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HOW TO: Manage a Sustainable Online Community

HOW TO: Manage a Sustainable Online Community
Rob Howard is the CTO/founder of enterprise collaboration software company Telligent. A 2008 Gartner study on social software noted that “about 70 percent of the community typically fails to coalesce.” While the measurement and the statistics behind this statement raise questions, there is an element of truth. There are detrimental effects of over-hyping the technology and then committing the three cardinal sins of running a community: If you build it they will come. All three can cause a community to fail, and there are plenty of examples. Understanding the Community Life Cycle The image below is representative of the different stages of the community life cycle. A community is constantly in one or more of the following states with the exception of the On-Board state: How Is Value Perceived? Most discussions surrounding the topic of community life cycle are based on the work done by Bruce Tuckman’s stages of group development: Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing.

3 Ways Live Events Improve Online Communities Katie Morse is a Community Manager at Radian6, the social media monitoring and engagement platform. She blogs at Candid Katie and is @misskatiemo on Twitter. In my role as a Community Manager, I talk to a lot of people online as I work through my day. Whether it’s responding to a tweet, commenting on a blog post, answering a question on LinkedIn, or even responding to a post in a forum, I’m chatting with people from all over the globe on a daily basis. The funny thing is, I’ve never met most of these people. They know details about my life, but we’ve never shared a cup of coffee or looked each other in the eyes. While there is a lot of chatter about online communities, less is said about how to connect your online community members with each other, or with you, offline. Here are three ways live events can help improve your online community. 1. 2. Think of an online community as a big summer BBQ. The party host is at the center of the action, just as a moderator is in an online community.

5 Rules of Social Media Optimization (SMO) For years now, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for websites has been honed into a fine art with entire companies devoting considerable effort to defining best practices and touting the value of SEO for raising a site's performance on organic search listings. While I believe in the power of SEO, there is a new offering we have started providing to clients which we call Social Media Optimization (SMO). The concept behind SMO is simple: implement changes to optimize a site so that it is more easily linked to, more highly visible in social media searches on custom search engines (such as Technorati), and more frequently included in relevant posts on blogs, podcasts and vlogs. Here are 5 rules we use to help guide our thinking with conducting an SMO for a client's website: - This is the first and most important priority for websites. - Often used as a barometer for success of a blog (as well as a website), inbound links are paramount to rising in search results and overall rankings.

8 Different Facebook Landing Tabs Used By Businesses On Facebook Are you looking to turn more Facebook lurkers into fans of your page? There’s no better way to do this than with a custom Facebook landing tab. As interest in Facebook marketing increases, marketers are looking for new ways to improve their technique. If you’re a regular reader of Social Media Examiner and also visit our Facebook Page then you’ve already heard about creating custom tabs using Facebook’s Static FBML for engaging first-time Facebook visitors. Here are eight different ways businesses are using landing tabs on Facebook. #1: Ask Your Visitors to Like Your Page Your landing tab is a great place to ask first-time visitors to “Like” your page and grow your Facebook community, just as Apryl Parcher does here. Notice how Apryl Parcher asks new visitors to like her business page to grow her Facebook community. #2: Give Multiple Invitations for Engagement Have a look at all of the different ways Starwood Preferred Guest incites visitors to interact with them on their Facebook page.

How 7 Startups Are Building Their Online Communities This post originally appeared on Dyn.com, a world leader in managed DNS, powering the best brands on the web including Gowalla, Mashable, Twitter, Wikia and more. Follow @DynInc on Twitter. Community management is anything but a science. What follows is an in-depth look at how seven startups at various stages of development are approaching community management. A few themes resonate throughout these examples: make users happy, listen to everything, incorporate community feedback into product development when appropriate, and stop fretting over the trolls. 1. With Pandora’s community ballooning in size, acting community manager Aaron Morgan has his hands full. At Pandora, Morgan's community management work on Twitter and Facebook, and the Listener Support team's e-mail efforts go hand-in-hand. Community building is extremely important at Pandora. "I measure success one interaction at a time. 2. "Community is a word that gets thrown around in lieu of 'customers' all too often. 3. 4. 5.

