How to Transition a Community Team After You Acquire Their Company

One of the reasons that companies get acquired is because of the community they have. The loyal customers, the active members, the people that are directly tied to the revenue that the company generates. When a company with a strong community is acquired, what should the new company do with their community team?

Paula Rosenberg joined VHX, a service that allows you to create your own Netflix-style streaming subscription service, in 2015. A year later, they were acquired by Vimeo and, a year after that, Paula joins the show to talk about what Vimeo did right, in transitioning the VHX community team. Plus:

The impact of community tools on subscription retention How Paula got her start by launching a community for students, as a student advisor Conducting seller research and how VHX spreads those insights throughout the company Big Quotes

“One of the things that Vimeo did very right by us, and continues to do, that I think could have potentially gone terribly wrong, if we had some acquisition with a horrible company, is we not only all came over together, we all were able to still operate together as a team. We’ve actually become our own business unit. … We didn’t feel like we were being separated from one another. We didn’t feel like we were losing all the things we loved about our office culture when we were a small team. We got to take the best of that over with us.” -@NYC_Paula

“[With] one of the [VHX] networks that has the most thriving forums on our platform … we’ve noticed that their top 15% of forum participants have been there since day one and still have not churned. That’s a really nice thing to say for engagement and how [the forums are] another way to keep your audience captivated.” -@NYC_Paula

About Paula Rosenberg

Paula Rosenberg oversees community for VHX, an OTT, or over-the-top, video platform that was acquired by Vimeo last year. She served as chair of the awards committee for cmad.co’s Community Manager Appreciation Day celebration in 2017 and will do so again for 2018. She is a freelance writer, a contributor to We Support and volunteers with Rabbit Rescue & Rehab.

Related Links Paula’s website VHX, a platform that allows you to create your own Netflix-style streaming subscription service, where Paula is community manager Vimeo, a video sharing website that owns VHX cmad.co’s 2017 Community Manager of the Year award, chosen by a committee chaired by Paula We Support, a resource for community and support programs, which Paula helps run Rabbit Rescue & Rehab, a nonprofit organization where Paula volunteers Community Signal episodes with Carol Benovic-Bradley and Alexandra Dao, two other co-organizers of We Support Roxanne Schwartz, the fourth We Support co-organizer and only one who has not yet been a guest on Community Signal Blackboard, which provides collaboration tools for classrooms “What is a Cohort Program?” by Colorado Christian University Tina Michele, who works with Paula at Vimeo, providing community support Stephen Niebauer, head of community support for VHX at Vimeo Looker, a company that believes “everyone should have access, explore and understand the data that drives their business” “Case Study: How to Use Forums to Build Your Community” by Paula, the blog post mentioned on the show that she had not published yet, about a VHX network with a community where the top 15 percent of active members had yet to churn “Vimeo Acquires VHX, Bolstering Subscription VOD Tools” by Todd Spangler for Variety The IAC Building, located in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, which Paula works out of IAC, Vimeo’s parent company Darnell Witt, senior director of support and community at Vimeo Amazon Buys Zappos; The Price is $928m., Not $847m.” by Sarah Lacy for TechCrunch Zappos, an online clothing, shoe and accessories retailer Zappos Insights, which shares Zappos company culture on a wider scale BLACK&SEXY and Yoga with Adriene, two VHX-powered networks Paula on Twitter Paula on Instagram Transcript View transcript on our website Your Thoughts

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