Yes, really! And the question is, who started that? My answer, Jeremiah Owyang did. (with a straight face). And I believe that we should have a day! It’s not a Hallmark recognized day yet, but organizations should appreciate these committed people who tirelessly work to make things better externally and internally. It’s not easy job!

So, I pondered what could I do for everyone? Last week I was in a meeting listening to Susan Beebe brief us on the Google+ Hangout that Dell streamed from CES. That got the wheels turning and I asked Susan to help me with the logistics.

So I put together some panels of amazing people to provide an educational, fun, networking event with no regard to geography.

Here’s the details & see you there!

Community Management 3.0 #CMAD

Monday, January 23 12 pm cst (10 am pst)

Do you have plans for Community Manager Appreciation Day?

     Come join our conversation on a Google+ Hangout and spend an hour

     with some of the most amazing Community thought leaders!

• Chief Company Pinata & Cat Herder

Beyond a Day in the Life of a Community Manager

     Panelists:

            Amy Muller Chief Community Officer & Co-Founder, Get Satisfaction

            Mark Harrison Community Manager Google Earth & SketchUp

            Patrick O’Keefe Author of Managing Online Forums, iFroggy Networks

• No Matter B2B or B2C; It’s P2P!

Whether Business to Business or to Customer; it’s always People to People

     Panelists

            Jim Storer Principal/Founder at The Community Roundtable

            Vanessa DiMauro CEO Leader Networks

            Lionel Menchaca Chief Blogger, Dell

• Evolving a Social Business

The Future of the Community Manager Role

      Panelists:

            Jeremiah Owyang Industry Analyst & Partner, Altimeter Group

            Bill Johnston Director of Global Online Community

     Circle Leader: Connie Bensen, Sr Mgr Community Strategy, Dell

Want to join us?

Put this in your calendar:

1. Community 3.0 Google+ Hangout ~ Jan 23, 12 pm cst
2. Send questions for the panelists to @cbensen on Twitter or Google+
3. New to Hangouts? Check out Getting started with Hangouts
4. For the event, go to Dell’s Google+ page +Dell
5. Chat will be available in the sidebar. #CMAD12 on Twitter

Can’t make it? The Hangout will be recorded and available for playback later.

**A huge thanks to Susan Beebe, Dell’s Google+ Guru!

Here’s the event info on Facebook (Join the Community Manager Facebook group)

What questions do you have for the panels?

We kicked off the session by talking about the philosophy behind an online community. The most important aspect is the definition of “community”. A community is much more than just a hosted platform. I outlined my definition of community in my post on the ‘Community Strategist Role’.

The deck below outlines five steps. I included a section on digital marketing and SEO because inbound marketing is imperative to growing a healthy community. Efforts in this manner will also make great strides in building organic SEO.

1. Listen: Get to know your People
2. Planning: Create a Strategy & Metrics
3. Digital Marketing: Content is King & SEO is Queen
4. Engagement: Create a Party
5. Reporting: Measuring Success

What are your essential steps to building an online community?

If you’d like to receive future blog posts, take a minute to sign up (top right)

Online Marketing Summit does a great job of covering all these topics in one place. Last fall I sat on a panel at the event and it was the most comprehensive marketing event that I’ve attended.  It offers a broad array of expertise on digital marketing, content marketing, demand gen, SEO or web analytics The best part was that it featured local speakers which allowed for networking that extends beyond the event. I wrote an overview on a web analytics session from last year’s summit.

I’m really looking forward to the great speaker lineup at Online Marketing Summit in Minneapolis on June 7th! I always learn something new about SEO from Lee Odden. Last year, Kim Albee’s presentation on lead gen was excellent. And I look forward to Steve Woods, CTO of Eloqua, lunch keynote. I recently reread his book, Digital Body Language, and noted the many insights on database & email marketing.

If you’re just getting started in digital marketing, there are also two bootcamps available:

• Online Marketing Boot Camp June 6th
• Social Media Workshops June 8th

And what if you don’t live in the Minneapolis area? Online Marketing Summit is holding similar events around the world! Find a date and location near you.

Update: Here’s a 15% off code for my readers: MINN15

See you on June 7th!

After having spent a couple weeks in Europe I had planned to catch up on email and get ready to go to Chicago for this week. That was promptly disrupted by interruptions. My people needing things. Some are colleagues and others are external. But that’s what I thrive on! frequent interruptions.

Welcome to the day in the life of a Community Manager!

I’m very pleased that the Community Manager role has gotten such a good foothold in organizations. We have been working hard to evolve a role that works holistically and cross-functionally. It is customer-centric and provides a unique value.

