Tag: community management

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Community Management

Community Management – Corralling Cats

Adventures in Career Changing - Allium Corralling

Community Management Tidbits – Corralling the Cats

A look at Community Management Tidbits – Corralling the Cats – Oh, they can be the bane of your existence, particularly when you’re just starting out. You want them to zig, they zag. Or you want them to go off topic, they stay on it. You want them to return to topic, and they continue digressing. They are the cats.

Community Management Tidbits - Corralling the Cats
my cats (Photo credit: Wikipedia) (not mine; I’m allergic)

And you, you lucky Community Manager, you! You have to herd them.

Don’t Feel So Bad; We All Get This

There is an ebb and flow to natural, organic conversations. The problem is, online communities and forums aren’t, truly, natural or organic conversations. There is, at bottom, some form of a purpose to them, even if that purpose is simply to get your users comfortable with one another.

Therefore, in order to strain the ebb and flow metaphor so far as to break it, the best way for you, as a Community Manager, to keep from tearing your hair out, is to go with the flow. But you must have a plan in the background.

A Fer-Instance

So let us assume that your site covers German Shepherd dogs. Your users talk about care and feeding, but they also go off on tangents where they discuss what they’re having for lunch (your users, not, presumably, their dogs). You can either get upset about the lunch topic, provide other, more appropriate topics as alternatives, direct the lunch subject back on topic (kibble for lunch, anyone?), or scrap the subject altogether. Or, you can join the subject.

Your Move

What you do is going to depend upon not only how much on-subject content you’ve got, but also on your relationship with your users. What sort of tone has been set? If your relationship is a relaxed and whimsical one, then adding to the topic or directing it back on message can both work. If your relationship is more authoritarian, you may find yourself either deleting the topic or restricting user access to it. And users may leave for good over this. Regardless of what your relationship is with your users, use this kind of nuclear option sparingly.

If your relationship is somewhere in the middle, redirection to other topics can work. Creating on-message topics (or encouraging your super users to do so) has the added benefit of adding keyword-rich topics for the purposes of promoting SEO.

It is best to use all of these options. And, get an idea of just how much overall off-message chatter you will permit. If you are going to allow 40% of your topics to be off-message, then that is four out of every ten topics. Some days it will be all ten. Others, it will be one or two, or even none.

Keeping Users Happy

Allowing for these kinds of natural variations will go a long way toward keeping users happy. And it will add to a more organic rhythm and flow on the site. If the percentage of off-message topics goes too high, you can always pull users back by making good, keyword-rich, on-message topics. Not all users will go. These are volunteers and you cannot make them stay on topic. Some people will never go on topic, let alone stay there. It is up to you to decide whether that is tolerable. You may need to cut your losses with some of them.

The more you let the cats decide where they want to go (or, at least, the more you let them think they are deciding such things), the easier they are to herd. They decide where to go; you won’t need to convince them.

As the Community Manager, some times you just have to be the shepherd.

A Last Thought on Corralling

Communities which are 100% on point aren’t communities at all. They’re advertisements. If you truly want your community to attract users and not be thought of as just being a pure marketing endeavor, then guess what? You have got to allow for off-topic discussions. While you probably shouldn’t let the cats win, at the absolute, barest minimum, you should let them have their fun.

Next: Freshening up a stale forum

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Community Management Opinion Personal Social Media Work

Hesitation Generation

Hesitation Generation

Hesitation Generation. So as I travel around the ‘net, I also take note of what is happening in my own backyard. What I have seen is an odd and somewhat disturbing trend.

I am the Project Manager for Able2know and in some ways it’s got its finger on the pulse. But, a caveat, the pulse is rather limited. This is a mere fraction of the web and therefore, by extension, an even tinier fraction of the world. Yet this is the world I know, and so I will report on it.

Relationships

A2K is a generalized Q & A website where people can post all manner of questions. The availability and quality of the answers varies greatly. Keep in mind: no one is paid to answer questions on Able2know.

Hence inquiries about voltage are generally answered with an admonition to hire a licensed electrician. Requests for medical advice are answered vaguely, and nearly always involve telling the poster to follow up with their personal physician. Inquiries about the law receive a nearly identical treatment, save for the advice to contact an attorney.

And then there’s relationships.

You don’t need a degree in psychology to be able to dispense advice. Anyone who appears to be clinically depressed is told to seek treatment. Anyone who appears to be abused is advised to leave, and to contact their local authorities.

But it’s the people in the middle who I’m talking about.

