Photo source: User photosteve101 on flickr.

As a sales engineer here at DNN, I spend a lot of time doing demos in support of our sales team. Over the past year, we’ve conducted a lot of demos of our online community solution, Evoq Social. Typically, the receiving end of a demo is an organization interested in managing their own community. Here are the five things community managers want to know about online community software.

1) Is the solution mobile friendly?

Is the solution mobile friendly? This is the question I receive most often. Chances are if you have a community, your community members will be “on the go” at some point and interacting via their mobile devices. If you want to offer those members a user-friendly experience on mobile devices, then your community software should be mobile friendly. The next question you may get is how the mobile readiness is implemented (e.g. responsive design, mobile app, etc.).

2) How are you handling authentication?

Photo source: Scott Schiller on flickr.

Authentication is another frequent question. Community managers want to ensure that their community members can easily authenticate to the site. Whether the community is an internal or external community, having a smooth and seamless authentication process is critical to the success of any community. Here are three common scenarios:

1. The organization already has a website and wants the community to easily integrate with their site
2. The organization wants their community members to be able to login to their site either via social logins (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc.)
3. The organization has a custom authentication method at their organization that they want to use.

3) Is the solution extensible?

Another item that community managers often ask about is the ability to customize and extend the solution.It may be a custom training program or some feature that is unique to their organization (e.g. integration with their proprietary database system). Because community managers want to create unique experiences for their users, being able to extend, customize, and develop on top of community software is high on their priority list.

4) Do You Have Groups Functionality?

I’m often asked about group functionality. The need for creating focused groups where community members can interact around specific topics, shared interests or ideas is high on community managers’ requirements lists.

5) Do you have moderation capabilities?

In any community, there is a possible scenario where a community member posts something negative or inappropriate. Community managers want to know that their community solution has the necessary moderation capabilities to hide or remove content items. In my demos, I make sure to demonstrate the assorted scenarios, including options for which the community manager can handle moderation.

Conclusion

Giving social solution demos on a daily basis helps me understand the features that are important to community managers. I hope this blog entry has provided insight into the features most commonly asked about by community managers.

Use the Comments area below to share your questions about online community software . I’m confident I can provide answers.

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