Connie Bensen

What do you get when you put together a bunch of social media junkies that share the posts that they’re devouring? Communities of course!

 Mixx is like Digg. People submit articles into categories. Then members vote them up. Personally I’ve never gotten into Digg. I know how to Digg things (but it’s usually after I’m asked to – you know who you are! )

You can create a community or group in Mixx. They both have forums & can be personalized, private or public, etc. There many similarities to Ning.

Where I saw the value was in the existing groups. (Remember! rather than creating more, see what’s existing.) These groups have great content going into them & are worthy of browsing.

Social Media Consultants

Social Media Mavens

Aggregation is an amazing thing. An RSS feed is offered of course. Or if you just want to browse periodically. Mixx it up a bit!

Let me know what you think? I wish that I could have it sort by the articles with the most votes. If you figure out how, please let me know.

Isn’t this amazing? Click on it to see the detail. It’s growing in our yard near a tree. It’s a foot in diameter & about 6 inches tall. And the most wonderful orange color! which is my most favorite color (I have orange flowers, luggage & now a car).

I had been thinking about this topic before this lichen appeared. People want to know how to do so many things – the networking, building a brand, finding a job in social media, etc. Then once they get involved the next question is how to manage it all. I try to provide answers for those things & sometimes need to pause & take a break.

This post is probably mostly advice to myself. But you may find this pause helpful too as you juggle it all. After today I will return to full speed forward.

This beautiful piece of nature grew unexpectedly in our yard. The things that struck me are:

• it is unique, there are none other like it
• it is asymmetrical, there is no pattern
• it is very fragile & soft to the touch yet is resilient to the elements
• it is flexible (spears of grass have grown up thru one of the leaves)
• it is slowly growing & the colors are becoming richer
• it is unknown what it will evolve into? My mom asked & I didn’t know.

So how is this related to working online?

• plant yourself in unexpected places & grow
• be yourself & make sure that you have a unique perspective
• there’s no reason to have a pattern
• resiliency & flexibility are essential to growth
• as frenetic as the social media world is take it at your pace
• where will you take it? (note that I didn’t say, Where will it take you?!!)

Did that translate for you? What would you add to it?

Note: This post has been updated & the 2.0 version is here.

This goes along with the Community Manager job description. But these are more task oriented. This may provide a good check off list in orientating a new community manager. It could also start as a talking point for deciding on priorities.

I’m not sure if I should admit to this or not, but I compiled these in the summer of 2007 before I became a community manager. I was still an evangelist with ACDSee & had decided that I wanted to work as a Community Manager! I’m sharing that information because I know that there are many of you that passionately want to work in this space. So take a few minutes & outline the areas where you can provide service. You’ll have it ready then!

Responsibilities & Goals

1.  Ensure that Company continues to remain strategically opportunistic by continually evaluating & revising Company’s online marketing and outreach strategies, including both tools presently being used to emerging technologies.

2. Take primary responsibility for executing Company’s outreach strategy to create, build & maintain brand:

1. Dive in and create profiles and making posts
2. Increase awareness of the use of web 2.0 tools across the Company.
3. Foster a sense of community that encourages customers to purchase as well as feel comfortable in requesting support.

3.  Monitor key online conversations and events to make sure Company is participating effectively & is being represented.

4.  Develop strategies to:

1. Engage and motivate Company’s most active online advocates & ensure that their efforts are recognized.
2. Maximize customer communication at all touch points – web strategy
3. Encourage internal communication & embracement of customer principles
4. Provide a business plan for 2008 online community plan including a budget

5.  Coordinate the efforts of evangelists, forum moderators, & advocates so that affected Company projects are executed efficiently & in a timely manner.

1. Provide leadership to motivate & maximize the impact of online community’s efforts
2. Encourage WOM: teach them how to start the conversation & sustain it
3. Establish the goals, identify objectives & timeline
4. Break down the goal into tasks, deadlines & manage the projects to meet the goal.
5. Ensure that projects are completed & those involved are compensated & recognized.