Communications

What does it mean when someone stares at you? What is a good idea for a first date? How do I ask someone out? How do I get someone to ask me out? And the saddest – how do I get over a heartache?

And it’s amazing to me (and it really should not be anymore) how many people are paralyzed at the thought of actually speaking to the object of their desire. They wait and think they are seeing signals, and then they ask what those supposed signals mean. It’s like reviewing the Zapruder film, frame by agonizing frame.

My advice is usually – ask.

  • How do you feel about me?
  • Do you want to go out for coffee?
  • Are you seeing anyone right now?
  • What would you like to do together?

So many of them thank me and promise they will ask (I have heard back from some, and  they tend to report either success or relief that they finally know).

But why the heck couldn’t these people have figured that out from the get-go?!?!?!

Back to Ike

It can be a little bit like the 1950s, where girls preen and sit by the telephone, waiting for Prince Charming  to deign to call – and heaven forfend he should take more than 20 minutes to get on the stick and call! And guys hem and haw about the most letter-perfect thing to say, when the reality is that the perfect thing to say is something, as that beats the pants off saying and doing absolutely nothing. The same is true in non-cis relationships, of course.

Hesitation Generation
Ubuntu Kitty Smart Phone Preview (Photo credit: j_baer)

I’m not so sure who that dynamic favors, except for the phone companies. Because minute numbers go sky high, and Facebook’s advertisers benefit as people check each other’s statuses and relationship statuses obsessively. And  then they get to serve yet more ads.

It seems as if everyone wants to fast-forward through the movie, and cut the suspense. Instead, all they seem to want is the sunset and the fateful kiss. Dorothy clicks her heels together before she ever leaves Kansas. And nobody seems to miss the Munchkins and the Wicked Witch and the Tin Man and the rest of the middle part. All that matters is the destination, and never the journey.

Risks

Something is missing here, and what’s missing is the taking of chances. I get that these are generally rather young people. The vast, vast majority of them are between the ages of 13 and 28. That 15-year span is the worst – it’s a combination of raging hormones and self-absorption. But nowadays that’s spiked with a seemingly inbred inability to take a chance. Plus it’s all fueled by the artificial immediacy of far too much social media.

Hesitation Generation
Risk (Photo credit: The Fayj)

Instead of risk-taking, everyone seems to want the risks scrubbed out of their lives. They want the endgame handed to them on a silver platter yet refuse to do even a smidgen of the legwork required in order to get there.

Sample Size

A second caveat – this is, to be sure, a small group of people. Furthermore, they are self-selecting. Very confident folk are far less likely to request advice in any endeavor. Plus there is the age issue, as I have already mentioned.

People in their forties ask relationship questions, too, but those tend to be different. They are less about an initiation of connections and more about either reentering the dating pool or the dynamic of being a parent (or dating one) while in the game.

Upshot, Kinda, for the Hesitation Generation

So, where does that leave the Hesitation Generation and the rest of us?

An inability to take risks does not bode well. It clouds decisions on everything from trying a new brand of fabric softener to consenting to an experimental drug trial. It colors employment and investment choices, and keeps people out of new business ventures and away from new books, films and music.

The upside, naturally, is that it may be preventing sexually risky behaviors. That’s a good thing, of course.

However, risks are often good, and a life without them is rather dull indeed. It can be mindless consumerism as people give themselves the same personal rewards over and over again.

The trick, as in all things, is to find a balance.

And now, a bonus.

How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?

Adventures in Career Changing | Janet Gershen-Siegel | Quill | Hesitation GenerationOne last thing – here, for free, for Hesitation Generation, is my standard heartache cure. Your mileage, of course, will vary.

  • Expect to feel lousy for a while, and understand that that is a natural reaction. Congratulate yourself – you were affected enough to really feel something.
  • Relationships often keep us from doing other things, such as seeing other friends. So spend some time with your friends.
  • Explore things to do on your own. Some are inward, such as making art or even baking cookies. Others are more outward, like taking a class.

More You Can Do

  • Fill up your time. Being busy gives you few opportunities to wallow in misery. Your boss is likely not without sympathy, but you still need to write the reports, etc. or do whatever it is that you do. Treat your leisure time a little bit more like a job, in the sense that you should make some commitments and stick by them. If your leisure time is to paddle a canoe, then paddle the damned canoe. Don’t back out of that.
  • Do something physical. Exercise can not only fill up your time, it can also help with depression.
  • Do something for someone less fortunate than you. Read to a blind person. Serve at a soup kitchen. Visit people in a nursing home. Volunteer at a group home. These actions don’t just help the community, they can also help you gain some sorely needed perspective.
  • Don’t jump into a new relationship right away. Being single does not have to automatically mean being lonely. This is a time to cultivate your inner resources.
  • If you think you need it – and in particular, if you are experiencing suicidal ideation – please seek out the care of a professional. There is no shame whatsoever in getting the help that you need. If you need medical help to mend a broken heart, it should be no different from seeking medical help to mend a broken arm.

