Content for Communities of Practice can take many forms but its key characteristics are that it is relevant and of value to the members of the Community.
Content is king for Communities of Practice; for practitioners in the Community, the prime goal is to become better at the practice. Content is key to getting people to visit the Community and return to the Community.
To create great content that appeals to your members, follow recommended content creation principles, classify your content into different content categories, and create a content calendar to ensure that your content is regular and timely.
What is content in the context of Communities of Practice?
Content for Communities of Practice (CoPs) can take many forms: it can be physical or digital; it can be text, images, video, sound, virtual reality as well as augmented reality. In whichever format content is presented, the key attributes of good content are that it is relevant and of value to the members - including potential members - of the Community.
Why is content important for Communities of Practice?
Content is king for Communities of Practice. For practitioners in a Community of Practice, the prime goal is to improve their “practice”, that is, to become better at their job. To get better at what you do requires acquiring greater experience and greater knowledge and you cannot do this without access to relevant and valuable content presented in the right format and at the right time.
Content is key to getting people to visit the Community and return to the Community. It must also be relevant, that is, it should match and satisfy Member Needs. Content should also be in the right format for the audience. A common example in the International Development context: while high-end streaming video may be a suitable format for areas with high bandwidth, such format is less suitable in areas of low bandwidth, where podcasts and text-based content are more easily accessible.
Also, if you have a lot of content to start with, but you start to run out of content, expect members to start leaving the Community. This situation has been called the “feed the beast syndrome”: you might have a lot of great material to start with, but as it gets harder to find great content or volunteers to produce it, soon content production wanes, and, with it, enthusiasm and membership. The bottom line is that you need valuable, relevant, timely content, throughout the lifetime of your Community.
Content is what brings people to Community sites, whether it’s the latest developments and technologies, information about events, and the latest achievements of the members, content that tells members about each other’s work, experience, and lessons learned, helps to deepen relationships between members, build trust and contribute to a Sense of Community.
How do you create good content?
A Community is not a library, or a repository, or a news site, although it might have all these functionalities. In a Community, people don’t just read content but share it with each other. Knowledge sharing in turn encourages people to collaborate with each other. It is therefore important to make content social. Make it easier to engage with the content, for example by giving members an opportunity and simple way to provide feedback on that content, share it, and have a conversation around it. See Creating Social Content for more information.
Three tips to create good content:
Follow recommended content creation principles.
Classify your content into different content categories.
Create a content calendar.
Content Creation Principles
There are several principles to follow for creating good community content:
Timely – Good content is timely. It should be related to something that is happening now. That might mean content related to an event, related to new legislation, newly-released technology or a recent action that a member has taken.
Regular – Good content is regular. A regular blog post, a regular newsletter, the quarterly report-out and so on, all help develop what is called a cadence or rhythm for the community,
Unexpected – Sometimes regular can become boring, so good content can sometimes be content that members don’t expect. This might challenge an existing viewpoint or more simply be a surprise for-members-only, such as an advance preview of an upcoming publication.
Credible – Content has to be credible and supported by sources.
Emotional – The major pieces of content should resonate with its intended audience and provoke an emotion.
Content Categories
There are many different types of content that you can produce and you can consider these as falling under the following categories:
Highlights – Highlights can include a curated summary of the latest information or articles about a topic or about the community, and they save members time. Highlights can include a recent summary of industry news, a ‘best of the web’ highlighting external links worth reading, a round-up/key learnings from recent events, or top 5-10 things members might have missed this week. Highlights about the community can include the top discussion(s) of the week, top member(s) of the week/month, a round-up of the community discussions or activity, or shared photos/images from various events.
Analysis articles – Analysis articles add greater context to topical stories where you would connect relevant news stories into topical trends, and spotlight how data is guiding activity. You might also include things such as book or article reviews for members. You can also analyze what's happening in the community. You can do member polls and surveys to summarize the findings. You can highlight emerging best practices between members and areas where members are coalescing.
News – News can cover a wide array of things:
News can focus on the latest news about your domain. This might be snippets of articles or letting members know who/what is doing something new at any given time.
News about the community is also good, where you can mention existing members who have recently moved, or welcome new members, and mention your members’ recent achievements.
News can be personal too, for example when members get married or have children.
You can use news to raise the visibility of upcoming events and activities where members will be attending. They can collaborate at a meetup, or share travel arrangements. It is vital that people located in different countries who rarely get to meet in person leverage this precious in-person time together.
