How to audit engagement and revitalize a stagnant B2B software community?

[William44]

I've just been tasked with revitalizing the official online community for our B2B software company, which currently consists of a fairly stagnant forum and a support ticket system. My goal is to foster genuine peer-to-peer discussion and user-generated content, not just another support channel, but I'm unsure how to incentivize participation from our busy professional user base. For experienced community managers, what initial steps did you take to audit engagement and identify low-hanging fruit for improvement? How do you balance the need for moderation and brand safety with encouraging authentic, sometimes critical, conversation, and what metrics moved the needle beyond just vanity numbers like total members?

[RyanL]

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