It is not without it’s challenges and those filling the role deserve to be applauded. The following are some of the realities:

• being a change agent isn’t always easy. Leading a culture shift sometimes can be a burden.
• the web is 24/7 and never shuts down. It’s important that people in this role empower their community and be able to have some down time. Unplugging is essential. It’s a delicate balance that needs to be maintained.
• measuring the ROI of brand awareness is difficult, but it’s become apparent that a lack of brand visibility and positive word of mouth can be quite damaging to a company
• fostering communication is an ongoing task – lowering silos and encouraging teams to work together is always needed
• driving results and working cross functionally across an organization is not for the faint of heart. Some days it takes a lot of energy
• being a customer advocate is gratifying and absolutely necessary. Consumers expect the highest level of customer service and companies need to deliver that.

Here are some statistics of how far reaching the role of Community Manager has become.

If you would like to peruse more in-depth, Jeremiah Owyang is curating the many posts, slide decks and photos that were created for the day.

Blog World has a special place in my heart because it was the first event where I met all the people who had mentored and supported me as I established an online presence. I had spent over a year interacting with these people on their blogs, Twitter and Facebook and had come to know them very well. But meeting them in person took it all to a new level. Working remotely is ideal because I accomplished more than I could have dreamed of, but you really do need to meet the people behind the blogs. And Blog World Expo offers that opportunity. Each year at Blog World is better than the last one.

This past year I wanted to capture the best on video and share it here. Blog World is all about reconnecting with old friends and meeting new ones. It’s an experience that can’t be duplicated anywhere else.

This video features Deb Ng who organized Blog World this past year. She was a very busy lady as she worked to make sure everything went smoothly. Ingrid Tappin is a new friend that I met at lunch. She is from Amsterdam and I will reconnect with her when I’m there in January. Liz Strauss talks about the difference between drive and passion. Shashi Bellamkonda is an old friend that asked many questions about the Community Manager role back in 2007. He took my suggestions and implemented them at Network Solutions. In 2008 he invited me to work with him. That’s a case of: ‘What goes around comes around’ in the most positive sense! And finally, the Betsy’s … Betsy Weber is the amazing community person at Techsmith. And Betsy Aoki manages social media for Bing.

This month, my colleague, Marcus Tewksbury has the stage with ‘How to Implement a Social Media Strategy’.

Marcus will be talking about how to add social media channels to your lead generation efforts. He will also be providing ideas on how social media marketing can be integrated in with traditional marketing efforts such as email marketing, PPC campaigns, and search. The webinar is on Thursday, December 17th 10:00am Central / 16.00 UK

Register here

Here’s a sneak peak on what he’ll be presenting.

It’s a busy time of year! Next week I’ll be in San Francisco for two events. I’m doing a 3 hour workshop at Enterprise 2.0 on Frameworks for utilizing social media. The diagram in my last blog post outlines the potential that a community manager offers an organization.

I will share how to use social media to:

I covered the following:

• Which objectives to consider when defining your social media monitoring (SMM) strategy
• What types of tools are available
• How to make sense of the data that is gathered
• The ROI and benefits of social media monitoring

During the webinar it was interesting the exchange of Twitter usernames transition to  requesting to continue the conversation in a community. It underlined how people with a similar affinity will want to gather! Everyone is welcome to join our Community .

One of the challenges that I have in presenting webinars is that I feel like I’m talking to an empty space. But that wasn’t the case in this one. There was a lot of conversation happening in the chat box. I had 5 poll questions and that generated more conversation on the side as well making much more interactive. Here are the results:

Many of those that chose ‘Other’ posted their background in the chat.

I found this to be very interesting that the majority were B2B’s!

This explains why we’re so busy. Social Media monitoring isn’t mainstream yet. People are still learning.

Attendees were primarily from Europe, and there were a lot of questions about language capabilities.

It’s really important to know what your objective is for listening.

I will post a link to the recording of the webinar when it is available.

in Kindergarten

That’s the usual ending…

But that’s not what I was going to say. I was going to finish it with

online!

Did you know that in terms of blogging, social media and brand building there are many great resources online? With the recession there are even more opportunities. And so many are free! Over the past three years that I’ve been working online I have learned so much from webinars and virtual events.

With that, I encourage you to attend the Marketing Prof’s Digital Marketing World Fall Event

They have a number of great sessions and it’s free!

I’m presenting a case study of how my Techrigy Team has used Twitter for lead generation. And the other two case studies are even more interesting! One is on how the NHL has used Twitter to build community around their advocates. And the third is how mozy.com has increased their brand presence and  promoted their service on Twitter. Some very interesting stuff!

So I highly recommend that you sign up and attend some sessions. Marketing Prof’s has a great blog that always offers high quality information.

On Tues I’m presenting at a Social Media Seminar in Covent Garden hosted by

Tuesday evening would be perfect for a meetup if you’re in the London area.

Drop me an email at conniebensen @ gmail.com or leave a comment here.

My husband & I were in London a year ago for a vacation & I really look forward to visiting your city again!

Upcoming:

In the end of August I’ll be in Chicago speaking at the Alterian summit… more info coming on that! I’ve just started to see their products and they’re amazing tools for marketers! (Alterian recently acquired my company, Techrigy).