How Community Drives Word-Of-Mouth with Jeff Hudson and Holly Firestone

Today, we’re joined by two of the most prolific thought leaders in the community space, both working at Venafi. Jeff Hudson is the CEO, and Holly Firestone is their VP of Community. Venafi is the cybersecurity market leader in machine identity management and securing machine-to-machine connections and communications. This episode was recorded as a session during the CMX Summit 2021:Rise.

To develop a good, positive foundation for community building, have a clear, well-structured set of values that help community managers invite members to subscribe. The kind of influence the community creates for a company cannot be bought through any amount of ads. It only works if the showrunners at the company truly care about the success of their customers and not about earning millions or making a multi-million-dollar exit. This is why Jeff recommends community leaders not to use charts, graphs, or presentations to secure buy-in from the executive team.

Community is much more of a philosophy than it is marketing attribution; it touches everything. The next generation is millennials who want to be known for an identity that is unique to each individual while also being attached to a community. So give them an identity attached to your community and its values, not to your brand.

Make internal OKRs (objectives and key results) across all departments visible to the community team. It gives them a chance to play a proactive role in the growth of your business. The community team can also be proactive and take steps to present these reports on their own with the best possible level of detail.