Online Community Report

Forum One Networks Partners with WOMMA

nospam@example.com (Heather Virga) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:21:33 -0500

Forum One is really excited to announce that we've partnered with the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. WOMMA is a coalition comprised of hundreds of top marketers who are learning how to encourage and amplify the natural phenomenon or word of mouth marketing, while respecting and protecting its honesty and integrity. Forum One's Online Community Research Network (OCRN) and WOMMA share common interests in that our goals are to build networks of professionals who collaborate on best practices, standards and metrics, and share knowledge among the professionals in our industries. In our partnership, we will promote each others professional groups, events, we will partner on industry research, and we'll cohost a webinar on a social media marketing topic in 2010.

Bill Johnston is currently attending WOMMA's Summit 2009 in Las Vegas, NV. The Summit feature experts from a variety of industries, who will discuss best practices, emerging trends and offer insight into how to word of mouth marketing buzz that extends beyond social media. If you aren't there this year, you can keep up on the buzz and conversations by following the Twitter stream #womma.

Online Community Expert Interviews: Vida Killian of Dell and Mari Kuraishi of GlobalGiving.org

nospam@example.com (Heather Virga) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:49:01 -0500

This month we're featuring two video interviews Bill Johnston conducted at the Online Community Summit in Sonoma, CA in October.

In the first interview, Bill Johnston talks with Vida Killian of Dell about the value of online community at Dell as well as lessons learned from her experience with community and social media.

In Bill's second interview with Mari Kuraishi of GlobalGiving.org, Mari share's how GlobalGiving uses online community and social media strategy for global good.

The Ongoing Discussion Around Community and Social Media Compensation

nospam@example.com (Heather Virga) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:26:18 -0500

I've worked in a variety of industries in various marketing related roles, including: hardware, community, real estate, software, and now back to community and social media. I must admit, community and social media practitioners may well be the most passionate people I've ever worked with. Just attend any one of our events and you'll meet so many intelligent, motivated, solution-oriented people all in one space, sharing ideas, challenges and collaborating on solutions -- it's pretty amazing. Ironically, many people in the community and social media industry feel that they are under paid, under valued and under resourced, yet in the 2009 Online Community & Social Media Compensation report most respondents were somewhat satisfied or very satisfied with their jobs. I say it goes back to the passion and commitment that community and social media people have for the work they do. As the social media industry grows and companies identify the need for social media specific roles, they are looking to reports like the Online Community & Social Media Compensation report to help determine and set salary standards. However, the disparity in salaries leaves too much room for interpretation. Tom makes a really good suggestion for another way to communicate compensation the data in his post, Is There a Disconnect Between Social Media Job Descriptions and Compensation?. "For medium to large companies and established brands, the peaks on the high end make definite sense. The peaks on the low end are for non-profit and other volunteer-run communities and should not be included in the averages."

The Online Community & Social Media Compensation has started many conversations among the practitioners in the industry. I've included some of their posts below to get a flavor of the various opinions from the people in the field.

Men earn higher salaries in social media - Angela Connor
Online Community & Social Media Compensation - The Moderator Community
Social media salaries may not match the effort - Snoo.ws
How much do online community managers earn? - vator news
Is There a Disconnect Between Social Media Job Descriptions and Compensation? - Tome Humbarger
Social Media Salary Report: Ladies, It's Not Pretty - SocialMediaToday
#occomp09 - tweetmeme
Online Community & Social Media Staff: Satisfaction - OC Report
Online Community & Social Media Compensation - OC Report

The Online Community & Social Media Compensation report is on sale for only $99 until November 20th. The regular price is $349, so it's quite a deal!

If you have thoughts on the findings from the report, please share them.

Online Community & Social Media Staff: Satisfaction

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:08:26 -0500

In addition to studying compensation during our second annual Online Community & Social Media Compensation study (summary here), we also want to dig in to issues related the organizational environment that community and social media professionals work in. One key dimension is overall job satisfaction.

