Melissa O’Young is Head of Community for Australian design platform, Canva. Before joining Canva, Melissa was Head of Community at AirBnB, where she managed 1 million Airbnb hosts and led a team of 18 Community Engagement Specialists to scale community in 70 global markets. Melissa joined us for a yarn about strategies for scaling communities in global markets and shared some lessons across her career as a community professional.

What is your technical and platform approach to scaling communities?

• OWNED PLATFORMS VS. BIG SOCIAL: Platforms like Facebook are easy to set up and generate a lot of organic traffic as community members likely already use them. However, as a community gets bigger, content might get lost, making it harder to keep track of your community and more difficult to build an intimate community space.

• CULTURAL NUANCES: Different global markets prefer different platforms for community building. Community managers may benefit from creating a global central place for official updates, but allow for local communities to discuss in channels that feel comfortable them. You can establish links between your central place and local communities to build cohesion, for example by creating playbooks and guidelines.

What advice would you give to someone looking to scale their community?

• UNDERSTAND YOUR COMMUNITY: Invest time in speaking to your community members to ensure you are scaling projects in the right way. Keep lines of communication open: hold small group sessions and one-on-one chats talking your community members through changes, feedback and concerns. Champion your founding members as co-creators and partners in this process.

• EXPLORE CULTURAL NUANCES: When scaling and creating playbooks for community managers across different markets, remember that the way someone runs a community in Germany or Japan may be very different to Australia. Some countries may prefer constructive, educational meetings, while others may find social gatherings a more intuitive way to collaborate. Create playbooks that are flexible enough to accommodate these nuances while still providing structure and cohesion.

• PURPOSE: Keep the purpose of your community defined and clear and return to it as the community scales. This purpose should be a north star that can be translated and absorbed by any community in the world.

To watch the full video of our Yarn with Melissa & enjoy a wealth of other benefits, become an ACM Pro member.

What are some challenges faced by community managers both within Canva and globally?

•  COMMUNITY CONFLICT: Divisive and controversial topics can come up within communities. Community managers may feel pressured to take a public stance on these issues in response. Building the right partnerships with PR or communications departments within your organisation and having the right leaders invested in replying back to the community can help take pressure off community managers.

• EXTRINSIC VS INTRINSIC REWARDS: Some communities are built on extrinsic rewards. But when a community scales, the cost of extrinsic rewards also scales. If you plan to introduce extrinsic rewards into an existing community, be prepared for the motivations of community members to change. If you plan to remove extrinsic rewards after the fact, explain the why to your community members.

What trends have you noticed in community management? What roles do you see community managers playing in organisations in the future?

• ONLINE VS. OFFLINE: Communities have moved online during the pandemic. This means offline community managers need to be able to engage online. Build engaging online hangouts by gamifying events or using tools to augment digital gatherings.

• DIVERSIFICATION AND GROWTH: Community roles are diversifying as organisations recalibrate their approach to community. How can community be part of a company and what does that look like? Community is more than curating forums or hiring moderators- it’s about brands finding ways to walk with their customers.

Join our member forum for discussions and more resources on all thing community.