Opinions – Opinions and guest columns add fresh perspectives to the community. The goal is to find people with new ideas or new takes on existing issues to participate in the community. This participation can be in the form of a weekly/monthly opinion column that rotates authorship between different members. Or it can be multiple opinions and guest columns from experts you have a relationship with.
Interviews – Content created from interviews is a simple way of building a powerful sense of community. The themes of the interviews are a combination of all of the above. Interviews can consist of highlights from experts of recent papers, an analysis of current situations, a place to reveal news, or solicit opinions. They can be with industry experts, influencers, and those caught up in topical news stories. They can take the form of “Ask Me Anything”, emailed questions, live and recorded webinars, podcasts and week-long discussions.
Content Calendar
Creating a calendar of content can help you plan its creation and dissemination. It is a tool for obtaining, creating, and scheduling publication of content.
Another recommendation is to publish an upcoming calendar to members. The calendar lets them know what to expect and enables them to submit content that they would like to contribute or have members discuss. Contributing to the calendar is also another way to increase engagement with and commitment to your community.
Note: Events are a big driver of content: before the event (advance materials and promo videos) , during the event (presentation and support content), and after the event (reports, summaries, resources, photographs and videos).
The content calendar identifies the content themes, the types of content that will be published, and when the content will be published. It also should include key dates and events, and assign responsibilities, for example, who is writing it, and sometimes who is editing and approving it.
There are many visual types of content calendars. Here is a simple example:
Content Theme
Content
Type
By
Whom
By
When
Related Event
Notes
Industry Trend
Blog
xxx
dd/mm/yyyy
Industry Conference dd/mm/yyyy
xxxxx
AMA
Discussion
xxx
dd/mm/yyyy
Panel discussion dd/mm/yyyy
xxxxx
Industry Job Postings
Wiki document
xxx
dd/mm/yyyy
N/A
xxxxx
Member Update
Announcement
xxx
dd/mm/yyyy
Monthly Roundtable
xxxxx
See the article on Calendaring for more on different types of calendars.
Blog » Creating Valuable and Relevant Content for a CoP
Creating Valuable and Relevant Content for a CoP
Summary:
Content for Communities of Practice can take many forms but its key characteristics are that it is relevant and of value to the members of the Community.
Content is king for Communities of Practice; for practitioners in the Community, the prime goal is to become better at the practice. Content is key to getting people to visit the Community and return to the Community.
To create great content that appeals to your members, follow recommended content creation principles, classify your content into different content categories, and create a content calendar to ensure that your content is regular and timely.
What is content in the context of Communities of Practice?
Content for Communities of Practice (CoPs) can take many forms: it can be physical or digital; it can be text, images, video, sound, virtual reality as well as augmented reality. In whichever format content is presented, the key attributes of good content are that it is relevant and of value to the members - including potential members - of the Community.
Why is content important for Communities of Practice?
Content is king for Communities of Practice. For practitioners in a Community of Practice, the prime goal is to improve their “practice”, that is, to become better at their job. To get better at what you do requires acquiring greater experience and greater knowledge and you cannot do this without access to relevant and valuable content presented in the right format and at the right time.
Content is key to getting people to visit the Community and return to the Community. It must also be relevant, that is, it should match and satisfy Member Needs. Content should also be in the right format for the audience. A common example in the International Development context: while high-end streaming video may be a suitable format for areas with high bandwidth, such format is less suitable in areas of low bandwidth, where podcasts and text-based content are more easily accessible.
Also, if you have a lot of content to start with, but you start to run out of content, expect members to start leaving the Community. This situation has been called the “feed the beast syndrome”: you might have a lot of great material to start with, but as it gets harder to find great content or volunteers to produce it, soon content production wanes, and, with it, enthusiasm and membership. The bottom line is that you need valuable, relevant, timely content, throughout the lifetime of your Community.
Content is what brings people to Community sites, whether it’s the latest developments and technologies, information about events, and the latest achievements of the members, content that tells members about each other’s work, experience, and lessons learned, helps to deepen relationships between members, build trust and contribute to a Sense of Community.
How do you create good content?
A Community is not a library, or a repository, or a news site, although it might have all these functionalities. In a Community, people don’t just read content but share it with each other. Knowledge sharing in turn encourages people to collaborate with each other. It is therefore important to make content social. Make it easier to engage with the content, for example by giving members an opportunity and simple way to provide feedback on that content, share it, and have a conversation around it. See Creating Social Content for more information.