As part of the research, we asked the question: Please rate your overall job satisfaction?
Of the 370 respondents, most are "somewhat satisfied" with their jobs with an average satisfaction score of 4.1 and a median score of 4. The average satisfaction score was slightly less than last year’s score of 4.2. It is encouraging that while there is an economic downturn, the overall satisfaction with Online Community positions is well above average. This indicates the combination of salary, benefits, work environment and subject matter is working for most of the respondents. The economy can't be ignored as a major factor of influence on satisfaction scores, as a tough economic environment generally discourages folks from aggressively exploring new opportunities and tending to stay with existing positions.

The graphs below show data from the satisfaction questioned presented in a couple of ways: answers form our 2008 survey compared with 2009, and overall satisfaction compared between genders.

2008 Satisfaction vs. 2009

Satisfaction by Gender

As you can see from the graphs, average overall satisfaction was down slightly from 2008 to 2009. You can also see that women were less satisfied than their male counterparts.

A few write in answers from the report that add color to the graphs:

Unfortunately I feel that most companies are still unable to fully grasp the importance of a dedicated social media team. They do not see a direct correlation between social media and ROI, and therefore are hesitant to put as many resources (both people and money) into social media as is typically necessary. Granted, I was on the periphery of social media for the last three years while I was in graduate school; however since my graduation and re-immersion into social media, I haven't noticed much of a change. Most social media job postings are for intern positions.

I think, even still, a lot of organizations (executives and HR) don't understand what we do, and therefore tend to undervalue it. I was laid off from my previous job last year and although I found another job fairly quickly, compensation was a struggle. I ended up settling for less compensation than I wanted in order to get back in a job quickly.

Engagement with the online community and interacting with others in the field is the most rewarding part of my job.

Because community management is often rooted in customer support organizations, compensation tends to be determined relative to CSRs. In fact, more and more community managers play a critical role in shaping customer experience and ultimately brand, and their compensation needs to reflect that value in a way more commensurate with significant marketing roles.

Perhaps the only one other comment I would suggest is that the corporate world needs to understand that community building is a full time job and as such we need official job descriptions put together by HR that are aligned with the business needs as well as the personal career development opportunities from knowledge workers. Something we haven't even started to think about just yet!

Unless Online Community and Social Media is considered a valuable part of an organization and an intrical part of the overall customer touch processes, it won't get the resources and funds to grow. The value given directly correlates into the # of bodies dedicated to support it and the salaries that are paid.

On the one hand, community and social media professionals still seem very enthused about their jobs, and the emerging "social" industry. On the other hand, issues related to lack of standards on community and social roles, team structure, funding as well as difficulty showing financial ROI (in some cases) are clearly starting to cause fatigue.

What do you think? How satisfied are you in your community or social media role?

Social CRM Virtual Summit - November 11th, 2009

nospam@example.com (Heather Virga) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:56:29 -0500

We’re proud to be sponsors of Lithium’s online conference Social CRM on November 11th.

The Social CRM Virtual Summit is a five-hour online conference, which includes webcasts by industry leaders in an interactive exhibit hall, a resource center with extensive materials for download, and a virtual networking lounge to chat live with speakers and prospects. Bill Johnston will lead a session on Best Practices: Community, Strategy and Planning with Joe Cothrel of Lithium. Their session includes discussions on:

Defining and creating a community strategy by working with organizational and customer stakeholders to determine needs, goals and key influencers.
Determining what metrics are important to track, what is currently being measured against what many companies want to measure, and current key performance indicators, featuring research from the Online Community Research Network.
Defining the value of online communities through the key sources of value, including: cost reduction, lead generation, increased engagement, building customer loyalty.

