Connie Bensen

Lee Odden, Albert Maruggi, Barry Judge, CMO at Best Buy & I had a conversation on Twitter one morning. Lee recently summarized it. Most of you are probably well aware that the organic SEO gained from community building & user generated content is quite powerful.

Lee says:

My opinion is that it would actually take extra effort to make community building work and not realize the positive effects for SEO.  Many search engine optimization consultants that engage social media channels have noticed how their efforts resulted in community building effects.  Building up profiles on various social media sites and participating in communities to share and promote content attract links, but it also builds trust. 

At the end of his article, Lee asks the following question:

My question for community managers is, are you leveraging any SEO keyword research and insight to assist word choice when building profiles, creating content and outreach online?

There seem to be two schools of thought on this:

1. Management that says – these are the corporate SEO keywords. Make sure that they are used in the content you create with a certain amount of frequency. (My opinion is that that results in jilted sounding content & doesn’t make for very authentic writing. Will your readers trust what you write?)
2. Use language that is natural to the audience when creating content. This is much easier to do & easier for the reader in my opinion.

Can you tell which is my preference? My concern is in regard to the corporate SEO keywords. Are they aligned with the language that the public uses? One of the things that community managers find themselves doing is translating corporate terminology into terms that people use & vice versa.

Techrigy (whom I work for) has a social media monitoring tool. I enjoy showing the Author Tag Cloud. It’s a compilation of the tags that people have assigned to the results found for a certain search. In other words the largest words are probably what people are searching for. If it’s your brand/product then they are good ideas for SEO keywords. There are two advantages:

1. they are generated by those interested in the brand/product
2. they will highlight new words/ideas/issues (how often do corporate keywords get reviewed to reflect new trends?)

This is the Author Tag cloud for my personal brand of ‘Connie Bensen’. You can make your own with our Freemium version.

Amongst the expected terms there is ‘Age of Conversation’ & it’s various formats including aoc, aoc2, etc. It’s a collaborative book that I contributed to which was headed up by Drew McLellan & Gavin Heaton (see their names?). 

So my question is – do you think that the community manager should be required to use SEO keywords as they create content? Or is it better to let them build organically?

For my blog I haven’t focused on specific keywords. And this will make many cringe but I don’t tag my blog posts (so none of my own blog posts are reflected in that chart!). And my Technorati rank maintains at around 12,600. And people find me thru Google…My suggestion is to have a broad mix & be consistent. Build community in a natural manner rather than a forced one & people will appreciate it.

For additional reading: I wrote Top 3 Metrics for Building Brand Online

When people hear that I work remotely there are many responses. I’m not sure that people realize the many aspects of it. If you read my blog you know that I’m a huge proponent of working remotely. This post is a summary of considerations that both the employee & employer need to consider for a successful experience.

Working remotely suits the community building role for a number of reasons. We are an independent type that is self motivated. There are also many advantages to not being onsite:

• provides a unique perspective from the customer’s eyes
• ability to wok on projects without frequent interruptions at the office
• employer has access to a larger more skilled & experienced hiring pool
• it’s convenient to work flexible hours & provide 24/7 service
• utilization of Web 2.0 tools
• higher job satisfaction
• lower cost of living

The downsides for working remotely:

• working too many hours (I am guilty)
• lack of social interaction in real life with coworkers
• conference calls with speakerphones are a pain

I’ve been working remotely for 12 years. As a librarian, my region office was 75 miles away. I supervised 7 sites. Online I’ve worked with a number of companies. The main ones have been located in Victoria, BC Canada, Herndon, VA, San Francisco, and my present one is in Rochester, NY. (I live in northern Minnesota)

The following considerations for working remotely are important. Many of these are important in any workplace.

• the contact at the company plays a big role
• trust & respect are imperative
• common vision & goals
• listening & communication in both directions
• outline expectations for both sides
• will provide internal support & connection
• deliverables rather than a time clock
• projects & routine tasks based on a timeframe
• goals based on strategy & objectives (mutually established)
• reporting based on deliverables
• collaboration tools – it’s all about efficiency
• imperative to working remote
• utilize what the company has established & add to that if needed
• share calendars for scheduling meetings
• wikis are great for planning
• access to the bug reporting software (yes I provide product feedback directly into the system)

Suggestions for success in working remotely:

• Establish relationships with key people in the organization
• Find out how they prefer to communicate & use that
• Be perceptive to needs of the organization & remember that at meetings you’ll be missing the nonverbal cues
• Train them in Web 2.0 activities – this will build mutual respect
• Talk about what your work & responsibilities because many may not know what you’re doing
• Circulate positive feedback within the company (I love sending company wide emails  ) Remember that you’re the link to the customers
• Encourage communication internally amongst departments – I frequently joked, "Don’t you people talk to each other?!!"
• Ask the right questions (see the previous one) – there is more burden on you as a remote employee to stay up to date.
• Work with a transparent organization.
• Interview the potential employer in order to identify expectations.