Enjoy the Bee Gees, Hesitation Generation.

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Community Management

Community Management – Collection of Users to True Community

Community Management Tidbits – Going From a Collection of Users to a True Community

What is a True Community?

I’ve written at least seven obituaries.

That is, perhaps, an odd thing to confess. But when Jill, Kevin, Paul, Joanne, Olen, Joan, and Mary all passed on, it was up to me to write something, to not only commemorate their lives, but to try to help comfort a grieving community.

I am not saying you will write as many, or even if you will ever write even one. And I certainly hope you will never have to, as they can be gut-wrenching. But it was with the first one – Mary’s – that it became manifest (if it was not already self-evident) that, to paraphrase the old Brady Bunch theme, this group had somehow formed a family.

Community Management Tidbits - Going From a Collection of Users to a True Community

How Can This Happen to Your True Community (Without the Tragic Part)?

But no one has to cross over to the other side in order for your collection of users to coalesce into a Community with a capital C. The secret is very simple, although many companies don’t want to hear it: it’s going off-topic.

Let us assume, for example, that your community is a corporate-run one. And the product is a soft drink. Corporate tells you to stay on topic, on message. However, your users are saying something very different.

For it is easy, as you’re talking about the soft drink, to slide into discussing foods eaten with it (frankly, for such a community you’d almost have to go off-topic. Nobody but a truly dedicated corporate marketer can talk about a soft drink 24/7). Food slides into a discussion of recipes. Recipes turn into a talk about entertaining. And then suddenly you’re off to the races and talking about family relationships.

Corporate tries to pull you back on topic. Yet your users pull the true community ever further away And they pinball from family relationships to dating, raising children, and elder care, if you let them.

The Community Manager’s Role

Here is where you, as the Community Manager, can talk to Corporate and forge a compromise. Corporate needs for people to talk about the product, tout it, and virally promote it. And they need people to make well-ranked (on Google) topics about it. Corporate may also realize that they need to hear the bad news about the product as well. The users need to talk.

So make a compromise. Create an off-topic area and move all off-message topics there. And be fairly loose with your definition of what’s on topic. In our soft drink example, the recipes topics, even if they don’t use the product as an ingredient, are still close enough so you can consider them on topic. Also, don’t be surprised if the corollary is true. Hence topics that begin on message veer off it, even by the time of the first responsive post. That’s okay. Those topics should still be considered to be on message. Because Google is far more concerned with a forum topic’s title and initial post than with its tenth response.

The Benefits of the Off-Topic Section

Don’t be shocked if your off-topic section becomes a large one. And recognize that you and your Moderating staff (if you have one) may need to make on message topics in order to continue creating germane content. But your true community will be talking and the site will be a lively one. It’s a party that’s going nonstop, your users will stick around and from this you can build a marketing database. And that is one of the standard corporate aims behind creating a community in the first place.

So when your users start talking about life events, such as births, school, divorce, moving, jobs, marriage, children and, yes, deaths, it matters. And when they start supporting each other through each of these phases, it marks a bright line distinction between a haphazard agglomeration of users and a true team of like-minded individuals.

Finally, that team, that family, that army, is what being in a true community is really all about.

Next: Wandering off topic

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Community Management

A Day in the Life of a Community Manager

A Day in the Life of a Community Manager

A community manager tends to have some fairly similar tasks, whether paid or volunteer. Community Management can be a piece of Social Media Marketing and Management, but it doesn’t, strictly, have to be.

The community manager : a jack of all trades
The community manager : a jack of all trades (Photo credit: La Fabrique de Blogs)

A Community Manager’s time mainly divides up into three different modes:

  1. Discussing
  2. Nurturing and
  3. Disciplining

Discussing

The discussing piece involves creating new discussions and shepherding them along. Users will not return, day after day, without new content. While the users are, ultimately, responsible for the content in a community, the Community Manager should create new content as well. This is not always topics as it can also encompass changes to the site’s blog (if any) and Facebook fan page (if it exists).