5am to 10am PT / 8am to 1pm ET / 1pm to 6pm GMT, or
10am to 3pm PT / 1pm to 6pm ET / 6pm to 11pm GMT

Social CRM Virtual Summit Agenda

Webcasts by industry luminaries such as Mike Fauscette (IDC), Bill Johnston (Forum One), Jeremiah Owyang (Altimeter Group), and Ray Wang (Altimeter Group) in a virtual auditorium
Scheduled live chats with industry experts and practitioners from companies including Barnes and Noble, Lenovo, National Instruments, Redfin, Best Buy, Juniper Networks, and T-Mobile
An interactive exhibit hall with dynamic sponsor booths, including Genesys, ON24, Ant's Eye View, Forum One Communications, CRM Media, Cognizant, and Liveperson
A resource center with dozens of valuable white papers, podcasts, and presentations for download
A virtual networking lounge to meet other like-minded professionals through live chat
Keynote speeches from CRM thought leaders, Paul Greenberg (The 56 Group) and Brent Leary (CRM Essentials)

Go here to register for this free event and to see the complete agenda.

Online Community & Social Media Compensation

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:25:32 -0500

Last year, Forum One recognized that one of the key issues community and social media professionals face is that we (as an industry) are suffering from a lack of solid benchmarks, including compensation of online community and social media professionals. In July of 2008, as part of our ongoing research efforts with the Online Community Research Network, we conducted the first comprehensive study and gained valuable insight about online community and social media professional's compensation, team structure, and current job satisfaction.

In July of 2009, we launched the second annual Online Community & Social Media Compensation study, and received approximately 370 qualified responses. Participants represent a comprehensive sampling of organizations involved in building online communities, including: large software companies, large community destination sites, niche community sites, platform providers, media & entertainment, retail and independent consultants. A sample of the 300+ organizations that participated include (with their permission):
Answers Corp., Autodesk, Avid, Best Buy, Cartoon Network (Turner), Consumer Reports, Electronic Arts, hi5, IBM, KaBOOM!, Nokia, Quest Software, Sage Software, Seesmic, Sony Online Entertainment, The Knot, and Yahoo!

This year's report was truly global in scope, and included respondents from the USA, UK and Canada as well as Australia, Argentina, Spain, China, Costa Rica, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, Turkey and Ukraine.

Several key issues pertaining to online community and social media salaries surfaced during this report, including:
• The gap between the average male and female salaries widened, with male respondents averaging $86,644 (up from $85,423 in ’08) and Females averaging $75,624 (down from $77,319 in ’08).
• The majority of respondents reported a salary increase in 2009, but the percentage compared to last year was down, as was a significant increase in the number of respondents who took a salary decrease in 2009 compared to 2008.
• Average overall job satisfaction was down by a fraction, from 4.2 (out of 5) in 2008 to 4.1 (out of 5) in 2009.
• Several respondents mentioned feeling like they were being inadequately compensated because of lack of data available regarding community and social media salaries, as well as lack of understanding of community and social media ROI relative to their organization’s activities.

Demographics
Key demographic and background information about the respondents:
• The majority of the respondents are Female (52%) vs. Male (48%).
• The majority (77%) of respondents are from the USA.
• Most of the respondents have more than 5 years of experience, completed a Bachelors Degree, and work 41-50 hours per week.
• The majority of respondents work for a Profit Based Organization (85%) vs. Non-Profit (15%).

Industry

Years of Expereince

Work Environment

Location of Community Team
The majority of responses indicate their Community teams reside in the Marketing and Community departments. “No formal structure” and “Throughout the company” were also popular responses. The placement of the community team seems to be shifting to Marketing and Community departments. Last year 20% reported residing in the Marketing department and only 19% reported that they had their own Community department.

Hours Worked Per Week
Most of the respondents (45%) work 41-50 hours per week.

Percentage of Time Dedicated to Community & Social Media
Approximately three quarters of the respondents (73%) said that their job duties were not only comprised of working within the online community, and that a percentage of their time is dedicated to other areas within their organization.

