Community Manager. It’s a role that has evolved into a must-have position for any company wanting to connect on a deeper level and communicate directly with their consumers. With today’s new media technologies, it’s the perfect way to find brand advocates, solve customer issues and ultimately, build meaningful relationships. There are many qualities and skills to be had by a Community Manager and I could easily list them out myself. Instead, what better way to find what makes a CM valuable than by asking my own community on Twitter.
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The first part of this short series related to one of the takeaways I had from the MarketingProfs Digital Mixer, people and the deep connections I made with many folks at the conference last week. The second takeaway that I’ll be touching on is passion.
Gary Vaynerchuk is as passionate as they come and if anyone is going to give you a kick in the butt about passion, he’s the man to do it. I’ve always watched his videos on GaryVaynerchuk.com & even on WineLibrary.tv (and I barely drink wine) and am able to take his energy from the videos and into my professional and even personal life. Seeing (and gratefully getting to speak & hang out with) him in person definitely multiplied the force of his words as I’m sure majority of the people at the keynote felt. Summing it up, he makes you want to get out and do 1,000 things. Powerful, to say the least.
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A couple weeks ago, I wrote on how to pre-tackle conferences and specifically related it to the MarketingProfs Digital Mixer that took place this past week. All I can say is - WOW. The event, people and venue were simply amazing. I expected a great event in Scottsdale as MarketingProfs had a stellar line up of speakers, as well as two big keynotes by Arianna Huffington and Gary Vaynerchuk, who undoubtedly ‘brought it.’ If you’ve ever watched one of his videos, you’ll notice his passion right off the bat for what he does and how much he truly believes in his community, which leads into the biggest takeaways for me from this event; people and passion. I’ll break this up into two parts so I can better explain both.
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Communities coming together to unite for/against a cause has always been prevalent in society. We’ve seen it for the O.J. Simpson case, the Elián González custody battle and the Terri Schiavo case. Those are pretty mainstream examples, but the common theme is people banding together for what they feel strongly for. The emotional connections to these cases were apparent, thus creating strong community voices for each. Tying that into the new media tools that we have now to communicate and get messages across, the scope of these communities have the possibility to multiple tenfold.
Just this afternoon, I, among thousands of others, have witnessed a similar community form before our eyes. The community is taking shape on Twitter right as we speak and is reaching out to thousands of folks across the network about a young girl, McKenzie Church (@genochurch’s daughter), who has been reported missing from her home this past weekend. The report made headway on Twitter as Rob Williams (@orangejack) tweeted an Amber Alert with a post he made on his blog. Before he and anyone else knew it, it’s been retweeted hundreds of times and is prevalant through a Twitter search and the number of results that you’ll see pouring in.
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The other week, Chris Brogan had a couple of insightful (when are they not) and timely posts regarding conference etiquette, how to get the most out of them and how to overcome your shyness. For most that know me IRL, I’m a pretty outgoing, sometimes crazy/random, person. I like interacting with folks and being a part of the conversation. Translate that into a conference setting and you have the same, but also come with new challenges.
Later this month (Oct 22-23), I’ll be attending the MarketingProfs Digital Marketing Mixer in Scottsdale. I’m SUPER excited to go as there’s a ton of great speakers and tracks set up that’ll greatly benefit me and my knowledge in the social media space. The part that I’m really pumped about is meeting so many great folks I’ve connected with this past year through Twitter and Plurk.
Chris pointed out some great tips on how to handle yourself at a conference but you may be asking yourself, “What can I do before then?” About a week ago I asked my Plurk friends what their ‘best practices’ are when attending conferences. I got some great ideas through our discussion and came up with a list of things to do before heading out:
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About two months ago, a Twitter bud linked an article from EcoGeek that talked about a big issue they had with Intel and how their logo was stolen. Apparently, Intel PR released some material about one of their products that utilized a cool eco-style power button. Well, this nifty image was the EXACT image of EcoGeek.com’s logo. I guess big time corporations aren’t able to cut into their billion dollar budgets for a little design work.
Fast forward to almost a week later where Intel casually/barely/whateveryouwannacallit apologized to EcoGeek for taking their logo and were ’sorry if you were upset’. No real apology, no compensation, not even a call. Intel, their PR team, and whoever else that had their hands around this obviously didn’t care much for the little guy that they stole from and basically brushed ‘em aside and went on about their business. Fail. They handled this terribly from a communication standpoint and missed an opportunity to be transparent and fix this sticky situation. If they had shown more assertiveness in reaching out to Hank Green (EcoGeek’s founder) and amending their wrong doing, Intel could have helped their PR case and shown Hank and his readers that they actually give a damn and are truly sorry. Giving him a tour of their headquarters, small compensation, or even a call could have been enough to rebuild the trust with Hank and the EcoGeek community.
Ok, you’re probably wondering why I’m talking about a story that’s two months old. Well, my wheels started spinning this morning as I was doing my usual reading/skimming of TechCrunch posts. I came across an article about Intel and a trademark fight; oh, this had got to be good. For some strange reason, Intel thinks Intellife Travel, a small Chinese travel agency, is infringing on their name. I, along with many others who have commented, don’t see a correlation between the two and would probably have never heard of Intellife Travel if it weren’t for Intel (free PR is better than no PR?).
