Case study: How Optimism added science, to the art of community management
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Optimism is a leading L2 blockchain, with a vision of dispelling the myth that building public goods is unprofitable. This is accomplished through a novel governance system that distributes sequencer profits to public goods in the ecosystem. It has so far distributed 11 million OP tokens towards public goods. Optimism has an incredibly active and engaged community of over 160K Discord members and 590K Twitter followers.
In this article, we share some examples of how Vee, the Head of Contributions at The Optimism Foundation uncovered additional insights for strengthening member engagement, using the power of TogetherCrew’s community analytics.
Targetted analytics
TogetherCrew enables community builders to study specific sets of Discord channels. By adopting this selective approach, Vee was able to focus on channels that nurtured engagement and collaboration, to help highly engaged users get more context and target those disengaging to understand their needs better. Vee’s analysis quickly showed that while the ‘GM’ channel was very active, it was mostly bots and users who did not engage elsewhere. The data allowed Vee to remove hundreds of bots and also identify individuals who could be brought deeper into the community.
Recognizing and Empowering Core Contributors
TogetherCrew’s dashboard to segments members based both, on their activity, and the number of connections with other members, using a technique called Network Analysis. Looking at the member funnel and zooming down to key members, Vee soon uncovered an opportunity: amongst the list of ‘consistently active’ members, there were some familiar names but she also noticed a few she had overlooked. Vee promptly initiated one-on-one calls with these members to build a stronger relationship and seek feedback & insights. This proactive approach yielded remarkable results, as in the coming weeks, the previously overlooked members became even more engaged and actively supported critical discussions within the community.
Re-engaging Disengaged Members:
Another TogetherCrew feature that Vee found helpful is the drill down into ‘disengaging’ members. This feature helps community managers identify the members who have gone quiet in recent weeks. When analyzing the disengaged members list, Vee noticed declining activity amongst Optimism Ambassadors — a problem that needed to be addressed quickly. The Optimism team immediately launched a new competition for the Ambassadors. Soon after, the analytics confirmed the initiative had indeed reignited the Ambassadors’ interest and involvement.
Optimism’s experience highlights the remarkable potential of analytics, in understanding and nurturing strong communities. Virtual Community builders face a firehose of information and are spread thin across platforms. Analytics tools that can go beyond shallow metrics and instead help them understand how a community operates as a network, empower community builders with deeper insights and data-led strategies. As a result, deep analytics empowers community builders to focus attention where it is required the most and double their impact.
If you are building a virtual community, TogetherCrew is your best ally. Try our self-serve analytics tool here.
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