Community managers – the true connectors

Jake has some good insights into the mind of a community manager – and I particularly like his view that the community manager sits or is “caught between customers and colleagues, where both expect that you’re on “the other side”.

But from my experiences, the role of a community manager is so much more than that.  A community manager has to anticipate the wants and needs of his potential audience – whilst slavishly following the variable requirements of the marketing team. He has to make sure that the latest customer campaign is followed, on time, on budget and hit all of the requirements of the campaign – and he needs to be aware of his intended audience.  he needs to build the tool, build the community and attract the right influencers to the party.

But how?  There are lots of communities out there with very few community members.  But does this matter in the big scheme of things?

Well if your metrics are eyeball driven, number of Net New subscribers, then this matters to you.  But what if your community is influencer driven – and the quality of the community matters more than the quantity.  What if Steve Ballmer was a member of your community?  Steve Jobs? Ray Ozzie?  Sir Alan Sugar? Does that change the metrics somewhat?  Do you want to encourage your influencers to come along?

Yes, Yes and YES!

Forrester blogged about the social technograpic ladder for community interaction and social bahaviour, but I’d modify the ladder slightly and place a different spin on the image.   I’d need to add things to the ladder, or perhaps change the shape a little.   For I believe that it’s quality of the community interaction, not the quantity that matters, and I’d rate any interaction from the really key influencers as higher up in the scheme of things.  So, to illustrate this:

  

The red stars may be your Steve Ballmer, Steve jobs type of influencers – they may have frequent communications, or few – but their value is very high due to the level of influence they have in the community.  Contrast that with the yellow starts – lots of noise – not much influence.  Are you wasting too much time on these people?  Are they a huge time suck for you. 

Community managers should identify, and work with the red stars in their industry, their business, and with these VIP influencers on board, then the community managers can build a community that works for both the audience, and the intended community.  Because if you build your community tool, share your thoughts and ideas for the community with your red stars – then your community will come…

Or do you think that it’s eyeballs that matter after all?

Technorati Tags: social technographic ladder? community managers,influencers

Love and Greatness: You *can* have both

Like Mona, I’ve been compelled to write this blog post for a few days now.  Betsy’s post really got me thinking about what I have, what I’ve sacrificed and what I’ve achieved.  But in order to do this, I need to share things that I don’t normally share on a blog.  But it puts things in a little more context so you can understand my take on the debate.

It all goes back to when I was a child.  My dad had brought Stock Car Racing over from the US to the UK in the late 1950’s, early 1960’s and both him and my Mum worked together to make sure that our Stock Car stadium was successful.  My Mum had an equal share in the business, made 50% of the decisions and ran all of the finances.  She brought 2 girls up too in this environment.  She brought us both up to believe in ourselves and believe that we could do absolutely everything we wanted to – and the fact that both of us are very familiar on the short circuit race track and are both total petrol heads must have had something to do with her ‘can do’ ‘never fail’ attitude. 

I grew up believing that it was good to cook great food for up to 10 men who working in the garage (building, modifying and customising their Stock Cars).  It was good to learn to do J turns and handbrake turns on the race circuit before I was 11, and it was also good experience to take the cash from race day to the bank on a Monday morning (My mum reckoned that 2 kids were unlikely to get mugged for the takings on the way to the town on the bus).  I learned business, I learned a heck of a lot about cars and engines and I learned that nothing, but nothing was impossible to you if you believed in yourself enough.

So when I decided to follow my chosen career, and I joined the Merchant Navy to sail on Oil Tankers at 17 years old (my company is named after one of those Tankers), no one told me I couldn’t go to sea.  No one said that sailing on Oil Tankers as a Deck Cadet was a mans job. It was the late 1970’s and the family were totally supportive of my career choice.   They may have been a little amused but they were very encouraging.  And by the time I realised that I was one of only 4 women amongst 35,000 male Merchant Navy Staff in the UK, and perhaps in an unusual job for a woman, I was qualified as an officer – and somehow it didn’t matter any more.  I had the respect of my colleagues for doing my job.

Because I’d done the time, got the skills, got the stripes on my arm.  I’d proved myself as a success.

Now lets roll forward to the present day. 

