Connie Bensen

Early yesterday afternoon I put together a compilation of links to information on Gustav that @WayneSutton had started. It was intriguing to watch volunteers come together using social media tools to prepare for the hurricane.

Andy Carvin set up a ning & started coordinating the volunteer efforts. His ning became the Gustav Information Center. There was a discussion as to whether the Katrina wiki should be used. That information would be three years old & it would be lost. So a decision was made to create a new one using the same wiki software to make it easy to port over the structure.

Yesterday I wasn’t connected with Andy Carvin, but ChocoNancy follows both of us put this up on Flickr.

Hosting needs for the wiki were generously provided by Network Solutions (whom I work for). Deanna Zandt is handling the technical aspects of the Hurricane Gustav Wiki. Once the wiki was installed, volunteers went to work copying over the info from the Katrina wiki. Today, less than 24 hours when this initiative started volunteers are checking links & updating them. At this rate, the effort will probably be done before the hurricane makes landfall.

The wiki will serve as an incredible resource for those affected. It’s amazing to watch people using & aggregating information from Twitter, online sources, Craigslist, mainstream news & then offering it to be read in a number of formats.

If you don’t have computer access

I’m wondering if the national emergency organizations should take note & have templates set up ready to use for various natural disasters. What about having their staff trained to utilize the various social media tools & engage the power of volunteers? There have to be lessons that can be learned here. What are your thoughts?

Last week I had a dawning while I was thinking about my editorial calendar for the Network Solutions blog. Small business owners are for all practical purposes Community Managers!

Small Business Owners do it all!

A community manager wears many hats & is a voice for the customers & the company. Small business owners do it all too. Marketing, PR, customer relations, product development, etc are all important. And if you’d like to put your business online then the basics in the yellow middle circle are important.

But take a look at the outside ring. Those are all topics that I cover in terms of networking & building brand. (Hat tip to Web 2.0 for SmallBiz for the graphic. They have started a great new series that you should check out on Marketing 2.0).

More aspects

There are many more aspects to consider (things that a community manager does that I view are necessities for a business online – no matter it’s size!).

• Listening – Brand monitoring tools
• Marketing utilizing social media tools
• Adding a community to your site

The great thing is that so many of the social media tools are free & word of mouth efforts can be done with little or no investment. The key is to choose the ones that will be the most effective for your niche.

What would you add to the diagram?