One of the best and worst question I regularly hear is … "What is the staffing requirement for managing my customer/employee/partner community" I love this question when I know it is coming from the respect of planning for a successful implementation and wanting to put the best resources and plan in place to see the Social ROI from their efforts. I am not so thrilled when I think it is coming from the perspective wanting the answer that it won't require much attention and if you build it the community will sprout and grow on its own.
I have several ways to explain this to people. There is the comparison to transportation. A horse needs food, direction, and attention. A car needs a driver, gas, and maintenance as well as a good road helps. It comes down to most communities thrive when given the attention a farmer has to his crops. The community needs to be seeded, watered, different treatments based on business weather conditions, and harvested for the rich rewards of the content. The content contains seeds to plant the next batch of rich fruit. It is an on-going love affair with your field. It is an on-going nurturing of the relationship between the enterprise/governmental agency and the target audience. Too much attention (water) and you can get rot. Too little and the community can die on the vine. For every company and with every plot of land, this changes due to conditions. You can have 10,000 members but low content contribution and no need for a headcount. There are the 100 person networks that have a lively posting and contribution daily or questions that are very time consuming to answer. An external influence can immediately blow up your community site and cause a ton of unplanned traffic and additional resources will need to be deployed.
The best answer I can provide without a clear understanding of the individual primary goals is expect that the time and effort put into your community to show in the results. The biblical phrase, "You Reap What You Sow" is very appropriate. The idea that social software (or any software or technology) alone will fix your problem without the careful planning of adoption is a fool hearted investment. Keep this in mind as you are looking at a staffing plan. A good community manager is essential. The manager should be respected within the company and have easy access to content developers or people to tap for help answering questions.
When it comes to outsourcing community management, my own biases are to handle moderation and content planning internally rather than outsourcing it if at all possible. Who knows your company, services/product, and brand better than an internal advocate? This is why I recommend looking internally first for the appropriate individual. Good places to find individuals are in your marketing, public relations, and especially customer care teams. Then, pick a technology partner that will also be resource for your long term strategy and be a mentor for your community manager. In reality, having to add head count to manage the volume of social INgagement should be a positive thing.
What have you seen as appropriate recommendations on staffing levels?