The discussing piece evolves as the community evolves. In a tiny community of less than one thousand users, the Community Manager’s content may turn out to be the only new content for weeks! As such, it can loom very, very large, but can also have a much stronger ameliorative effect if the other content being created is overly snarky. As the community grows, the Community Manager’s contributions should proportionately diminish but there should still be some involvement. Otherwise the Community Manager can be seen as hanging back a bit too much. It is a Community, and that means that the users want to know the Manager(s). An easy and relatively safe way to do this is by creating discussions.

On Topic/Off Topic

And the discussions need not always stay on topic! Lively discussions can be almost spun from whole cloth if the Manager can get the people talking. An automotive community might thrill to talking about cooking. A cooking community might engage in an animated discussion about the Olympics. And a sports community could very well bring its passion to a topic like politics.

In particular, if the community is single-subject-based (e. g. about, say, Coca-Cola), going off-topic should probably at least peripherally relate to the overall subject. Hence Coke can branch out into cooking and, from there, perhaps into family relationships. Or into health and fitness. But a push to discussing politics may not fly unless the discussion is based on a major recent news item or if there is precedent for it. Finally, if a member is ill, or has passed on, getting married or having a child, an off-topic discussion can spring naturally and effortlessly. This happens regardless of the community’s main subject matter. Corporate management may not absolutely love off-topic discussions but they keep a community together, and keep it viable.

Nurturing

The nurturing piece relates to the discussing aspect. However, it tends to encompass responding to and supporting good discussions on the site. If the Community Manager should identify certain superstar users who are good at making topics who the community likes. And then nurture them to promote those persons’ discussions over more inferior ones. Use nurturing power to encourage newbies and members who might be on the cusp of becoming superstar users if they only had a little more self-confidence, and a track record of support and positive reinforcement.

Relationships

Nurturing can also take the shape of developing relationships with members. The Community Manager doesn’t have to be friends with everyone, even if the site is very small. However, they should get to know the users. Private messages (if available), writing on a wall (if possible) or otherwise somewhat intimately communicating with the membership can accomplish this.

Furthermore, the Community Manager can use private messages, etc. as a means for heading off potential problems at the pass. Headstrong members might be perfectly wonderful if/when they write on topics not related to their overarching passion. The Community Manager can encourage those members to participate in those other discussions and also to reach out to other community members. Friendship can help to minimize flaming.

Disciplining

And that leads into the disciplining part, which is often the first thing that people think of when they think of community management. That includes things like pulling spam. It also includes giving users timeouts or even outright suspending them when their actives contravene a site’s Terms of Service. And it also includes shunning and ignoring. These can be extremely powerful. The Community Manager can help to mobilize other users.

But Do It Right

An email or private message campaign is almost always a very poor idea. Rather, the Manager must lead by example. Don’t take the bait when challenged, unless it’s absolutely necessary (rare). It’s the Community Manager’s call when to take it, particularly if personal insults fly. Often the best tactics include: (a) get offline and cool off and (b) ask another Community Manager or Moderator to determine if it warrants disciplinary action. And then enforce that if it is.

One thing a Manager should never forget: there is far more to the community than just the people posting. There is often a far larger audience of lurkers, both registered and unregistered. They are watching events unfold but rarely comment. By leading by example, the Community Manager can influence not only active posters but also the community at large.

During a typical day, new members register. And members lose their passwords, start and respond to topics. Furthermore, they answer older topics, and people engage in private communications (if permitted on the site). Members may disagree on something and they may do so vehemently. The site may get spam.

The Community Manager should mainly become involved as a content creator if content creation lags or goes too far off subject. He or she should discipline difficult members if necessary. However, generally, a Community Manager’s main task, both daily and over the life of the community, should be to carefully nurture and shape relationships.

Categories
Career changing Community Management Content Strategy Social Media

The Deal Behind Online Community and Social Media Job Descriptions

The Deal Behind Online Community and Social Media Job Descriptions

Social Media Job Descriptions! This is a shout-out to Blaise Grimes-Viort, Community Manager extraordinaire. His older blog post still rings true today.

The Deal Behind Online Community and Social Media Job DescriptionsSo in 2010 (it was his most popular blog post), Blaise outlined some differences in Social Media job descriptions.

Blaise’s Theory

His thinking is: there are internal and externally-facing types of jobs. And the internally-facing ones tend to look more like Community Management, e. g. what I do for Able2know. Those tasks include pulling spam, making peace among the users, interpreting site statistics and measurements, or scrubbing graffiti tags. Furthermore, they can also include adding correct tags to topics, and working on that site’s Help Desk. Those jobs tend to be called Community Manager, Head of Online Community, etc. Content Strategist and Content Curator seem to fit into this bucket as well. However, those other jobs can be more about promoting content rather than serving those who make it.

