I have had a number of conversations over the past month with people at conferences, workshops, clients, future clients and colleagues and quite a few times the following questions have arisen:
Who is going to manage all of this?
Who is going to do the blogging (possibly regularly)?
Who will add content to Facebook?
Who will update Twitter?
Who will listen and track conversations on various Social Media platforms?
Who will source and publish videos to YouTube?
In reality, all of these activites will require a lot of work – possibly someone working full-time. That said for years people have employed marketing executives/managers to handle direct mail, press releases, TV, radio, events, and much more. I suppose it’s simply making sure that these same people now go fishing where the fishes hang out – and that place is Facebook, Twitter, Blogs and all other social networks.
Over the past year or so we have seen the arrival on the marketing scene, especially in the States, of people whose job it is to listen to the noise that Social Media generates and engage, monitor, learn and speak with their target audience. Their target audience has, in many cases, moved online and companies now need to come up with new strategies on how to best market to them.
In my view a community manager is someone who oversees the Social Media Strategy of the organisation. They know the direction the organisation has to go in and the tools that are required to achieve those objectives. They should be familiar with Social Media and its various nuances and naturally cuirous about the multitude of tools that keep appeaing. They should be a competent blogger and someone who knows how to listen. A (big?) part of their job will be to listen to what is being said – about their products/services, the company, the market and to decide how they will react to it.
Here are some of the things they may need to consider on a daily basis:
- Will they answer questions directly, through Twitter or through a blog?
- Will they log information on a wiki or their CRM system?
- Will they direct people to others who know the answers (within their organisation) or to websites which may hold the answers (like Get Satisfaction)?
- Who should they get to write blog articles? Why do they need to write blog articles?
- Who are their target audiences and
- Which platforms are the best to reach and/or talk to their target audience – Facebook? Ning? Bebo?
- How do they get other people to do some of the work for themselves? If you are going to involve other departments, how do they go about doing this?
- How do they promote their work and show its benefit to other people within the organisation?
I would be interested to hear your thoughts on this subject.
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