About Charles Thiede
Hi, I’m Charles Thiede, CEO & Cofounder at Zapnito. We help businesses power Community-Led Growth by developing our methodology and giving our customers the tools they need to get the most out of their platform. My background is in Healthcare Financial Services, Business Information & Product Development. Looking forward to connecting with you.
Areas of Expertise
What are your goals for joining the Zapnito community?
Influencer Of
Popular Content
Topics
Channels contributed to:
Vision Media & Publishing SaaS Community ManagementRooms participated in:
Zapnito Journey Advisor Room Zapnito Customers Community-Led Growth HubRecent Discussions
Customer Connection: Now/Next
Thanks to everyone who came last night, especially our experts - @Darren Gough Christina Patrick and Blaise Grimes-Viort. Here are my key takeaways. Please add your thoughts, ideas below. Huge thanks @Paulina for organizing! And to see some of our fabulous customers there also!
Everyone in the room shared the goal of creating closer relationships with their customers.
From the experiences shared, we’re already seeing how AI can save teams from answering the same simple questions, or by protecting the integrity of customer communities through moderation. This creates efficiencies, but they act as a shield from customers instead of providing a way to get closer.
If these transactional interactions can be handled by AI, then hopefully it will free a team up to deliver more proactive value for customers. Replacing experienced experts is a race to the bottom. Delivering ‘just in time’ communication is all about understanding and predicting your customer’s needs - educating rather than reacting.
This led us back to the power of communities to create deep customer connections and power knowledge sharing at scale. At Zapnito, our focus is to help businesses connect their customers to the right knowledge and the right people, at the right time. Often the most valuable thing we can offer a customer is the chance to exchange with someone like them. Relational over transactional. Creating this two-way dialog is critical. It's how businesses can truly help their customers succeed. And it's how customers can help businesses to provide better products and services.
In the spirit of that two-way dialog, I’d love to hear how you’d like to see the Zapnito platform evolve to help you create deeper customer connections, now and in the future.@Neil Morgan @Madeleine Milne @Waimai Lo would love your thoughts!
Nice Examples of Communities in our Space
https://visioneers.gong.io/community
Starting with that one.
https://visioneers.gong.io/events/how-visioneers-use-gong-getting-detractors-on-board-113
Perfect example of a customer driven Community. This is running on Gainsight (former Insided)
Engaging Basics
One thing we should all do is Like Jack's videos:
https://community.zapnito.com/users/jack-bartrop
Following people on the Community - Build Your Network
Commenting if a Video or Content item resonates
Looking forward to ideas here
🎉 Welcome to our Zapnito Team Community Engagement Ideas Group! 🎉 (Need a shorter name!)
Hey everyone,
We've created this special corner just for us, where we can brainstorm, share ideas, and collaborate on engaging our wider community of customers, partners, and prospects.
We will share ideas and updates here for everyone to get involved in the wider Community.
Welcome!
Event Tech and Community
Hi All, I am curious about People's views on what happened with Hopin and what the future of Event Tech looks like.
https://community.zapnito.com/discussions/virtual-events-best-practices (some good dialogue in here).
https://exhibitionnews.uk/hopin-exits-the-stage-having-lost-only-99-of-its-value/
In 2020 we saw the rise of Hopin, Grip and other platforms while incumbents like Intrado (now Notified) gained further traction. Some thought the event model would flip on its head (In 2020 we had a choice to develop some form of Event Tech at Zapnito yet I decided we need to stick to our vision of Communities and Knowledge Sharing vs. chase that trend).
Now its 2024. And events are back and human nature rules - gatherings matter.
How will Online Communities living side by side events as the Event Tech providers struggle to find their way (with huge valuations in 2020 & 2021) and huge drops today?
Any thoughts are appreciated...
Your Guide to PLG and Community—It’s Way More Than Launching a Slack Group (article) - I am interested in people's views
This is a great article from OpenView (VC). https://openviewpartners.com/blog/your-guide-to-plg-and-community-its-way-more-than-launching-a-slack-group/
Interested in people's thoughts about Kyle's five recommendations. #5 might not be realistic for mid-sized companies?
1. Amplify community creators
2. Connect users with their peers
3. Be active within existing communities
4. Build a content community
5. Acquire an established community
Breakfast pre-welcome
Welcome everyone. I am excited to see you all on Thursday morning. We will be introducing the Community Led Growth methodology and hearing from some of our amazing clients. Looking forward to seeing you for some breakfast too!
Vice President of Solutions, EMEA (Revenue)
All All! We are hiring a VP of Sales (what we are going to market with as Vice President of Solutions, EMEA). This will be a key role for us moving forward. If you know anyone that has enterprise SaaS experience and based in London (or UK) please let us know. https://community.zapnito.com/posts/hiring-vice-president-of-solutions-emea?channel_id=jobs
Email is fine or DM me on our Community.
Best, Charles
Recent Comments
Thanks @Neil Morgan And huge thanks to https://www.b2bmarketing.net/ @Richard O’Connorfor all the support as well. I highly recommend B2B Marketing / Propolis for all marketers in our Community.
Also @Lucy Gillman thank you for the great questions on Community Led Growth!
Thanks @Neil Morgan And huge thanks to https://www.b2bmarketing.net/ @Richard O’Connorfor all the support as well. I highly recommend B2B Marketing / Propolis for all marketers in our Community.
@Mayah Taylor Actually one quick question for you. The Creator Sessions. That sounds really interesting to move from 30 to 300. How did you make that happen and keep them coordinated?
@Mayah Taylor Huge thanks for the ten years of wisdom here on the video with @Jack Bartrop - fostering connection, getting fast(est) feedback from the Community.
Hey Charles, this link doesn't work, has it moved? https://community.zapnito.com/posts/37263-the-rise-of-the-expert-network
Hi Sam! Great to hear from you. Looks like it got moved: https://community.zapnito.com/posts/the-rise-of-the-expert-network. I have updated the content also. Thanks for letting me know.
@Neil Morgan I really like this concept of flipping the funnel. Where your customers and partners become the focus and your greatest asset.
Love the "Community is the new content". An interesting way of thinking. Content marketing has reached a saturation point - though expert driven (not Chat GPT or just blogs) content is a big part of the Community value.
@Neil Morgan I really like this concept of flipping the funnel. Where your customers and partners become the focus and your greatest asset.
One thing we have found with content and advocacy is key themes and spotlights. Having a recurring theme for Advocates to participate in has been useful for our clients. Anything from day in the life interviews with experts or thought leaders or spotlights on a key problem they solved creates a consistent thematic approach to the Advocacy and reduces any overhead as you scale. My tip!