reflects the diversity of our community.
Q: How do people interact with each other and express themselves at BlogHer.com?
Community members have a lot of different tools that they can use to connect with each other or showcase their writing. Members can create blog posts, join groups, create discussion posts, and comment on all of the BlogHer.com content. We also provide a 140 character on-site microblogging tool called Chatter that allows small groups of BlogHer members to talk to each other (filtering out some of the noise of Twitter) or promote their work quickly on BlogHer.com, while at the same time also sending their message out to Twitter.
Q: What are some things you do as a community manager that help keep the space so supportive and interesting?
Way back in the early days of BlogHer.com, I read every single word that was published on the site – every comment, every blog post, every link – to make sure that members (and potential members) were confident that they were participating in a site that was welcoming, inclusive and free from spam or hate speech. I still read almost every word but now I’ve got a wee bit of help so I can skip a few words here and there.
I answer a ton of email – every email that comes across the Help Desk is answered by a real person and that person is generally me, especially if it involves questions about how to use BlogHer.com tools, or serious questions about our Community Guidelines.
Answering questions posted by members, on BlogHer.com, is one of the most important things that I can do for the community, so I monitor areas where members most often ask them. I also try to interact with members of the community by responding to blog posts that they write, by visiting blogs that they list in the HerNetwork directory, and talking to them in Chatter.
As part of the editorial team, I’m always the first person to ask, “Where’s the alternative point of view?” when we’re talking about assigning or syndicating content. We aren’t just moms, we’re also childfree by choice. We don’t all love bacon, a whole lot of us are vegan. We aren’t all straight, we’re GLBTQ and polyamorous too.
Q: What are some of the challenging parts of your job?
There aren’t enough hours in the day. Really, that’s my biggest challenge. I have the best job in the world because I work for the best community. There are very few flame wars, the spam is moderate, and BlogHer bloggers are brilliant. Just give me more time, please.
Q: Does anyone else help you with community management? How do you stay on the same page with them?
The wonderful Joy Des Jardins handles the bulk of our customer service emails and manages the HerNetwork queue. The amazing Karen Ballum backs me up on spam, customer service emails, and welcoming new members. Julie Godar, Erin Kotecki Vest, and Rita Arens work tirelessly on editorial and community initiatives that encourage member participation and provide new opportunities for BlogHer members. Contributing Editors and members of the community jump in every day to answer questions and welcome new members.
Almost our entire community team works remotely so we do spend a lot of time in email, or on the phone in conference calls. We also use Yammer to toss ideas, problems, and questions back and forth all day long.
Q: Can you tell us (without exposing anyone) about a tricky situation you ended up in with a community member? How did you handle it?
I’m sorry, I can’t talk about any specific issues. I’ve made a rule for myself that I do not ever talk about problems with specific community members in public. It feels counterproductive to speak about specific negative situations, even if they’re resolved in a positive way. I would never want to risk hurting a community member’s feelings or angering a community member by speaking about something that was probably very personal to them at the time.
What I can tell you is that having these Community Guidelines in place to share with members who are struggling within the community has been a real lifesaver. They’re really very simple and every member must abide by them. When problems occur, they can almost always be resolved with a simple reminder of these guidelines and just a little encouragement to come back and start again.
Q: What advice would you give someone who’s starting a new community that involves a lot of blogs and bloggers? What’s important to know about that culture that people might not realize right away?
Work with people you really respect. And, plan to spend a lot of time working with those people. It takes a lot of time and work to build a community of bloggers.
Create community guidelines that make sense for your community and stick with them in every situation.
Make sure you’re spotlighting the community and not just yourself.
Blogging is quite often very personal and bloggers should be able to maintain their individual voices. Don’t ask a blogger to write so far outside of her comfort zone that she’s uncomfortable. Don’t ask her to write in a way that stifles her personality.
Talk to bloggers – a lot of bloggers– and listen to every word they say. Bloggers are smart. They have smart ideas and they’ll work with you to implement them.
Q: What do you love most about the BlogHer community?
Uh oh. My children will tell you that I don’t DO favorites – or maybe it’s that I don’t do them very well. I can’t single out one thing that I love most. BlogHer wouldn’t be the community that it is without any one piece of the community. I love reading the smart, funny blogs written by women everyday. I love the insightful and often hilarious comments posted in response. I love the daily Chatter. I love the people I work with. I love being a part of a company that provides opportunities for women bloggers and empowers them to share their stories, earn money, or find support.
Denise Tanton is Community Manager at BlogHer.com. She also blogs at Flamingo House Happenings and Twitters as @dtanton.