At Helpstream, we've found that a great way to gain insight about how our customers are using our solution is to speak with the community managers. To that end, we've posed some questions to Joe Manna, community manager for Infusionsoft. Joe is the resident social media expert for Infusionsoft, where he runs the company blog and helps solve customer issues via Twitter. He is also one of the leading customer advocates at Infusionsoft and helps convey customer feedback and requests to various departments in the company, including product management, the executive team, customer service and IT.

Joe was kind enough to answer our questions about how Infusionsoft's customers are using its Helpstream community, what he's learned from it and how it's impacted Infusionsoft as a whole. Read on for his insight.

1) What are some of the most important lessons you've learned from your role as the Infusionsoft community manager?

I’ve learned first-hand that a business community is very diverse; much more diverse than people think. You could say that I also learned and solidified my thoughts around community on the Web at large – it must be done on customers’ and prospects’ terms, not the business’. People inherently have more trust on platforms that aren’t necessarily controlled by the company, which is fine. In practice, it’s relatively easy to “let go” of control that you once desired when you are helping people in the long run. One additional lesson learned is aligning the success metrics of community to the success metrics of the organization.

2) Can you share feedback from some of the small business owners and entrepreneurs who participate in your community about the benefits they've received and what they use it most for?

Our customers frequently use our community resources to get further assistance outside the scope of our software support. Because a few of our developers are actively engaged in our forums and customer feedback, they are able to investigate issues deeper and provide solutions. This is a huge win for our customers because they can receive assistance on virtually any small business or technical concern they have. One such incident concerning a merchant gateway that caused a subset of international users great pain was actually solved in about a week purely from community involvement. We get detailed feedback as well concerning our product strategy and growth and it allows us to be in touch with users’ feedback.

Outside of our forums, we receive many compliments regarding our awareness and support of users whenever they need help. This includes Twitter, Facebook and our blog. We focus on transparency and keeping our users as close to us as possible when it comes to software changes, new features and system status. That’s something that we’ve seen that correlates with our retention and satisfaction.

3) What kind of content do your customers find most helpful?

All kinds. I’m partially kidding… but it’s true. Our users definitely enjoy videos, pictures, diagrams and solid advice for their business. Video is huge as it allows us to communicate things that just can’t be done through text. We’ve had good response to video, but it does have its limits, too. Too much of any one kind of content loses interest among our audience so I try to keep it dynamic and exciting for them to hear from us. Our blog is our strongest asset at sharing our content, no matter the format, followed by Facebook and then Twitter.

I can tell you about what’s unhelpful in a business community: pitchy sales and fluff. No disrespect to our marketing or sales teams, but our users want to connect with the brand and with others. They don’t want sales offers, ads or “fluff” if it doesn’t help them in some way. This doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist; the more organic value you provide, the more flexible and tolerant (and interested) users are to sales offers when it’s made to them.

My advice for any businesses out there – just do it. If it feels right and is genuinely useful or interesting, just do it. Listen and monitor what people do with your content.

4) How has your Helpstream community impacted Infusionsoft's business?

Helpstream, unlike other support portals I’ve used before, adds a great deal of accessibility, customization and accountability. I don’t particularly mess with the reporting too much, but I do often review cases for users and have a need to see the status of them. This helps our community because we can collaborate on the same platform to help customers. The integration that we have with our user records is very cool and helps us a great deal at helping the customer at the right time.

Helpstream has also added many more efficiencies to our business. We’re able to quantify the impact of software changes, process changes and all those fun business analytics in one for support. Before, we used spreadsheets and telephony stats – not exactly a cup of tea to do on a regular basis. We also gain huge advantages with the article publishing, allowing us to insert rich content and measure the resolution rates from it. Even though the number of users is continually increasing, our support team has managed to stay lean and efficient. We credit Helpstream for making that possible.

5) What do you do to publicize your community and drive adoption? What has or has not been successful?

We do big media buys… I’m kidding again. We’ve organically grown our community from the needs of our users. What I mean by that, is we tell them about it, mention it in our emails that we send them and link to it on our Web site. Users who are in need of community interaction will go out and find it. Many entrepreneurs are savvy enough to find what they want, when they want it. That said, we occasionally run promotions on one or more of our community assets to let people know it’s there and they can use it,

Another incentive to increase engagement is to add exclusivity. I try to break stuff first about our company on Twitter whenever possible. But I tend to share more in-depth articles, polls and engagement on our Facebook and keep it there so there’s an added benefit in keeping close to us socially online. It’s all about value and giving the right value to our audience at the right time.

About Joe Manna

Joe Manna is the community manager for small business marketing software provider Infusionsoft. With an extensive background in social media and community management, his passion revolves around advocating for people's technological needs and helping others leverage new media to solve modern problems.

You can follow his daily thoughts on Twitter (@JoeManna). When he's not blogging, Tweeting or browsing Facebook, he's enjoying balmy Phoenix, AZ and playing games on his XBOX.