Connie Bensen

Isn’t this wonderful? And it’s all of the work of my sister, Heidi! She’s such an awesome builder. I was just with her on Friday & we took this photo.

It was time for change & we’ve been working on this for a few months because:

• the red has served it’s purpose, but people were tired of the photo
• it was great for branding though
• I needed something more professional with new branding
• I wanted to make it easier to access my resources – see tabs
• my speaking engagements deserve highlighting
• and after a year it was time for a change!

A quick tour around:

• The blog is still a WordPress blog which my sister magically made to feel like the rest
• The rest of the site is Joomla & pretty cool. I can easily edit it
• There are forums with a private area for Community people to discuss life privately

A couple of cool features here on the blog – there are two sets of tabs that save a lot of space. My sister tweaked the CSS so they highlight when you mouseover them.

And today I saw a very cool way to continue to build my Twitter community and help all of you connect with people who comment on my blog.

• When you comment, you can add your Twitter name – I put in an example below
• Then it is turned into a hyperlink for others to connect to you with!
• Leave a comment & try it out! Here’s the plug in so you can have the same coolness.
• A friend said that @jowyang & @ChrisBrogan should use it to make it easier to connect with their community. It’s a great idea guys!

I’d love to have your feedback on the redesign. Suggestions? It’s never done. And my sister has redone many blogs including that of Sean O’Driscoll & Mari Smith. You can find her at SolutionsByHeidi.com

I have to thank Shashi Bellamkonda for nominating me for a Shorty Award on Twitter for the Community Category. I worked with Shashi at Network Solutions this summer & I really appreciate his support of my work. I always feel odd doing shameless self promotion – but I advise others to do it, so… once in awhile it’s ok.

So why do I think that I should be nominated for an award on Twitter? Over the past year I have:

• insisted that many join Twitter & taught them how to use it
• documented how I use Twitter & it’s value
• created the Twitterpacks for Community Managers to help everyone connect with each other on Twitter
• provided business cases for using Twitter
• and met many of you there!

The best producers of short* content in 2008

*140 characters or less, on Twitter

The Shorty Awards honor the world’s top Twitterers.

So how can you vote? (Voting goes until December 31st)

On Twitter – copy & past this in & finish the sentence:

@shortyawards I nominate @cbensen for a Shorty Award in #community because…

—————————-

Or use this handy page to vote directly by finishing the sentence.

Thanks so much for being a part of my community on Twitter!

A huge thanks to these people! You guys are total rockstars!

@jimwu  I nominate @cbensen for a Shorty Award in #community because she has been such an inspiration!

@DaveMurr  I nominate @cbensen for a Shorty Award in #community because her blog is a amazing resource!

@philbaumann  I nominate @cbensen for a Shorty Award in #community because she is laying groundworks of community building for this century.

@petergold99  I nominate @cbensen for a Shorty Award in #community because…she talks a lot of sense and adds real value to the convers …

@derrickkwa  I nominate @cbensen for a Shorty Award in #community because she does an amazing job in connecting people.

@NicP  I nominate @cbensen for a Shorty Award in #community. She is a tireless promoter of community matters and teacher to many

@warrenss  I nominate @cbensen for a Shorty Award in #community because she is awesome!

@shashib  I nominate @cbensen for a Shorty Award in #community for fantastic resources on her blog

@emilwisch  I nominate @cbensen for a Shorty Award in #community because she’s the baddest, sweetest community strategist alive.

I am heading down to the MSP Social Media Breakfast. Funny how a breakfast with a bunch of bacon requires two days of travel, but it’s totally worth it! I love connecting with my geeky friends in the Twin Cities. I have some other appointments too as well as shopping time set aside. So while I’m connecting with my ‘local friends’ (ok, that’s relative! they live 4.5 hrs away) here is some reading for you.