How to Write a Social Media Policy An office worker was fired after her employer discovered her sex blog. A waitress was fired for venting about a customer on Facebook. A woman lost a job offer at Cisco because of something she said on Twitter. These incidents illustrate why it might be wise to create a social media policy for your employees. "I would say it is absolutely crucial for any size business with employees to have a social media policy," said Vivienne Storey, general manager of BlandsLaw, a boutique law firm outside of Sydney, Australia, that specializes in employment law. A social media policy outlines for employees the corporate guidelines or principles of communicating in the online world. Writing a Social Media Policy: Deciding When to Create a Social Media Policy A social media policy can be a company's first line of defense to mitigate risk for both employer and employee. Here is a list of some social media policies Falls suggests companies should consider creating: When crafting a policy, be sure to: 1. 2.

Why Your Business Should Consider Reverse Mentorship This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business. The word "mentorship" usually evokes imagery of an older, more experienced individual imparting knowledge and know-how upon a younger, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed individual — that's the traditional use of the word that we've all come to know and accept. Alexa Scordato, however, is turning that word on its head with a concept she calls reverse mentorship. Pairing senior executives with digital natives seems like an obvious win for the digitally challenged; you put in a few hours a week, and the youngster teaches you how to use Twitter and Facebook. Over the past few years, Scordato has become a very vocal advocate for reverse mentorship, speaking on the subject at various events, including TEDxBoston and Pivot Conference. There Are Knowledge Gaps on Both Sides That's just one side of the story. Conclusion

The Rise of the Social Consumers: How CRM has Evolved It would be incorrect to say that there is a new type of customer out there. In reality, they are the same customers, they’re just consuming their data and information in a different manner. They’ve gone social. This shift has forced businesses to approach their customers in different ways. The message has been replaced by the conversation. The methods of communication have morphed from a simple line to a convoluted mess of back and forth interactions. This graphic by our friends at GetSatisfaction brings it all together for us in an easy-to-follow visualization. Click image to enlarge. Social Point of Sale: The Holy Grail for Location-Based Marketers Zachary Adam Cohen runs ZAC, Digital Agency, a boutique digital strategy firm in New York City, working with brands and businesses to re-equip themselves for success in the 21st century. He blogs regularly on topics such as social media, technology startups and the creative process behind digital strategy. He can be found on Twitter @ZacharyCohen. Many have touted the latest advances in location-based technology, but the news is mostly disappointing for marketers, advertisers and digital gurus. Writing in the Times, Joshua Brustein pined: “Everything is in place for location-based social networking to be the next big thing. Brustein’s piece cites a Pew Research Center finding that only 4% of Internet-using American adults have also used location-based services. And yet for those on the front lines of technology, marketing, branding and advertising, that 4% seems painfully low. What’s Missing From the Location-Based Revolution? In a word: Sales. The Potential of Data-Driven Service

Community Engagement: Managing Communities Across Digital Embassies 28,111 views Featured in: Business Community engagement is at the core of social media. "Digital Embassies" such as your organization's presence on Facebook and Twitter must not only be launched but managed. This slideshow provides a ... Community engagement is at the core of social media. Statistics Views Total Views Views on SlideShare Embed Views Actions Likes Downloads 84 Embeds 6,782 More... Usage Rights © All Rights Reserved

10 Ways Business Leaders Can Turn Ideas Into Execution Paul Kerr has been involved in business for more than 28 years, including more than 20 years in consulting and training. He is a principal at leadership training and consulting firm Skills for Excellence. One of most frustrating challenges facing business leaders today is closing what is commonly known as the execution gap (or sometimes the strategy gap). The execution gap is a perceived gap between a company's strategies and expectations and its ability to meet those goals and put ideas into action. Due to the complexity of people, businesses, and the societal constructs in which we operate, it is more difficult than it might seem at first glance to close this gap. However, there are some simple rules for closing the execution gap. 1. A big problem with going from idea to implementation is simply a lack of clearly defined vision and goals. 2. 3. To make sure strategies get put into motion, you must make sure you have the knowledge and skills to manage the project. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

A Model for 24/7 Marketing on Social Media 5 New Online Services Perfect for Small Businesses This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business. When you think of online destinations for professional purposes, social networking sites tailored toward business users — like LinkedIn — probably come to mind. Savvy small business professionals will find, however, that a crop of new startups offer them access to fresh technologies that help with professional networking, research, influence and community building. While you've likely never heard of the startups listed below, each is gaining traction from early adopter audiences and is building consumer-facing products easily applied to common small business tasks. 1. If you're looking for a new way to stay networked in today's digital world, check out Hashable. The startup is currently in invitation-only mode. 2. You can use Stipple to add people, place or product tags to the photos you publish on your site. 3. 4.

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