I’ve been married to my first husband for over 22 years. He’s not in my industry, nor does it matter.  We met whilst I was at sea.  At the time, equality was REALLY IMPORTANT to me, and it’s that equality that has carried us through all the years, through my changing careers and is holding very true in my IT career now.  He’s been supportive – but more importantly to me – he has given me total freedom to pursue my dreams – whatever they have been.

Total freedom, no matter what.  That’s been such a key factor in my success, my ‘greatness’ or ‘business success’ as Tara puts it in her post. 

And this freedom has helped me to succeed without fear, inadequacy or insecurity.  Self belief, support and storming role models right from birth have given me both.

As Kathy Sierra comments on Betsy’s post:

“You can’t just be a woman, no you must also be an aggressive self-promoter, highly visible, a social networker, a role model for all women, interested in "greatness", motivated primarily by personal career success (while referring to it as "changing the world"), and of course — as this discussion suggests — willing to sacrifice love…. it’s simply NOT true”

    So many women feel that they need to sacrifice everything in order to succeed.  Perhaps they choose to, perhaps they don’t feel they have the support they need.  But like Betsy, I think that it is possible to have greatness and love.

And we shouldn’t accept anything less.  And neither should our children…

 

Technorati Tags: Tara Hunt,Betsy Aoki,Mona Nomura,Love and Greatness

Advice for positive growth

The lovely Susanne asked me to share some thoughts about 2009 and talk about my inspiration for growth.  She’s uploaded the finished ebook onto Slideshare:

There are some amazing and inspirational stories in there from around the world.  What an amazing group of people.  I now feel honoured to have been considered as part of this group.

Hopefully some of the comments may inspire you to succeed in 2010 as lots of those interviewed had quite a challenging 2009. Thank you all for sharing…

Technorati Tags: Susanne Dansey,Advice for positive growth

A sort of Tweetup

I’ve been chatting to the lovely Betsy from the Bing team who told me that her boss, Stefan will be over in London this week and wants to meet startups and social media peeps on Friday 26th February at 7pm.  There will be beer and food on hand (thanks Bing) and an opportunity to ask those sticky questions of the Bing maps team and the Bing community team.

Bing did a great demo on Bing Maps at TED the other week (I blogged about how wonderful TED is last week), but you can find the demo here:

 

so where can you RSVP for the event?

Here: http://binglondon.eventbrite.com/  The event is at: The Hospital Club, 24 Endell Street, Covent Garden, WC2H 9HQ London – a nice venue. 

so if you’re looking for an Angel – you might just be lucky… 🙂

see you on Friday

 

Technorati Tags: Bing,Events,Hospital Club

Ted: Total inspiration

I’m still mulling over the impact that the TED video showing Jamie Oliver has had on me.  Jamie, won the TED prize in 2010 for his efforts to educate us all that we are killing our children due to childhood obesity and the fact that parents don’t tend to teach their children to cook. The simplicity of his delivery, the passion he shows as he stumbles over his words to get his message across is so very powerful and incredibly inspiring.

 

TED brings together some totally amazing speakers, inspirational people who change the way we think.  Remember the furore when Bill Gates released a swarm of mosquitoes into the audience at TED – because why should only the poor have to suffer with mosquitoes?  Or Pranav Mistry showing his sixth sense device – originally fashioned out of the rollers in old fashioned mice, or Jill Bolte Taylor showing us what the world is like inside your own brain – whilst you’re having a stroke.  Powerful and inspiring stories indeed.

I envied my friend Betsy who was lucky enough to get to TEDActive US this year where she watched, amongst other things, Blaise Aguera y Arcas who did an amazing demo of Bing Maps with augmented reality from Flickr and live video integration.  Very very cool indeed – it’s not often technical demos get standing ovations from the audience ‘outside’ of the parent company

 

  The innovation shown here makes your brain hurt – just thinking about the untapped possibilities out there – and the opportunities for us in technology.

We live in amazing times.  If only some of this can be put to the greater good…

Technorati Tags: TED Talks,TED Prize,TEDActive,Jamie Oliver

Google Buzz or Outlook social connector?