On the other hand, externally-facing jobs are more like what I did for Neuron Robotics. Because in that role, I attended events on behalf of the company, conducted product demonstrations, did outreach and sales, communicated with potential customers, etc. Hence those jobs tend to have words like Marketing or Marketer in their titles.

Blogging seems to be either external or internal. However, it all begs the question, though: what happens when you’ve got skills in both areas? Must you choose one or the other? See, this is what’s been bothering me, all along, about the whole Social Media career-changing experience. There seems to be a requirement that a person drop themselves into one pigeonhole or another.

And I say, why can’t I be in both?

So for more information, check out Blaise’s February 8, 2010 blog entry and make please help to make it even more popular. Kudos to him!

Categories
Community Management Facebook Social Media Social Media Class Twitter

Quinnipiac Assignment 08 – ICM 526 – Social Media in a Crisis – a Look at Sabra Hummus and Listeria

Social Media in a Crisis – a Look at Sabra Hummus and Listeria

In April of 2015, Sabra hummus faced a social media and public health crisis. Some tests for hummus flavors contained the listeria bacterium.

Quinnipiac Assignment 08 – ICM 526 – Social Media in a Crisis – a Look at Sabra Hummus and Listeria
English: Listeria monocytogenes grown on Listeria Selective Agar (Photo credit: Wikipedia) (image is reproduced for educational purposes only)

What is Listeria? Why is it such a Problem?

Per FoodSafety.gov,

Listeria is the name of a bacteria found in soil and water and some animals, including poultry and cattle. It can be present in raw milk and foods made from raw milk. It can also live in food processing plants and contaminate a variety of processed meats.

Listeria is unlike many other germs because it can grow even in the cold temperature of the refrigerator. Listeria is killed by cooking and pasteurization.

Complicating matters is that listeria ingestion can sometimes be fatal, or can induce miscarriages. Beyond just threatening the Sabra Dipping Company, hesitation, quite literally, could prove fatal.

Sabra’s Response

Per Sabra, “The potential for contamination was discovered when a routine, random sample collected at a retail location on March 30th, 2015 by the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, tested positive for Listeria monocytogenes.”

Before anyone was sickened, Sabra acted quickly and pulled potentially contaminated product from store shelves.

On their blog, Sabra announced the recall and provided a list of potential symptoms, so customers could judge for themselves whether they needed medical treatment. This included a list of UPC/SKU numbers and names of affected flavors, so customers could know if they’d bought a container. Use by dates on the list were posted in English and French, although the blog post was just in English. Neither the post nor the list received a Spanish translation.

Twitter War

As tweets poured in, Sabra’s community manager seemed overwhelmed. Finally, it was suggested that concerned customers contact their doctors –

Any concerns or questions you have about your health are best discussed with a physician.

Further, sometimes the information being given out was flat-out wrong. For example, the company’s blog listed the dual classic and garlic hummus product, whereas this typical tweet implied that only the classic flavor was affected. Mixing would imply that in the dual package, the garlic half would potentially also be contaminated. –

Hi Kate, only our Classic Hummus is affected by this recall. No other product manufactured by Sabra is included.

The community manager insisted that only classic was affected even when a customer said that she had had a reaction to the garlic flavor. Later, the community manager had a change of heart and told the customer to report her case directly to Sabra’s customer service team.

Suzanne Willett ‏Apr 9
Sabra I had a fairly immediate GI reaction to the Roasted Garlic one yesterday. Advise?

Sabra ‏Apr 9
SuzanneWillett Hi Suzanne, only our Classic Hummus has been affected in the recall.

Sabra Apr 9
SuzanneWillett However, please report your case immediately to our customer service team by calling 1-888-957-2272.

How the Brand Did

Sabra acted perfectly to quickly remove product from stores. This was not a direct social media response. However, it not only potentially saved lives, it also made the community manager’s job far easier. Consumer deaths were not a part of the equation. Offline behavior directly affected online behavior.

For a company in crisis, it seems the CEO did not publicly respond. The blog post is an author-less press release. Twitter didn’t point to anything the CEO had said. Without an authority figure behind the social media response, Twitter offers the impression that the community manager was left to twist in the wind.

Facebook

The same was true on Facebook. There was just one post about the crisis. A comment from the husband of a pregnant woman elicited the same rote response, suggesting calling a doctor. Other customers called out Sabra, demanding better answers and compensation –

Christine Schaefer
That’s a really weak answer Sabra. Of course a person who ate your contaminated product should follow up with their doctor, but what are YOU going to do about it? How are YOU going to support and compensate anyone who has been affected or has been frightened by eating one of your recalled products?