Home office visits are another important aspect of working remotely. I will be covering that in a future post. That is a time to solidify the relationships & get to know each other in person.

If you’re en employer I would encourage you to consider offering a remote option. The advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. As more knowledge workers realize that they offer valuable assets  think that geography will become less of an issue.

What questions do you have about working remotely?

odcasting has intrigued me ever since Anna Farmery of the Engaging Brand interviewed me over a year ago. She has a great interview style and has an incredible library of interviews! I put links to some of her interviews at the bottom.

Since then I’ve done many interviews but they’ve always been hosted by others.

A couple of weeks ago the guys from Minnov8 in the Twin Cities invited me as a guest on their Saturday morning podcast. I was inspired & decide that a 2009 goal was to step up my tech skills. Podcasting will be the first & video may follow.

Adam Helweh bravely offered his services. He has generously spent a few hours with me over the past 3 days getting the details worked out.

We spend the forty five minutes talking about my challenges in getting started podcasting with my ‘new’ laptop. (Everything is relative ). Then we cover my reasons for wanting to podcast & our goals for 2009. Community is a topic of course! And we wrap with a bit of a comparison between the weather in Minnesota & San Francisco.

So what do you think? Was it worth the effort? Would you like more interviews? My list has 3 so far… and it could be you!

Download:  MP3

Community Strategist Live

Connie Interviews Community Experts

We take so much for granted. Our families, our health, our jobs… maybe just life in general? We have so much yet we’re never satisfied. It isn’t until something happens that we realize we should be appreciative of what we have. And that’s a reminder to myself too.

The recession is affecting people’s lives including my friends. I have been talking with some of you & will be shifting those conversations to my blog in a more general sense. Life can be challenging at times. But we also need the bad times to appreciate when times are good.

On November 10th my sister & I went up to visit my Dad after he had emergency surgery. He’s relatively young at 67 & things appeared as expected. The next day found him being transferred 4 hrs away to a regional hospital in ICU for 5 days, then another 3 days in the hospital. And he left the hospital being dependent on dialysis which was frustrating for him.

On both of my shopping trips in the past week I received phone calls from Dad. The first was last Friday. I’m sure I looked pretty silly when I almost started to cry on a cell phone call, but Dad’s news that his lab work meant he was going home to avoid the blizzard & for Christmas was pretty incredible. He said that,

It was the best Christmas gift ever!

Then on Monday he called with test results that affirmed our hopes. Dad said that he had expected to have a good quality of life til he was 80 & this experience had been quite humbling.

I’m sharing this story not because I think it will help people cope with being laid off or the economy but rather because I think it helps put things into perspective. For me relationships & health are much more important than the monetary aspects of life. Of course we have financial obligations, but I believe that if you have skills & a willingness to work you WILL find opportunities. That’s what my blog is all about & I WILL continue to write about those topics. I’ve proven it myself.

And if my Dad’s example isn’t compelling enough, then I’ll add Debbie’s story. Debbie’s husband came into ICU the day after my Dad did. We got to know her in the family room. She came to know our family/issues & we came to know hers. Her husband is still in the hospital. His diagnosis before we left the hospital was cancer of the lymph nodes. CaringBridge.org is an amazing website, but every time I get an update in my email, my heart drops. I have followed along as Debbie’s husband has had numerous surgeries & procedures. She adds her thoughts & fears as she relays the news. The most recent was to place a mechanism in his skull for delivery of chemo.

After 2 months in ICU, he is now in the regular hospital. He took four steps yesterday. The prognosis is 2 to 6 months. It is all so very sad. They are in their fifties.

But it underlines my motivation to continue to do what I can for everyone. And to live my life to it’s fullest & pursue my dreams of travel & educating others. There is so much to do & it’s an exciting time despite the challenges that life throws at us.

Do you periodically step back & appreciate what you have despite the short term challenges? What can you do to help those around you?