Compensation
The average salary of the research participants, $81k, is the same as last year. The mean was $77.5k, which is $10k higher last year. As in 2008, there were peaks on both the low ($0-$25k) and high ends (more than $150k). There were also peaks and dips throughout the salary spectrum for 2009, including peaks for the following salary ranges; $50-55k, $65-$70k, $90-$95k and $100-$105k.

Salary by Gender
On average, the female participants earned an annual salary of $75.5k, which was slightly lower than last year’s $77k. At $86.5K, the male participant’s average annual salary is one percent higher than last year. The overall average annual salary for all participants was the same as last year’s $81k.

Salary by Region: USA
Respondents in the southwest region of the USA reported the highest average / median salary. The average salary for the southwest region was $99k with a median of $102k, which is significantly higher than last year’s average salary of $85k.

The second highest average / median salaries in the USA are in the northwest region. These respondents have an average salary of $87k, which is slightly less than the average annual salary of 2008. Within the northwest region, California had a higher average annual salary ($92k) than reported last year ($89k).

Even though lowest average / median salary in the USA was the same this year as last, the southeast region did have the largest reported average annual decrease compared with last year. This year the southeast region had an average annual salary of $46k, whereas last year it was 72k.

There were general peaks on the high ends (more than 150k) and low ends ($0-$25k) for all regions, except for the Midwest region, which dipped at the low end and remained even at the high end.

Satisfaction
The average satisfaction score was slightly less than last year’s score of 4.2. It is encouraging that while there is an economic downturn, the overall satisfaction with Online Community positions is well above average. This indicates the combination of salary, benefits, work environment and subject matter is working for most of the respondents. Although female and male participants mostly rated as being satisfied or somewhat satisfied with their jobs, the female participants are slightly more satisfied with their jobs than their male counterparts. The women had a higher percentage of rating in the somewhat satisfied category, whereas the men had a higher percentage rating for the somewhat dissatisfied category.

The Full Online Community & Social Media Compensation Report
The full 45 page report can be purchased here: http://store.onlinecommunityresearch.com/oncosomecosu.html
includes detailed information, analysis and charts on:
Participating organizations industry, size and history of community programs
Community Team Staff & Size
Education and experience of respondents
Compensation structures
Detailed benefits
Salaries
- Ranges
- Average by title
- Average by Gender, Age, Eduction
- Average by global location and USA Region
Salary Changes (Increase and Decrease)
Advice from many of the participants about factors that affect compensation, and the evolving roles and responsibilities of the online community team, the team's staff, and executives.

The tag for the Online Community & Social Media Compensation report is #occomp09.

Community Platform & Service Provider Research

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 23:38:56 -0400

The Online Community Platform and Services Satisfaction research report was published in March of this year as part of the ongoing efforts of the Online Community Research Network. The intention of the research project was to provide insight about customer attitudes towards online community platform and service vendors, particularly around satisfaction. Further, we wanted to explore the unmet needs in the online community platform and services market. The study had over 200 participants, and we gathered data on all major commercial and open source online community platforms, as well as feedback on custom built platforms. Key highlights from the research are covered in the slides below.

The full Online Communities: Platform and Services Satisfaction Report can be purchased here:
http://store.onlinecommunityresearch.com/oncoplandses.html

Online Community: Platform & Vendor Satisfaction

View more presentations from Bill Johnston.

Report Back from the Online Community Summit 2009

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:04:43 -0400

Forum One hosted the eighth annual Online Community Summit 2009 last week in Sonoma, and by all accounts (and feedback) it was one of the strongest. We convened 70 online community experts to discuss important and timely topics including: community strategy, employees as social media advocates, "ideas" platforms, the growing importance of mobile and "operationalizing" social media.

I've included links to a few key content sources below. You will find a rich set of observations in the Twitter stream, as well as video interviews from 3 of our session leads.