As for their blog, Sabra could have spread the link more widely. Part of the list had a French translation. Hence the list and the blog post should have been translated into both French and Spanish.

It’s as if Sabra did fine to start but then stumbled. They seem to have recovered, though, and are back to posting recipes now, much later.

Categories
Community Management Facebook Quinnipiac Social Media Social Media Class Twitter

Quinnipiac Assignment 06 – ICM 526 – Best Practices in Using Social Media for Customer Service

Best Practices in Using Social Media for Customer Service

When it comes to best practices for using using social media in customer service, it all seems to boil down to three things –

  1. Be fast
  2. Be empathetic
  3. Be useful

Be Fast

In our hurry-up culture, two minutes to microwave a meal sometimes seems too long. Social media is the perfect medium for customers and businesses to have a two-way conversation. This dialogue inevitably contains complaints. Plus online commerce is often global in nature, so it’s a recipe for people demanding very fast service, or at least service during what, to your company, feel like off hours.

According to BrandWatch’s Prepare to Respond, which cites Nielsen,

According to recent research findings from Nielsen, 42 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds acknowledged that they expect customer support within 12 hours of a complaint.

Adelisa Gutierrez’s Slideshare on Reinvigorate Your Customer Service with Social Care breaks it down even further (slide #17 in the deck) –

Over half of all Twitter users of social care (essentially, customer service over social media channels) expect a response within two hours. Just under one-half on Facebook also expect a response after two hours. On both channels, a same-day response is expected over 80% of the time.

BrandWatch offers as a best practice a simple idea – decide on a response time frame, and stick with it.

I would add to that, post your hours and your expected response times. If there’s only one social media employee, then that person is expected to be offline at times. They need off-hours coverage, plus vacation and sick time coverage.

Be Empathetic

Best Practices in Using Social Media for Customer Service (image is used here for educational purposes only)
English: This is a picture of the Zappos 2010 Culture Book. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

At eConsultancy, in the article, How Zappos Uses Social Media: Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, Zappos as a company makes it a point of engaging with customers and providing superior service. That article cites an ideal customer service response. When customer @ktmink asked “@Zappos_Service I just ordered a birthday gift for my brother – 5 day shipping but wondering if you can get it there in 3? #195917709 “, @Zappos_Service responded with, “@ktmink This order is going to ship out today and your brother will have his birthday present tomorrow!”

Not only was the customer called by name, the company went beyond @ktmink’s question, which was really just whether a rush could be put on the order. The order’s shipping was upgraded to overnight, which is more than the customer asked for.

On Gutierrez’s Slideshare (slide #28 in the deck), she gives an example from Citi. @AskCiti was contacted by a customer walking to a branch who could not find it. The company representative expressed empathy and asked the customer to report back if they were still having trouble. The customer was still lost, and so @AskCiti responded with a landmark-filled explanation of precisely where the branch is, in 140 characters or less.

In both instances, Zappos and Citi exceeded customer expectations by putting themselves in the shoes of their frustrated customers.

Be Useful

Empowered employees are useful ones, and useful employees are empowered.

It does little good to respond quickly but then just fob off a frustrated customer to someone else in the corporate food chain. As Brandwatch notes, there is a difference between response time and resolution time.

It’s better to communicate that you’re working on the proper response, set a realistic expectation of time, and then deliver a real resolution. After all, customers want resolutions, not spin.

Contrast this with an example from the Gutierrez Slideshare (slide #29 in the deck), where a Bank of America customer is lost and seeking the closest branch. Instead of answering their question, the customer is instead directed to an online locator. Rather than converting a frustrating customer experience into a positive one, the customer was forced to go to another URL to get help. Even if the employee had never been to Manhattan, they could have used the locator and reported back with the information. This added step increased the wait for true resolution for this customer. Bank of America provided less service than expected. Not a good move on their part.

What’s Best Practice?

What do hurried customers, lost on the streets of New York; or at home and worried that a birthday present won’t come in on time; or confused about a service, really want?

They don’t want their time wasted. They don’t want to be treated as if their requests are too much bother for the company (for those requests won’t be a bother to your competition). And they don’t want to be given the runaround.

When companies understand these requirements, and put them into online practice, then they are truly offering the best possible customer service via social media.