I think it’s a shame that Google Buzz  has been reported to the FTC due to privacy concerns due to data disclosure issues.  The recently released Google buzz seems to be  a really interesting way to aggregate all of your social media data – easily – into one main account.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not upset about the privacy concerns per se – I believe that every app should take users privacy very seriously and take steps to ensure the right levels of privacy for the user.  I’m just a little bit surprised that this sort of issue wasn’t sorted out earlier.  I’m keen to see this sort of aggregated application which keeps everything in one feed – a sort of super Friendfeed and think that the application that keeps thing together.

So what about the new Social Connector from Microsoft that was released in beta for Outlook 2010, 2007 and 2003?  The UI reminds me  a little bit of Xobni, and the ability to see activity from each person in your mailing list is  rather useful.  Here’s an example of the interface – if you haven’t installed it yet…

The add button lets you add the email contact directly into your social media contacts – currently only links into LinkedIn at the moment, but Myspace, Facebook and Windows Live are on the way soon.   This is a one click opportunity to get  everything in one place – all of your social media contacts, your professional and personal connections – all in one place – easily managed and organised in one profile.

Which is exactly the same thing that buzz is trying to achieve isn’t it? It will be interesting to watch which of these apps starts to gain ground and popularity amongst the social media digerati – whether buzz will sort out its teething troubles and race away as the leader – especially if the Social Connector is a one off project by a small team inside Microsoft that will disappear as so many have in the past as the product the teams move around the business onto new projects as Office 2010 comes out in the mainstream.

Till then, I’ll try both and see which one holds my interest the longest   🙂

 

Technorati Tags: Google buzz,Outlook Social Connector

Computer Engineers in Pink Glasses?

 

I’ve been watching the status messages pop up about Barbie’s new job as a computer engineer.  I first noticed these a few weeks ago, when all of my techy female networking groups started to propagate the link exhorting us to vote for Barbie’s next job.  One of the options was Computer Engineer. 

Of course I voted…

on February 12th, Mattel announced that Barbie’s 126th career (not bad for a 50 year old) was to  be a Computer Engineer – and here she is, decked out with the latest accessories and ready for work.

Barbie has been many things in her incarnation: registered nurse, veterinarian, pilot, surgeon, police officer, fire-fighter, petty officer and astronaut.  She has broken in to the boardroom as a business executive and ran for president.  These are all very laudable and aspirational goals for girls.  But she has also been a rock star, aerobics instructor, ballerina, Sea World trainer too, and in 2010 her career as a Computer Engineer will be launched alongside Pizza chef Barbie, ballroom dancer and race car driver.  Hmmm 

Perhaps Pizza chef Barbie might not be such a good career for Barbie considering the obesity epidemic sweeping the world at the moment (by the way, see Jamie Oliver’s inspirational TED talk on how we can all tackle this issue by teaching our children to cook nutritious food).

But Barbie, the Computer Engineer is another step in the right direction to encourage girls to consider IT as a career.

The binary code on the T-shirt is cool and geeky – as is the binary code on the laptop.  Leggings are cool too – who would want to grub around in the server room wearing a short skirt.  The smartphone and bluetoothe headset are both bang up to date too.

But the Glasses?  The Scooby Doo “’Thelma’ Glasses – albeit in Pink…?  Come on Mattel.  You’ve successfully given Barbie a useful (and attainable) career now – why spoil it with the stereotype spectacles?

But thanks to everyone who voted – and gave Barbie a useful and up to date career.  Now what can she do next in the IT world?  Social Media Twitterer perhaps? 😀

Technorati Tags: Barbie,Computer Engineer

memes and temes at TED

This video is very interesting if you apply it to the way social media has become so pervasive and useful.  It’s the spreading, replication of useful information.  From Darwin to Toilet rolls, its all about copying. Susan Blackmore talks about memes and temes

and discusses how easy it will be for computers to do  self replicating in the future – as they’re not oxygen breathing “warm squishy things” like humans

Certainly food for thought 🙂

Technorati Tags: TED Talks,Susan Blackmore,meme,teme

Social media, Social causes

I’ve been fascinated recently by the use of online games to be used for social causes and I’ve been impressed with what’s been happening on Farmville recently.  For those of you who have never heard of Farmville, its an Massive Multiplayer Online Role playing game on Facebook which has about 75 million players and it involves managing your farm. your virtual farm.  You can buy virtual crops, harvest them, and make virtual cash.  You can also use real cash to buy virtual items in Farmville and other MMORPG games.  Suddenly virtual items have the potential to become monetised earning real cash for the company.  But it’s not all bad…

