Is There Something Missing From Slack Communities?

With all of the social distancing, in-person networking events have been put on hold. That means no more meetups, cocktail hours, conferences, etc. Prior to the pandemic, in-person networking was a core function of starting and growing businesses. Building your professional network and meeting like-minded professionals is how business gets done. Of course, networking has not stopped… it has gone online.

I appreciate all of the amazing technology and content being produced in order to drive leaders to attend online events, but I think you will agree it is not the same. There is something about waiting in that conference coffee line, attending a corporate function, or walking down the halls of an exhibit hall that are not replicated with online conferences and Slack Communities. Of course, you have your exhibitors, speakers, and attendee lists available but there is no serendipity.

Many companies have opted to build, grow or join Slack communities in order to get their networking fix, but I think they present a new challenge around engagement and conversation management. You can meet new people, but it is heavily based on sharing content or promoting products.

At ChatFox we are seeing this first hand as multiple online Slack communities have downloaded ChatFox. To be honest, they have not seen much success as our standard functionality is built for company team and culture building, not online communities. These communities have an even bigger challenge, budget. Online communities are not known to be moneymakers unless they are promoting gated content, offering courses, or are a marketing initiative by a larger organization. This deters entrepreneurs that might otherwise see this as an opportunity.

We believe that online Slack communities should have a culture of their own. They are important for professional networking and we would like to help develop a solution. That is why we are launching a Slack Community service model that includes all of our enterprise custom features in order to adapt our chatbot to the community needs. This is a learning process and we are curious to know how Slack Communities can be improved and what ChatFox can do to help.

Check Out Our New Slack Communities Landing Page

Please share your thoughts in the comment box.

About ChatFox

ChatFox is a Slack chatbot that builds remote teams & culture. Remote teams that only engage through projects, tasks, and deadlines do not foster a culture around shared values and goals. Build a strong remote team culture, improve remote team productivity, and eliminate team member isolation. Use ChatFox Icebreakers to build rapport with team members, use ChatFox Coffee Chats to have meaningful conversations with people across your organization, or use ChatFox Shout Outs to recommend a colleague and endorse their skills. Unlike other remote team solutions, ChatFox looks at remote team culture from a strategic perspective and has created engaging chats for your team that provide management with insights into remote team engagement, skills, contributions, and mobility.