Categories
Community Management Content Strategy Quinnipiac Social Media Class

Quinnipiac Assignment 04 – ICM 526 – The Importance of Content Marketing for Community Managers

The Importance of Content Marketing for Community Managers

Why is content marketing important for Community Managers?

It is deceptively easy for companies to ‘get on Facebook’ or ‘get a Twitter’, and start pushing content out through a firehose. Companies may even make a splash in the beginning. But it’s unsustainable. Furthermore, it’s not serving customers and potential customers terribly well.

Much like any other aspect of modern business, online content requires strategy and structure. Just having content is not enough. It has to be relevant to fans and followers, and be more than something they will just click on and read. Instead, content is for marketing; it is for getting customers and potential customers into the sales funnel and then bringing them along. This is the case whether the sale occurs online or in a brick and mortar store.

The Content Marketing Institute says –

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.

The Numbers Say It All

As Steven MacDonald reminds in The 5 Pillars of Successful Content Marketing, the amount of data being created in two days is more than was created from the beginning of time until 2003. Certainly, that figure is only going to grow. The United States census, in 2012, released an infographic comparing 2012 data on computers and Internet usage with 1997 (when the census first began asking about Internet usage) and 1984 data.

Per the United States census, the percentage of households without Internet has fallen dramatically, from 45.3% in 2003, to 25.2% in 2012. This does not even take into account persons who might not have home access, but are using the Internet at work, school, a café or public library or other such location.

Relevancy

With all of these people online, and all of that content coming at them 24/7/365, the race is less to get any sort of content online, and more to get relevant and preferred content to consumers. When a potential customer is being bombarded with Instagram images of their friends’ lunches and Facebook status updates with pregnant friends’ ultrasounds, gossipy Tweets about celebrities and amusing Tumblr blog posts about upcoming movies, and Pinterest boards with recipes, somehow, some way, a company’s content has got to compete with all of that.

While companies can purchase additional reach and engagement, a more sensible ad spend is to target content more closely to customers’ and potential customers’ preferences and demographics. This is easier and more detailed and better-researched than ever before, due to all of the tracking coding which is embedded in social media. As Avinash Kaushik has said about digital marketing (a term often used interchangeably with ‘content marketing’ but a bit more general, involving the use of digital devices but not necessarily as fully integrating marketing with content types like in true content marketing) and measurement –

The root cause of failure in most digital marketing campaigns is not the lack of creativity in the banner ad or TV spot or the sexiness of the website. It is not even (often) the people involved. It is quite simply the lack of structured thinking about what the real purpose of the campaign is and a lack of an objective set of measures with which to identify success or failure.

Quinnipiac Assignment 04 – ICM 526 - The Importance of Content Marketing for Community Managers
Image of Wine Library TV’s Gary Vaynerchuk. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) (image is used for educational purposes only)

Structured thinking and objective measurement can help marketers to create and define success. Content marketing is similar in that it’s studied and planned. Content marketers don’t just put up any old content whenever. They study the various platforms, as Gary Vaynerchuk strongly suggests. Successful content marketers listen to their audience (there’s that idea of measuring again!) and determine what does and doesn’t work. They post their content when their customers and potential customers are online and listening.

Putting Content Marketing Together With Community Management

Community Managers are often tasked with shaping conversations online. This is everything from thanking happy users to publicly addressing complaints to being the first line of communications for public relations problems. But that’s mainly reactive communications. Proactive communications from community managers can and should dovetail with company plans to market to consumers (or to businesses in a B2B organization). Offering helpful, engaging, amusing, and informative content is the job of the community manager as much as the soothing of angry online customers is. Posting the right content, when consumers want to see it, can be the difference between a sale and no sale. Put enough of those together, and jobs and even companies can be on the line. The community manager, doing content marketing right, can bring in business and help a company retain its customers even in troubled economic times.

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Community Management Quinnipiac Social Media Class

Quinnipiac Assignment 01 – ICM 526 – The Most Important Role of a Community Manager

The Most Important Role of a Community Manager

I’ve been a Community Manager for over a decade but don’t believe I have seen a better outline of our roles and sub-roles than this graphic –

Most Important Role of a Community Manager
The Mind of a Community Manager (image is from class and is intended for educational purposes only)

I have been in all of these roles, at one time or another. Because I am a volunteer and Able2Know is a large generalized Q & A website, some of my experience has been slightly different.

Piñata

A lot of community members might not realize when they do this. Sometimes it can feel as if you’re the punching bag. But you can’t punch back. Whenever I’ve been involved in an altercation online (usually by being dragged into one; I tend not to instigate), I inevitably recuse myself and ask that other Moderators and Administrators handle what is to be done.