Three tips to create good content:
Follow recommended content creation principles.
Classify your content into different content categories.
Create a content calendar.
Content Creation Principles
There are several principles to follow for creating good community content:
Timely – Good content is timely. It should be related to something that is happening now. That might mean content related to an event, related to new legislation, newly-released technology or a recent action that a member has taken.
Regular – Good content is regular. A regular blog post, a regular newsletter, the quarterly report-out and so on, all help develop what is called a cadence or rhythm for the community,
Unexpected – Sometimes regular can become boring, so good content can sometimes be content that members don’t expect. This might challenge an existing viewpoint or more simply be a surprise for-members-only, such as an advance preview of an upcoming publication.
Credible – Content has to be credible and supported by sources.
Emotional – The major pieces of content should resonate with its intended audience and provoke an emotion.
Content Categories
There are many different types of content that you can produce and you can consider these as falling under the following categories:
Highlights – Highlights can include a curated summary of the latest information or articles about a topic or about the community, and they save members time. Highlights can include a recent summary of industry news, a ‘best of the web’ highlighting external links worth reading, a round-up/key learnings from recent events, or top 5-10 things members might have missed this week. Highlights about the community can include the top discussion(s) of the week, top member(s) of the week/month, a round-up of the community discussions or activity, or shared photos/images from various events.
Analysis articles – Analysis articles add greater context to topical stories where you would connect relevant news stories into topical trends, and spotlight how data is guiding activity. You might also include things such as book or article reviews for members. You can also analyze what's happening in the community. You can do member polls and surveys to summarize the findings. You can highlight emerging best practices between members and areas where members are coalescing.
News – News can cover a wide array of things:
News can focus on the latest news about your domain. This might be snippets of articles or letting members know who/what is doing something new at any given time.
News about the community is also good, where you can mention existing members who have recently moved, or welcome new members, and mention your members’ recent achievements.
News can be personal too, for example when members get married or have children.
You can use news to raise the visibility of upcoming events and activities where members will be attending. They can collaborate at a meetup, or share travel arrangements. It is vital that people located in different countries who rarely get to meet in person leverage this precious in-person time together.
Opinions – Opinions and guest columns add fresh perspectives to the community. The goal is to find people with new ideas or new takes on existing issues to participate in the community. This participation can be in the form of a weekly/monthly opinion column that rotates authorship between different members. Or it can be multiple opinions and guest columns from experts you have a relationship with.
Interviews – Content created from interviews is a simple way of building a powerful sense of community. The themes of the interviews are a combination of all of the above. Interviews can consist of highlights from experts of recent papers, an analysis of current situations, a place to reveal news, or solicit opinions. They can be with industry experts, influencers, and those caught up in topical news stories. They can take the form of “Ask Me Anything”, emailed questions, live and recorded webinars, podcasts and week-long discussions.
Content Calendar
Creating a calendar of content can help you plan its creation and dissemination. It is a tool for obtaining, creating, and scheduling publication of content.
Another recommendation is to publish an upcoming calendar to members. The calendar lets them know what to expect and enables them to submit content that they would like to contribute or have members discuss. Contributing to the calendar is also another way to increase engagement with and commitment to your community.
Note: Events are a big driver of content: before the event (advance materials and promo videos) , during the event (presentation and support content), and after the event (reports, summaries, resources, photographs and videos).
The content calendar identifies the content themes, the types of content that will be published, and when the content will be published. It also should include key dates and events, and assign responsibilities, for example, who is writing it, and sometimes who is editing and approving it.
There are many visual types of content calendars. Here is a simple example:
Content Theme
Content
Type
By
Whom
By
When
Related Event
Notes
Industry Trend
Blog
xxx
dd/mm/yyyy
Industry Conference dd/mm/yyyy
xxxxx
AMA
Discussion
xxx
dd/mm/yyyy
Panel discussion dd/mm/yyyy
xxxxx
Industry Job Postings
Wiki document
xxx
dd/mm/yyyy
N/A
xxxxx
Member Update
Announcement
xxx
dd/mm/yyyy
Monthly Roundtable
xxxxx
See the article on Calendaring for more on different types of calendars.
This article is part of the WBG Communities of Practice Toolkit licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The toolkit features practical resources to help you develop impactful Communities of Practice. 📖 Learn more about the Toolkit. ▶ Access the Toolkit.