GraphCMS Talks: Community Content with Ekatarina Kromina

In this episode of GraphCMS Talks, I get into a conversation with Kate, Events and Community Lead at Honeypot, to talk about the role that community-focused content plays.

About Ekaterina and Honeypot

Honeypot is Europe’s leading developer-focused job platform. Developers on the Honeypot platform can expect transparent information and tech-stack upfront with no resumes, no cover letters, and no irrelevant offers.

Honeypot also runs the media platform, Cult, a place where we share untold developer stories with original articles, documentaries, and podcasts all in one place! Visit [cult.honeypot.io] to see more!

Ekatarina is the Community and Events lead at Honeypot, where she's responsible for a wide range of Honeypot's engagements in the community, including organizing GraphQL Day Bodensee 2019 in cooperation with us!

Key takeaways from the conversation

How does Honeypot create a balance between creating events for greater brand awareness vs with the intention of conversion.

Different types of content serve different purposes as users interact very differently with this content. Events, both in-person and digital, often serve as a way to increase brand awareness and build a community where people are familiar with Honeypot. In terms of content with the purpose of conversion, videos and articles are more effective because the goal is to give solutions to problems that people face when on the job hunt. Articles and informational content tend to focus on how Honeypot can be one part of the broader solution.

What considerations does the team at Honeypot have when trying to create content/initiatives that are engaging in the community.

There are several ways to go about coming up with new content and initiatives that foster greater community building and brand awareness. The first being engaging with existing events or content that has a similar audience and figuring out how you can replicate that for your audience and industry or find a way to participate in existing events. Kate mentions that Honeypot used this strategy with GraphQL as a way of reaching a new audience of people in the tech field who wanted to work with a modern tech stack. The second way to create new content in a systematic way is to first conduct interviews and gather feedback from existing users and target audience members to better understand their needs and wishes. This approach also allows the team to strike a balance between being the expert and sharing the stage with people who have more knowledge in a specific area.

Do you think community content serves better as evergreen content or a snapshot in time, and how do you work to keep the content that the team creates engaging and relevant?

Before March of 2020, Kate felt that community content worked best as evergreen content where people could refer back to the content at any time for reference. Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, there has been a shift in how people engage with community content. In the present moment, we see community content becoming unique to our current moment in time. Community content has now shifted solely online, which presents new opportunities and challenges when it comes to building evergreen content. It remains to be seen what traits of content created during the pandemic will persist once it is safe to have in-person conferences and meetings, but as of now, content creators must continue to experiment with what can be translated to an online event and what needs to be considered in an entirely new format to be engaging to the audience.

What is the role of community content in creating a well rounded, trusted brand?

They should be closely interconnected. In fact, community content is extremely important to carry through the spirit of the brand across channels. If your brand is intended to be light-hearted while still being professional, that should come across in the types of community content you create. If a brand is focusing on government agencies or large enterprises, the tone and feel of the content should reflect who you are trying to attract.