There are opportunities for social networking to be put to good use for social causes. These networks have become powerful tools to help raise money and awareness, about social issues around the world. Zynga, one of the leading MMORPG developers who have several social games on Facebook like Mafia Wars, Farmville, FishVille, CafeWorld and Zynga Poker responded very quickly to the need for international aid. They offered “limited edition social goods” including “ non withering white corn within Farmville", a “Haitian drum on Mafia Wars" (23 million users) and “a special chip package” that will give the user a rare, premium item (Zynga Poker). Zynga donating 100 percent of the proceeds to support emergency aid in Haiti through the Zynga Haiti Relief fund. Previous efforts in selling seeds for Haiti earned over $1,000,000 and the opportunity to buy virtual pets in YoVille raised $90,000 for the San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals . Other initiatives allowed players to purchase virtual goods to aid the World Food Program.

So there’s a great opportunity for social media to be put to good use for good causes, and with the amount of cash raised by Zynga in a very short time for the Haitian earthquake, there’s obviously a really good opportunity for other channels to capitalise on this too…

 

Technorati Tags: social media,social causes,zynga,farmville,fishville,cafe world

Increasing your connections using social media

If you want to increase the number of your followers then you need to think about mechanisms in order to engage your new audience. The mechanisms for increasing followers are pretty much the same whatever social media tool you use, and reasons that make a Tweet get broadcast across the Twitterverse are pretty much the same as getting a huge growth of hits on a YouTube video.

Your thoughts should include the fact that once you’ve identified your audience, you need to get them to follow or subscribe to you and the most important thing here is to get them engaged. Your broadcasts need to have useful, relevant and informative information to get them engaged and keep them engaged. This information could be in the form of news about an up and coming event / product / business item, it could be a "How to" (like the "how to fold a t-shirt" videos on YouTube). Whatever it is it needs to be useful enough for people to recommend it to their connections, who recommend it to their connections and the message gets amplified.

Unfortunately lots of poor quality social media campaigns get things wrong. They continually spam their followers with the same message over and over again. Adverts like "Don’t pay for tooth whitening. This Mom discovered the secret to white teeth for under $5" repeated across your social media tools will not give you the profile you desire. If the tooth whitening solution is one of the few products that you market, then you need to be creative about different ways you can broadcast your message. Here are a few tips I’ve gathered along the way by watching and learning.

• Find the social media leaders in your industry and follow them. Subscribe to their blog, follow them on Twitter, connect with the people that they connect with. You’ll then get great insights into the way they use online marketing to effectively get their message across.
• Search for the types of people you want to notice you and follow them. Use keywords to narrow your search to the target market.  If you follow people in your industry and post interesting things, it’s likely that they will follow you back
• Decide on a sensible name for your channels. People are much more likely to follow realistic companies like "Teethglow" than they are to follow channels such as "Awesome Tooth Whitening miracles"
• Make sure your channels are populated. People won’t subscribe to a blog which isn’t updated regularly, nor will they follow a blank Twitter feed or YouTube channel.
• Try to broadcast realistically. Talking about your amazing Tooth Whitening products all the time, will appear to be spamming your audience. Try instead to ask questions like "Which tooth whitening product is your favourite?" or "Which tooth whitening product would you try?" .
• If you are using Twitter as your only method for communication, make sure that you don’t follow everyone. You will be overwhelmed with information and will miss out useful snippets in the fire hose of communication.
• Post interesting news and information about your product, and advertise your message regularly. If others post relevant and interesting news on Twitter, use Retweet to broadcast this to your own followers. Re-share Facebook pages to your friends with interesting links and broadcast interesting video uploads. Use Trackbacks to link to blogs with relevant content.
• Use URL shorteners so that your links can be forwarded easily. You might have been publicising a link on your blog, or on Facebook. Use one of the many URL shorteners to create a smaller link that people can easily share via Twitter.
• Search for your brand name on Blogs, Videos, Twitter etc. Respond to any comments or questions . If there are any issues , then make sure that you try to get a solution for the customer.

There are loads of other ways to do this – but hopefully this will give you a head start…

Technorati Tags: increasing reach,social media