Brewster’s Law of Online Communities by Ryan Graves where he says

In summary, don’t run from the vocal minority that Brewster’s Law of Online Community highlights. Embrace the voices for or against your organization. The cliche that there is no bad press is definitely true. Engagement, transparency, and honest communication will transform any voice about your company into a net gain.

High Level Reasons for an Internal Community – Getting Started with enterprise social networking I loved this article because it has so many good ideas in it. And it’s not the same ole, same ole. My favorite idea from the article is, "Control and micromanagement, it turns out, is very expensive, and trusting people is a lot cheaper." The slide deck has some engaging photos to go with it. We are in an age of knowledge workers. Here are some of my favorite ideas:

• From managing ‘content’ to supporting knowledge flows
• Most important content is people
• Have a grown up ‘risk’ conversation

A very comprehensive interview about Online Community Management from New Zealand (I think the video is great!)

A comprehensive overview of the Fiskateers community

5 Tips for Successful Blog Optimization offers some excellent ideas for growing your blog

I’m a strong believer in volunteering for projects. The more that you can learn & become indispensable the more job security that you’ll have. Why not help with social media ventures?!  Can Social Media Work Protect your Job?

Jon Burg has a great list of 10 Rules for Effective Corporate Blogging

Building a community is exciting. You start with a fresh new platform and invite your supporters. The community grows to a certain point then plateaus. What to do then?

Scott Hammond is a frequent commenter on my blog & he offered to share the work that his company Nattergalen is doing. He hopes that it will give you ideas for your own community building practice.

Some quick facts on Nattergalen. They offer community moderation services. It’s a white label service so their work isn’t easily attributed to them. Scott & Marguerite from Nattergalen are supportive of my work. Scott put the following comment in a

Facebook group:

I can’t think of any places better to look than the blogs of Jeremiah Owyang (Web Strategy by Jeremiah), Connie Benson (Community Strategist), Jake McKee (The Community Guy), and Dion Hinchcliffe (Enterprise Web 2.0).
These blogs are so informative and insightful that my company, Nattergalen, a community management outsourcer, uses them as training tools and reading them is considered tacitly obligatory by our employees.

Finally, as a disclaimer: Nattergalen’s client has agreed to allow me to report on the benchmarks and progress of Nattegalen’s strategy & implementation. I appreciate Scott’s willingness to share their work because if you’ve worked in community you know that decisions are based on experience, but there are no guarantees that they will work.

The Community:

FohBoh.com is for professionals working in the restaurant industry meaning:

• owner/operators or managers of restaurants
• people who work for companies that supply restaurants
• manufacture restaurant equipment
• run franchise chains, etc.

The membership focus is very much B2B for these professionals, and the site is an independant property. FohBoh is an independent startup, not a site run by a brick and mortar company. (FohBoh stands for Front of House, Back of House meaning the dining area & the kitchen area – both important places in a restaurant).

Basic Facts:

• FohBoh opened at beginning of 2008 & has had steady growth.
• Membership is around 10,000 to date
• Stat’s plateaued after the fist 6 month wave, namely uniques and total page views
  • So members aren’t actively involved
  • And they aren’t returning to generate new activity

The Plan:

The initial plan consists of 3 main initiatives;

1. To set up a FohBoh news section on the site with links to relevant e-zines and bloggers
2. To set up weekly moderated chats with high level restaurant industry insiders talking about topics relevant to restaurant operations.
3. To help restaurant operators set up private groups in FohBoh, sort of like company intranet style social networks.

And there is a fourth section of our plan: to transition FohBoh from a static property to a broader based community, with the FohBoh site as the anchor point for a greater web presence, connected to multiple properties by linking to them (as in the FohBoh news section) or by making FohBoh information portable, for instance by turning the weekly moderated chat windows into transportable widgets members can put on their own blogs or social networking homepages.

The next post will outline the FohBoh news section. I would like you to join in this case study & make it interactive. Take a look at the site & offer suggestions that you have for increasing membership & activity.