Tweet stream from the Online Community Summit 2009
http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23ocs2009

Flickr stream:
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=ocs2009&w=all

Video Interviews:
Sharon Carothers of Legacy / BecomeAnEx.org

Jordan Williams of REI.com

Erica Kuhl of Salesforce.com

The Real-time Web: A Short Reading List

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:24:00 -0400

A recent series of articles from ReadWriteWeb has spawned discussion here at Forum One of what impact the "real-time web" will have on online communities. Those conversations continue, but I wanted to share our short list of selected readings on the topic from the last 12 months.

Ken Fromm wrote the series of articles about the real-time web, and they can be found here:
The Real-Time Web: A Primer, Part 1,
The Real-Time Web: A Primer, Part 2,
The Real-Time Web: A Primer, Part 3

In the articles, he describes the collection of activities that describe the emerging Real-Time Web:

As with other recent waves of innovation (Web 2.0 and cloud computing, for example) there is no single definition of what the term "real-time Web" means. As a result, it is used as a catch-all phrase for a number of developments underway. At this point, we can identify that the real-time Web...:
1. is a new form of communication,
2. creates a new body of content,
3. is real time,
4. is public and has an explicit social graph associated with it,
5. carries an implicit model of federation.

Other recommended reading:

Google vs. The Real-Time Web
O'Reilly: The Real-Time Web

Real-Time Web Summit
Forum One is working with ReadWriteWeb to promote the Real-Time Web Summit in Mountain View on October 15th. I'll be there - will you? You can register here. Price is $195 until October 8th.

Online Communities: Metrics and Reporting 2009

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 16:04:07 -0400

Updated 9/22/09.
The Online Communities: Metrics and Reporting research study was initiated in late July of 2009, and ran until the second week of August 2009. The research project was conducted by the Online Community Research Network, and the intention of the study was to get a broad look at what online community metrics organizations are tracking, how organizations determine and report on the ongoing value of their online community initiatives, and the reporting and metrics tools that help companies assess this.

We received approximately 175 responses. Participants represent a healthy swath of the types of organizations participating in online community culture. Participating industry categories include: software companies, hardware companies, consumer goods non-profit organizations, independent consultants and media companies, amongst others.

Report Highlights
Several key issues pertaining to online community and social media metrics surfaced during this report, including:

In general, organizations need to do a more thorough job of defining their business objectives for online community engagement, assessing ways to measure progress towards these objectives, reaching beyond their native platform metrics capabilities, and finding ways to measure the more qualitative components of community member engagement.
The Role of the Community Manager is increasingly important to developing and refining business process, and measuring performance in these new “social spaces.”
There is a growing need for community metric standards that are platform and vendor-independent.

Determining What to Measure
From Question 14: How does your organization determine what is important to measure and report?

SUMMARY:

20% (34) We stick with what the platform can provide
61% (100) We work from a strategy based on business goals and find solution to help us measure what we need
19% (31) We try to measure everything, will develop more of a strategy later

TAKEAWAY:
Respondents are primarily shaping metrics strategies based on business goals (61%), even if their platform doesn’t support gathering or tracking desired metrics. Platform metrics are generally speaking, not comprehensive or extensible enough to create a meaningful dashboard to see overall community health, get an accurate visualization of the community’s social graph, and to understand the ongoing insight created by and the sentiments of the community population. The risk in relying only on data that a platform can provide (20% of the respondents) is that the data sets aren’t comprehensive or contextual to organization’s needs. “Measuring everything” (19% of respondents) can overwhelm the community team and stakeholders, and is unlikely to yield meaningful performance data or insight without some rigor in the analysis.

Metrics Currently Being Tracked
From Question 16: What do you currently measure?

