Resource: State of Community Management Report 2024
The 2024 ACM State of Community Management Report, conducted by ACM, with 2024 partners Khoros, the Digital Ethnography Research Centre (RMIT), and Quiip, provides data-driven insights about the community sector, its challenges, and emerging trends.
Venessa Paech, Director, Australian Community Managers and key author of the report in her foreword states:
“The internet is at its best when communities are strong, and the people who build and steward them deserve recognition, respect, and investment.”
This annual review of community management in Australia and New Zealand is in its ninth year. It is one of the most respected resources for community professionals, and recognises the value that they bring to both business and society.
The 84 page research report highlights the real financial impact and ROI of communities for the business and organisational purposes they serve.
But it also highlights the cost to the people who manage them and the need to lean into improved measurement and a codified community strategy.
Here are the key takeaways from Australian Community Managers (ACM) State of Community Management Report 2024:
Community is ‘integral to the business’ for 67% of respondents and 56% report that ‘community is seen to have a positive impact’.
However, the lack of a documented community strategy is of concern. 42% of respondents appear to be working without a codified strategy - 29% stating that a strategy is ‘undocumented’ and 13% respondents were ‘unaware that a strategy exists’.
What relationship does your business or organisation have with community?
Source: Australian Community Managers - State of Community Management 2024
2. The top four organisational purposes for online communities are:
- Knowledge building/sharing (50%)
- Social impact (47%)
- Brand loyalty/retention (33%)
- Brand awareness (30%)
The study reports that customer success (21%) and supporting cost reduction (7%). Customer Success/Experience are established business drivers for building community, but the report highlights many other benefits, including referrals (14%), research and intelligence (6%), product testing (6%) and innovation/ideation (6%).
Most common purpose of community for businesses and organisations
Source: Australian Community Managers - State of Community Management 2024
3. While some companies struggle to justify community ROI, others are seeing significant financial impact. The total percentage of respondents reporting a financial value of $500K - $5M (AUD) stands at 34%.
More respondents than in previous studies value their community at contributing less than $10K (AUD) annually, but there has been a big increase in high-value communities $500K - $1M (AUD), rising from 9% to 20%.
Annual financial value of community
Source: Australian Community Managers - State of Community Management 2024
4. Measuring community ROI remains a challenge: While 45% of professionals track return on investment, most respondents are struggling to quantify community value in dollar terms.
Whilst some communities of purpose or communities of circumstance may not measure financial ROI, most communities will have to prove their impact on business growth.
For examples of successful community ROI, listen to Ed Giansante, Head of Community at Persona and Laura Roth from Amazon Web Services (AWS) share how they measure business value from community in the ‘Meet The Community Builders’ series.
5. Social media is losing ground to Discord, Microsoft Teams, Slack and private community platforms (e.g. Khoros, Mighty Networks, Circle): Usage of major platforms like Facebook Groups, Twitter/X and Threads for community building is declining. While still used, social media-based communities are seeing a decline, possibly due to moderation, data and algorithmic challenges.
6. AI is becoming an integral tool for community managers: 47% of survey respondents find AI helpful, yet only 25% feel in control of it in their communities.
7. The biggest community moderation issues continue to be Misinformation (58%) General social conflict (57%) Spam (48%). Microaggressions and Trolling in communities saw the largest percentage decreasedecreases.
8. Workforce instability is rising: Full-time employment in the profession has plummeted from 71% to 47%, with part-time, contract, and volunteer roles surging.
9. The Gender gap is strong and diversity lags: 83% of community managers are female, the highest on record, while cultural diversity in the field remains stagnant.
10. Salary disparity amongst community managers is growing: The highest-paid community managers are earning over $150,000 (AUD), while 14% of professionals work unpaid or in volunteer roles.
11. Government communities are in decline: Once a key employer of community professionals, government-led communities have shrunk dramatically, while service-based businesses and nonprofits have expanded.
12. Health & mental health communities are thriving: The biggest growth has been in health-focused and mission-driven communities.
13. The four areas that respondents wish to change about the profession are:
- Improved recognition and understanding of a community manager’s work, role and impact
- Risk, limitations and challenges of working with major social media platforms like Meta
- The sheer volume of misinformation, conflict, offensive speech, spam, and knee-jerk reactions online
- A daunting workload that includes operational demands, legal compliance and evolving technologies with limited resources
There’s lots of juicy nuggets, more excellent data and quotes from community manager respondents in the report and I encourage you to read it. Thanks to the ACM team and sponsors for continuing their annual benchmarking for the community industry.
Check the full State of Community Management 2024 report here.
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