I won’t get into the legal ramifications of this case but the issue is Intel’s casual demeanor when dealing with small-time businesses and pushing their big dollar name around; not to mention the utter hypocrisy of these two issues. They blatantly jacked someones logo and used it for their own good and then had the nerve to claim Intellife Travel is infringing on their rights. Intel had the chance to address and even build upon their community by rectifying their mistake with EcoGeek, but they chose otherwise and are now after a small business in what seems like such a frivolous lawsuit.
What would you do in either one of these cases (Intel or not)? Is there anything small businesses can do when trying to combat high-powered corporations and their lawyers?
Late last month, Mitch Joel of Twist Image, a marketing agency north of the border, posted a fun and educational social media writing project. The project is simple and asks the community this question:
What are your best practices for Social Media Marketing?
I thought about the question for a bit, as there were several that crossed my mind but then it became evident to me what my best practice is:
Conversation
A best practice describes the building blocks of the strategy/industry at hand, something that brings it to life. The backbone of social media, in my opinion, revolves around the conversation. Taking part in the conversation is one of the biggest things you can do to help evolve your social media presence. Opening the lines of communication within your network shows your willingness to be transparent and to learn & build from that network. So how can you effectively be part of the social media conversation? Here are a few thoughts:
- Read and Comment - visit industry blogs that interest you and comment (thought provoking not just a ‘great post’ comment). Stay active and on top of what’s going on in the industry.
- Listen - Opening your ears to what’s being said is just as important as talking. What are the hot topics, the hot people; educate yourself and provide value when you do jump in.
- Write - Encompassing what you learned - start writing! Bust out some posts and engage your readers. Ask them questions, ask for feedback, grab their interest and hold on to it for dear life (ok, maybe not that dramatic but you get the point).
- Be Yourself - Show the real you, in the posts to your readers, in your tweets, to anyone (which is everyone) that can hear you on the interwebs. Transparency gets picked up easily in social media and is appreciated.
We can probably expand this topic even further but will stick to the basics for now and keep it concise for Mitch’s project. Feel free to add your thoughts about conversation and what YOUR best practice is.
At about 11:41am PST today (an hour ago), a 5.4 earthquake hit east of Los Angeles. Don’t be fooled by the link, I didn’t hear about it from CNN. The ‘news’ mediums that broke the story first were Twitter and Ustream.tv. I initially heard about it on Alejandro Reyes’ live Ustream channel as viewers in the area commented as it was happening.
I went over to Summize…err, Twitter Search, to hear more news and see how everyone was doing out there. Within a half hour of when the news first broke, there were already over 4,000 tweets about the event (and Twitter didn’t go down!). Luckily, no one had reported any injuries or structural damage; just a few things knocked over.
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There’s been a lot of talk lately from internet ‘A-listers’ who suggest that Twitter users are flocking to FriendFeed, in lieu of their recent issues. They say that FriendFeed is where the conversation is and that by the numbers and how fast they’ve grown their networks, FriendFeed has something that Twitter should be afraid of - conversation. Do these numbers really show the truth in FriendFeed as a fast growing conversational network? I don’t doubt its increased popularity as a micro-blogging/life-streaming portal, but what’s funny is the fact that these and other prominent folks in the industry talk about numbers, when in reality it’s about the actual conversations and engaging the user.
Nonetheless, my point actually alludes to more numbers and an email I received the other day from Compete. It provided their June 2008 traffic data and a Top 20 list of the fastest growing websites for the month:
Taking a look at the Top 5, three of them relate to Tennis and Golf, which clearly shows the influence that the US Open and Wimbledon had on those sites.
The surprise on this list though is number 4, Plurk, with a 4561% increase in Visits from May ‘08 - June ‘08. This jump is huge for a new site that’s diving into the already chartered waters of micro-blogging.
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With as many social networks that are popping up on almost a daily basis, how do these sites get us to stick around? We’re aware of the many benefits from the networks we frequent; APIs/apps, website traffic, conversations, networking - the list goes on. But how do newcomers grab a hold of a piece of the social networking pie?
For the up and coming site that has made the biggest splash as of late, Plurk seems to utilize Karma as one of their main features (and incentives). Users receive Karma for numerous actions taken on the site, which include adding friends, plurking consistently throughout the day and getting responses to plurks. On the other hand, you can also lose Karma due to spamming too many plurks, getting a friend request rejected and getting unfriended by a user. As the Plurk learning curve has slowly died down and the community has evolved, people are quickly learning the pros and cons of Karma.
With the specific guidelines above, it seems quite easy for users to ‘game’ the system to increase their Karma and get the incentives of smileys and high rankings. Where I see the major downfall is in the content. I see numerous plurks a day about people complaining that their Karma went down and that they need to bring it back up. There have also been several discussions on whether people Plurk just for Karma. I understand that the premise of Plurk is about having fun but Karma brings a sense of forced interaction and ultimately, a form of bribery that diminishes the value of its content.
I’m by no means bashing Plurk as I feel it is a very interesting network with many benefits but there’s too much of an emphasis on Karma. How far can they really take it? Offer more incentives? More user features? It’ll be interesting to see how they’ll continue to use Karma after the smileys. Regardless of what will be offered, it just gives users more incentive to figure out how to increase their Karma to reach those ‘goals’.