SUMMARY:
The top 5 items that online communities measure for tracking and reporting are as follows:

152 Responses - Unique Visitors
150 Responses - New Member Registrations
143 Responses - Page Views
126 Responses - Visitors
116 Responses - Message Posts

90 Responses - Member Satisfaction
90 Responses - Influencer / Evangelism
84 Responses - Member Life Cycle
83 Responses - Member Loyalty
73 Responses - Referrals to Community

Currently Measuring - Profit and Non Profit

http://www.onlinecommunityreport.com/images/metrics_tracked_2009_graph.png

Top 3 Key Performance Indicators

32% (74) User Activity / Engagement
21% (49) Membership Count [New Registrations, Active]
18% (42) Number of Posts / Comments
5% (12) Member Satisfaction / Loyalty
4% (10) Number of Questions Answered
4% (10) Sales Revenue - Up Sell, Cross Sell, Renewals
4% (8) Leeds / Referrals Generated
3% (6) Number of Downloads
3% (6) Number of Influencers / Evangelists
2% (5) Visitor Retention
2% (5) Number of Conversions
1% (2) Donations Received
1% (2) Visitor Geographic Dispersal

33 Number of Page Views / Clicks
22 Number of Site Visits
19 Number of Unique Visits

Access to the Full Report

please go here

The Online Communities: Metrics and Reporting 2009

available for purchase for $295

China and Social Networks

nospam@example.com (Editor) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 23:59:58 -0400

The world's conversation is moving online. Every significant issue that people care about -- education, environment, development, health -- is debated and shaped on blogs, message boards and social networking sites. This is particularly true of global issues, since online conversations know no borders.

But there is one glaring absence in this new global conversation: China.

China blocks most international blogs, including any using popular blog services such as Wordpress or Blogger. China blocks any international URL with the word "blog" in it. China also blocks Twitter, Facebook, and many bulletin board sites. China currently does not block most news or information sites, but social sites are currently off limits.

This means that China is cut off from participating in the global conversation. At the very time when China is working hard to join the global community (all grade schools now teach English, among other things), Chinese have little opportunity to make their voices heard online.

This is a serious problem. Many current global issues pivot on China, including important financial, natural resource and environmental challenges. These issues will only be addressed through global cooperation and agreement. Much of that work is done online. But China isn't present.

Is there something the global online community could be doing to invite Chinese authorities to change policy and join the conversation? Is this best accomplished at the government to government level, or is there a grassroots strategy? Feel free to comment below.

Online Community Expert Interview: Angela Connor, WRAL.com

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 10:36:00 -0400

This week's Online Community Expert Interview is with Angela Connor is a multimedia journalist and community manager with a passion for online communities and social media. She is the Managing Editor of User-Generated Content at WRAL.com where she launched and currently manages the top-rated news organization’s first online community GOLO.com, which has grown to more than 13,000 members. Angela has worked in broadcast, print and online news in Cleveland, Tampa, West Palm Beach and Ft, Lauderdale and is author of the book, 18 rules of Community Engagement.

Q: Tell me a little about how you became a Community Manager. What attracted you to the role?

Actually, it fell in my lap in many ways. I was working as the Multimedia Editor at a newspaper in South Florida when my former boss and good friend contacted me about the position. He thought it would be a good move for me based on my relationship building experience as a news manager and producer and wanted to know if he could recommend me. I was heavily involved in the online video strategy for the newspaper and managing our broadcast partnerships and pretty content in my position at the time so it felt like it would be an unwelcome disruption to my life, but it turned out to be the best move I could have ever made. When I started researching what the job was all about, I told him to go ahead and submit my name. I was attracted to the fact that it was a startup and I had never been involved in a brand new online initiative. I was also attracted and intrigued by the UGC aspect because it was a term being heavily circulated in the online publishing industry and I knew that meant something big. His advice to me was to go try it out because even mild success would chart a new career path for me. I wasn’t convinced, but once I started talking to the folks at the TV station and saw how committed they were to the community they serve I knew it would be a good fit.

Q: What were the most challenging lessons you learned during your first 90 days on the job?

I am now well over two years in the job and I continue to learn new things, and new challenges emerge pretty much weekly. But I have to say that in the first 90 days I realized that there was no guide book on how to do this and that trial and error was a major part of finding success. So I would say that coming to terms with that was a bit tough, especially since I have always known how to do my job and do it well. This was new territory because there are so many aspects of community management that you simply do not control. I wanted to see membership take off, and by many standards it did but I wanted it to happen more quickly. It’s very challenging to sit back and wait for others to act. You are depending on people to make your project a success and they are not on your payroll. It requires a different mindset. Once I really understood that, I was able to chart a course of action.

