Is Your Community's Mission Aligned With Your Company's?
One of my favorite quotes from the book People Powered, by Jono Bacon is:
“Your goal is to keep the business vision and community mission front and center in people’s minds.”
He’s right! Yet, it’s another task to add to a very long list of to-do’s for any community manager or team member. If done correctly though, your company’s leadership and employees will have a clear understanding of how the company vision is tied to the community.
The company’s vision statement might not be something you have control over, but be sure to seek out the most recent version. When writing your community mission statement, write something that compliments the vision. For example, Nike’s mission is: To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world. If they had a community, the mission statement could state: To build a global community where athletes can connect with each other to drive inspiration and innovation. I recommend creating a slide or document that shows the company vision and community mission statements side-by-side. The image below is an example of that from my FREE Strategic Plan Template*.
Once you’ve determined your company mission statement, and have filled in the information above, take the following steps to promote it:
Print out and display on the desk of each member of the Community Team (or anyone at the company who’d be willing to display it).
Use as the introductory slide or first page of every major report or deck having to do with the Community.
Reinforce, or lead with it, in Community-related meetings or calls.
Incorporate the text into the email signatures of the Community Team.
Broadcast and showcase ON the community.
Re-iterate and remind leadership, employees, customers, and community users just how important and aligned the community is to the brand!
What are some other ways you can show or display alignment? Would you like to share an example from your community?
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