6.  Develop and teach guidelines to ensure that Company’s online outreach is both effective and consistent with the organization’s image and overall communications strategy.

7.  Track, report on and evaluate Company’s success at being visible and influential online.

8.  Responsible for the administration of the Company’s product forum

1. Ensure that a positive environment is maintained that reflects Company’s commitment to excellent customer service.
2. Work closely with Company’s IT manager to ensure that the goals of the forum are met.
3. Monitor online forums, identify potential problems & issues & promptly communicate them to the IT Manager as appropriate
4. Practice excellent judgement in communicating with customers about potentially controversial topics.
5. Advocate for the customer’s needs but balance that with the needs of the company & diplomatically communicate that to both customers & Company

9.  Manage, maintain, and ensure the success of the Company blog

1. Ensure that it becomes a viable tool for communicating to Company’s customers
2. Encourage, recruit and provide Company & outside “experts” with the resources to blog
3. Increase awareness of the blog’s potential both within Company and externally and promote the blog

10.  Identify & offer solutions for breaking down barriers between customers & corporate. This includes identifying needs that aren’t being met from the customer’s perspective & being involved in the discussion as to whether the needs are valid, can be met and if they will benefit the organization as a whole.

11.  Be available to staff across the Company to assist them in identifying & using online tools if it can help them achieve their goals related to their position. Teach, guide, encourage them & provide support if they are new to Web 2.0 tools and culture.

12.  Stay up to date on new tools, best practices and how other organizations and companies are using them, so that the company can continue to be an early adopter of these technologies.

13.  Participate in professional networking by following the prominent bloggers and online writers & attending events.

What would you add or remove? Have the needs changed in a year’s time?

I also have information on salary, ROI, advocates, & some of my favorite topics to write on are branding & networking. My categories on the top right offer a variety of community related topics.  And please subscribe to my blog.

This post has been updated & the 2.0 version is here.

Updated in February 2009

The Community Manager position is a broad encompassing role. And it really should be!

My definition of the position: A community manager is the voice of the company externally and the voice of the customers internally. The value lies in the community manager serving as a hub & having the ability to personally connect with the customers (humanize the company), & providing feedback to many departments internally (development, PR, marketing, customer service, tech support, etc).

A hat tip for Ning for many of these. I have added additional points.

Responsibilities:

• Creatively and proactively assist customers.
• Serve as the initial point of contact for inbound requests
• Identify and analyze issues, patterns and trends in customer requests & product performance
• Transfer the information to the appropriate departments so that they can respond accordingly.
  • bugs to quality assurance
  • new ideas to product development
  • messaging effectiveness to marketing
  • frequently asked questions noted
  • identifying user generated content
• Author blog posts, articles, podcasts, videos and screencasts – whatever media you want to use – to communicate creative uses of networks on Ning from the simple to the very complex.
• Establish metrics & report on them on a monthly basis including recommendations
• Identify & engage advocates
• Proactively escalate issues, observations, opportunities, and insights to the executive team.
• Communicate issues, opportunities and insights to the company at large.
• Stay up to date on new social media tools, best practices and how other organizations and companies are using them, so that the company can continue to be an early adopter of these technologies.
• Participate in professional networking by following the prominent bloggers and online writers & attending events.

Qualifications:

• You love helping people and find it rewarding to solve people’s problems. Then you love to proactively use that experience to make the whole service better.
• You like working hard and thrive on the excitement of a goal oriented team
• You are an independent, creative self-starter who loves running with things while keeping everyone inside and outside the company in the loop.
• You love to write & enjoy sharing your ideas with others.
• You spend a lot of time online and stay up-do-date on new, fun things out there for web savvy users as well as regular people.
• You enjoy learning & are curious!

Now you can personalize that for what your company needs. My recommendation is to make sure that it’s open ended enough to allow the position to grow. The type of person that you’ll hire will want to be continually challenged & motivated to keep the community growing.

What have I forgotten?

I also have a post on specific tasks/goals & 2 other posts about job hunting

Jake McKee, Community Guy has a number of articles on hiring & finding a job.