Q: What excites you the most about your job?

I am excited about the fact that I am doing something that continues to gain popularity and is increasingly gaining value across all industries. How many times do you really get to say that you were involved in something at the ground floor? I feel like I am, and that’s pretty exciting. I like being able to try something and see what happens without worrying about long-term repercussions. If it doesn’t work I can just try something new. It’s also very exciting to teach others both inside and outside of my organization about the value of online communities through real life stories that take shape right before me. Watching relationships emerge online as a result of a venue you provide, manage and maintain is very fulfilling.

Q: What 3 pieces of advice would you give to those considering Community Management as a career?

1. You must have a thick skin. If you cannot walk away from derisive comments and constant, sometimes unwarranted criticism, you cannot do this job in the way it needs to be done.

2. Study the craft. It is important to learn from others and pay close attention to the developments in this space.

3. Be prepared for change. This is a position that means different things within different organizations and your responsibilities may ebb and flow.

Q: How do you see the Community Manager role evolving over the next 12-18 months? What trends should CMs be paying attention to?

This may not be a popular train of thought, but I think there is a distinct difference in community management geared towards the mainstream social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and blogs, and the management of those that are owned by a specific organization or what some would refer to as branded communities. Right now it seems as though everyone is lumping it all together and that could be because the position is hot and top brass at organizations don’t really know how to label much of what they are asking people to do, particularly with social media related positions. For instance, is someone who is responsible for monitoring twitter a community manager? I guess the first question to answer there would be if twitter is even a community. It certainly isn’t one that any of us owns and if for some reason it’s gone tomorrow many people would be in big, big trouble. But that’s a conversation for a different day. Is the person who maintains a Facebook fan page or YouTube Channel a Community Manager? Could they transfer what they’re doing in that space to a less mainstream or new community and grow it from scratch? That’s where you get down and dirty and go through all the frustrations that make you better or make you realize that this isn’t the craft for you. I think we are mistakenly confusing social media savvy with the ability to manage online communities. I think we will see more of that in the next 12-18 months and beyond. And that’s a mistake. Community managers should pay attention to technology trends and if you are one responsible for engaging in the mainstream platforms you have to pay attention to what is happening with each and every one. Pay attention to every move made by Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and beyond and find smart people who provide good analysis and interpret those moves.

Latest on the Online Community Summit, October 8-9 in Sonoma, CA

nospam@example.com (Heather Virga) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 18:09:31 -0400

We’re just under four weeks away from our 8th annual Online Community Summit in Sonoma, CA, on October 8-9. We have a fantastic speaker and session line-up that I’ve detailed out below.

If you’d like to attend the Summit and you’re a senior online community or social media practitioner, please go here to request an invitation. There are limited tickets still available.

Please note: We restrict attendance of platform and service vendors to those sponsoring the event. If you would like information about sponsoring, please email me.

Check out the event site here for more information.

Event Schedule:

Thursday, October 8th

8:00 - 9:00: Registration / Breakfast

9:00 - 10:00: Introductions & Welcome
Bill Johnston – Chief Community Officer, Forum One Networks
Joi Podgorny – Head of Community, Mindcandy

10:00 - 11:00: Session 1 /Turning to the Crowd: Ideas and Contest Sites
How can you generate great ideas and enthusiasm for your organization at low cost?
Session Lead: Anil Rathi, Idea Crossing
Session Lead: Ryan Wilson, XPrize

11:00 - 11:30: Break

11:30 - 12:30: Session 2 / What You Need to Know About the Mobile Communities Revolution
As mobile usage explodes, the importance of mobile communities is increasing dramatically. We’ll review experiences from Obama to Armani to the American Cancer Society and demonstrate the coming wave of change that will impact your organization.
Session Lead: Kevin Bertram, Distributive Networks
Session Lead: Miles Orkin, America Cancer Society

