Connie Bensen

As a part of my Community Manager course I am having a discussion area. And with the awesome help of my sister http://communitystrategist.net is now a reality! I made the header.

At first I was going to have it closed to the public. But in the spirit of community it was a no-brainer that a portion should be open to all of you. A blog isn’t the ideal place to have discussions. And granted there are oodles of microblogging platforms, the forums interaction is nice. The Facebook group format is really not a good way to interact. They haven’t added any new features to support the groups & the growth of them.

So you’re welcome to join & share ideas at CommunityStrategist.net. You don’t need to be a community manager. If you’re interested in community building, networking, branding, using social media tools, marketing & PR in the web 2.0 world, etc you’re welcome! The more, the merrier!

Over on the Marketing 2.0 blog I’m writing with some awesome people! Paul Dunay shared a survey that he did on reputation management. The community manager is the voice of the company and responsible for responding quickly.

Here are my responses to specific ones in regard to community building. Definitely check out Paul’s survey & get his perspective:

• Measuring and monitoring my organization’s reputation is a strategic
  priority in 2008?
  • If you’re not monitoring your brand (company & personal) you’re missing out on huge opportunities to grow your community
• My organization has a strategic plan in place to manage its online
  reputation?
  • A strategy is imperative before you engage. As a Community Manager your time could get frittered away so fast.
• My organization is monitoring its reputation on social networks like
  Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace?
  • This is where a Community Manager can be effective. Being interactive & participating in the conversation is far more useful than automated service.
• My organization is developing applications, or widgets, that can be
  easily installed on social networks and spread virally?
  • I really liked Paul’s comment about syndication. I’m starting to syndicate my blog into new communities of like minded people. But how can you do that with your company’s pages?

A recent Forrester article noted that 80% of Web traffic comes through the homepage and 20% comes in to very specific pages. Forrester now is recommending that you plan for 20% of traffic to come from your homepage and 80% to come from very specific pages in your site. That means start syndicating your content!

• My organization is adequately prepared to manage an online
  reputation crisis situation?
  • Having a plan is imperative. When the moment happens, it’s too late & you want to respond ASAP.

What do you think? Is your company involved in reputation management? Should you be concerned? Will your customers appreciate your participation?

Today I’m sending you to my guest post on Darren Rowse’s blog, Problogger.net.

When Darren asked for a guest post we chatted about what the topic should be.

He suggested ‘Taking your Blog to a Community’ which is a broad canvas. I wrote a compilation of ideas for extending awareness of your blog or site to new communities.

Many of you read Darren’s blog regularly. If you’re not familiar with his work I recommend that you browse his blog (especially if you’re just starting to blog). He has amazing ideas.

Thank you Darren for the opportunity to share my community building ideas with your community. And thank you for introducing your community to my blog & work! That was one of my main points: Collaboration is a great connector.

I hope that you find the ideas useful. Building community is fascinating & very gratifying.

In writing this it occurred to me that I have enough readers to invite guest posts. So I invite you to email me with the topic(s) you’d like to write a guest post on. My email address is on the left under my photo.

Is that enough to make your head spin? Microblogging abounds…Networking is important but work needs to get done. So let’s take the pain out of this & get it into perspective because you can not be everywhere all the time!

Here’s a quick overview in case you’re wondering where to turn & what to do. I was going to blog about Plurk but then Identi.ca sprang up.

• Create your username at each to avoid someone else doing it & causing havoc.
• Find one friend & add their friends.
  • Sprinkle the links around (your blog, and microblogging sites where your friends are at).
  • Let others build your list. Here are my newest ones (thanks in advance for connecting with me!)
    • http://www.plurk.com/user/ConnieBensen
    • http://identi.ca/conniebensen
    • Friendfeed & Twitter are on the left under my photo
• Explore them a bit & decide which format offers you the most. Here are my observations:
  • Friendfeed aggregates many social networks
    • it’s more passive for me
    • some like it because it allows threaded comments
    • there are rooms – I created one for Community Managers 
      • a good place to share links
      • If you’re the admin, you can add feeds just like your profile
  • Twitter – I used to go there for socializing but …
    • it’s downtime is causing people to complain
    • partial service is causing Summize to be important
  • Plurk – I’ve become a plurker
    • Here are some instructions if you’d like to get started
      • 3 Plurk lessons by my friend Kathy who used me as the example
      • 10 minute guide to plurk
      • More help with plurk
    • the threaded interaction makes it more like a chat room
    • some are using it more than Twitter but haven’t abandoned Twitter
    • it seems to be great for crowdsourcing
      • ‘plurkshops‘ are being held most every evening
      • Beth Harte has links to them
      • Darren Rowse, Problogger is effectively using it to gain ideas
      • Mack Collier comments on how it can be used for business
  • Identi-ca – a new open source that feels like Twitter
    • lacks many features like searching to find friends
    • I registered & am adding friends as they find me
    • My guess is that it will grow quickly since it’s open source

*Update* ReadWriteWeb has Six Ways to Update your Status all at once.

What would you add to that? What is your favorite service & why?