Recently, for the first time, I had a decent number of people using some of the themes I wrote. The best part about this experience was the people using my themes found the bugs I missed when I tested them.

I know that sounds sarcastic but it’s true, I really am grateful.

When we think about content strategy we tend to only think about in terms of a blog and some marketing copy, but every interaction with our users is an opportunity to bring them into the community or push them away. Not only that, how we shape our content can help make users feel a part of the community which can have a radical effect on how they deal with the bugs they will inevitably find.

Stop and Empathize: Don’t Minimize.

We’ve all been in the situation where we need to get something done, we spent hours working with the thing that promised to be the perfect solution for what we needed to do, only to hit and dead-end. If you’re anything like me, you probably spent even more time trying multiple methods to hit that same dead-end.

This frustration, not a lack of respect for the work that went into the product, is what leads to demanding sounding support requests.

So keep in mind that most problem users are not actually annoying people who want something for nothing, they are just really frustrated. By the time you get back to them they will most likely be reasonable human beings again. Take a second to stop and empathize before judging too harshly. I know it’s easy to judge someone for seeming to be demanding about support for something they didn’t pay for, but it’s not the user’s fault that they’re not paying for support.

You should never discount someone’s frustration. They have a goal and if your product is in the way, you need to help them before they move on to another product. If done right you can turn a frustrated user into someone who sees themselves as a happy member of your user community.

Passive Users To Active Users: Everyone On Board

If your product has an error in line 25, let’s say it’s a missing semicolon, there is a whole spectrum of ways a user reporting the bug might phrase their report:

• Nothing works, this thing sucks.
• This thing is broken. Line 25 is missing a semicolon
• I’ve discovered a problem, you’re missing a semicolon in 25.
• There’s a missing semicolon in line 25, I’ve submitted this pull request to fix it.

Some people may see this as a spectrum of annoying to helpful, but I see it as a spectrum of community engagement. When you’ve used your communication with users to draw them into their community, they take responsibility for it. They fix things, or at least help you fix them, instead of being frustrated users, they are helpful community members.

So next time you have a frustrated user who needs support, empathize and once you’ve helped them think about collaborating on  a tutorial about dealing with the issue.  Or maybe ask them to create a fix and pull request. You can even just stress the value of a bug report. Whatever you do don’t get annoyed, you’ll miss the opportunity to gain a dedicated and committed community member.

How you react to frustrated users is important but you can prevent this type of frustration by being proactive. If you take strides before a problem happens to turn passive users into active community members, when they find bugs they will be a joy to work with. Not only will they be pleasant about it, but they will help make it so others do not face the same issue that they did. I think this starts with how you talk about your product. If you want your users to feel like stake holders, use your content to get them onboard.

What’s The Call To Action?

What does this mean? I think it means turning your content into an opportunity to start a conversation with your users, and let those conversations shape what they do. This week I’m going to be writing about ways I turn interactions with users, frustrated or into content that builds community and how I’m working to be more proactive than reactive on this front.

I’d love to know how you bring users into your community with your content. Does the call to action in your content just aim to sell or is it an invitation to conversation? A strong sales-oriented call to action is an opportunity to make a sale, but does it miss an opportunity to build community, which is usually more valuable in the long run?