12:30 - 1:30: Lunch

1:30 - 2:30: Session 3 / Social Marketing & Advertising
Communities and traditional forms of marketing and advertising have historically acted like oil and water. Progress is being made by innovative organizations that involve the community in feedback, permission-based programs and even advertising creation.
Session Lead: Paul Levine, Current.com
Session Lead: Bruce Smith, Answers.com

2:30 - 3:30: Session 4 / Break Out Sessions

3:30 - 4:00: Break

4:00 - 5:00: Session 5 / News Communities
While the importance of PR and marketing hasnʼt changed, the ways to influence major news sites has transformed radically. Weʼll discuss the news landscape and what it means for your organization.
Session Lead: Lila King – CNN.com
Session Lead: Chris Tolles – Topix.net

Friday, October 9th

8:00 - 9:00: Registration / Breakfast

8:00 - 9:00: Community and Good Ideas Demos (open podium)

9:00: Introductions

9:00 - 10:00: Session 6 / Social “ME”dia: Employees as Advocates
How does an organization combine employee passion with social media tools to meet organization goals?
Session Lead: Erika Kuhl, Salesforce.com
Session Lead: Lucia Willow – Pandora.com

10:00 - 11:00: Session 7: / Break Out Sessions

11:00 – 11:30: Break

11:30 – 12:30: Session 8: Operationalizing Social Media - Reshaping the Organization
As social media and community programs move form short term, tactical engagements to longer-term business strategies, organizations must transform to take full advantage of the possibilities. Hear about the topography of the “social organization” from our panel of experts leading the charge to transform their organizations via social media.
Panelists: TBA

12:30 - 1:00 Conference Close and Wrap up

Some of the current attendees include community and social media practitioners from leading companies including: Apple, GlobalGiving, Autodesk, Inc., Leadership Corps, Moshi Monsters, Edutopia, LinkedIn, American Legacy Foundation, SEGA of America, Time Inc. Lifestyle Digital, WestEd, TripAdvisor, Dell, Inc., Answers Corporation, Executive Networks, Inc., Microsoft, REI, Care2.com, Stupski Foundation, and The MathWorks, Inc.

Online Community Summit 2009: Updates

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 18:59:56 -0400

I wanted to post a quick update with the latest session leads and topics for the Online Community Summit, to be held October 8-9 in Sonoma.

I am looking forward to hosting the Summit, along with co-host Joi Podgorny, Head of Community at Mind Candy.

The current list of session topics includes:

Big Communities to Tackle Big Problems

Turning to the Crowd: Ideas and Contest Sites

What You Need to Know About the Mobile Communities Revolution

Social Marketing & Advertising

How Online Communities are Reshaping News

Social “ME”dia: Employees as Brand Advocates

Operationalizing Social Media - Reshaping the Organization

Session leads include:

Kevin Bertram, Distributive Networks

Sharon Carothers - Legacy

Austin Heap – Haystack

Lila King – CNN.com

Erika Kuhl - Salesforce.com

Paul Levine, Current Media

Miles Orkin, America Cancer Society

Bruce Smith - Answers.com

Hardy Wallace - Murphy-Goode Winery

Joi Podgorny – Head of Community, Mindcandy

Lucia Willow – Pandora.com

Ryan Wilson, XPrize

If you are a senior online community professional interested in participating in the Online Community Summit, and you haven't received an invitation, you may request one by writing me here.

Photos from last year's Summit:

Please note: We restrict attendance of platform and service vendors to those sponsoring the event. If you would like information about sponsoring, please drop me a note.

For more information about the Summit, you can check out the event site here.

Event tag is #ocs2009

Online Community & Social Media Compensation Survey 2009 Closes on 8/28

nospam@example.com (Heather Virga) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 12:32:21 -0400