Sponge

I’ve never been more in tune with this role than after a member’s death. I’ve written maybe a dozen online obituaries. It’s an odd thing to put together something of the life of a person who used a screen name and an avatar. Those moments require taking the temperature of a community, and understanding whether the remembrance should be a rollicking, funny wake, or posted music and poetry, or something else.

Gardener

I haven’t been a gardener since the site was rather young. When there are few members and topics, the Community Manager is often tasked with creating content. That has to stop at some point, as the community needs to take over and make a far larger percentage of the content. With a brand-related community, it is different. The brand will likely retain far more of the content creation role.

These days, I prune or shape a lot more than I create. That leads me to the Cheerleader role.

Cheerleader

There’s nothing like being enthusiastic about a new feature and having the membership scream bloody murder because they don’t like the change. And then, a year later, seeing the community embrace that very same change. Cheerleaders, at times, are treated like Piñatas.

Traffic Cop

We have a Help Desk, and I regularly route more of the developmental work elsewhere. Still, this is a role that could conceivably be done by others.

Mediavore

While I am a Mediavore as a matter of personal characteristics and behaviors, this role hasn’t exactly been necessary at Able2Know. I have used this knowledge and familiarity, though, to bring interesting social media information to the site. Plus I answer a lot of the Facebook and Twitter questions.

Empathy

This is another area less important for a volunteer position at a shoestring site. More likely, I am checking Facebook, etc. to see if users are disgruntled, or leaving entirely. For me, this role has a lot in common with the Sponge.

Spam Warrior

Oh, how I despise this role. But it’s got to be done every single day. These tasks are often delegated to newer volunteer Community Manager/Moderators, mainly because it’s a large and daunting task. It’s also to get their feet wet and give them an idea of how we do things.

Sculptor

I keep some rough stats, as the site is run on a shoestring. My background is in data analysis; I know the value of objective, measurable, quantitative information. In particular, objective data is usually important at budget time. Management needs to know the community is working, and is more than a few people chatting. Data and its analysis can sometimes mean the difference between a project with a budget that’s continued, and one which loses its budget and dies on the vine.

Concierge

For this role (again, keep in mind, I’m a volunteer, and the site is run with a rather low budget), it’s more of the times when I’ve answered questions at in-person gatherings or helped someone get back onto the site when their only means of communicating with me is via Facebook wall posts or Twitter or the like. But this doesn’t happen too often.

Drumroll, please!

The Most Important Role of a Community Manager is ….

Empathetic Sponge, with a dash of Sculptor.

The role of a Community Manager, I believe, is mainly as a listener, and all three of these sub-roles are mainly centered around listening. What are people saying? How can we understand the community? And how does what we’re hearing convert into metrics?

Allow me to add a new role, perhaps one that melds these three – the Windmill. That is, a means of harnessing the wind. The Community Manager needs to know which way the wind blows, and how to measure it, and how to use it to power the community.

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Quinnipiac Assignment #15 – Reflections about ICM 522

Quinnipiac Assignment #15 – Reflections about ICM 522

With the end of my first Social Media class came a request for our overall impressions of how things went. Hence, I prepared Quinnipiac Assignment #15 – Reflections about ICM 522.

Quinnipiac Assignment #15 – Reflections about ICM 522

My classmates and I were also tasked with showcasing what we felt was our best work.

I was so very pleased that I had a few works to choose from, but I narrowed my choices down in order to save some space.

My reflections essay included comments about the video and essay portions of Module #4, Module #9, Module #10, Module #11,  and my Final Project; that video is duplicated below.

Module Four was about the Ad Astra Star Trek fan fiction writing community. Module Nine was about the Facebook page that my partner, Kim Scroggins, and I created for our ‘client’, the as-yet undiscovered Rhode Island rock band, J-Krak. Module Ten was about the creation and growth of the Twitter stream that we made for J-Krak. And Module Eleven was all about our less than successful experiments in spreading the gospel of J-Krak to MySpace and Google+ (the former was a particularly abysmal showing. At least our client’s presence on Google+ assured better placement in overall search results).

The class was great fun, and I could not get enough of studying for it. I have never, ever had a course like this before, where I was so into it that I could not wait to study, and I did all of the extra credit because I wanted to, and not because I necessarily needed to. That has never, ever been my experience with a class before this one. This overwhelmingly positive experience has given me the incentive to not only finish my Social Media Certification training, but I am also rather seriously considering going on and getting my Masters’ Degree in Communications, with a concentration in Social Media.

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