Ever since Social Media has started to make its ground in the middle of all brand/marketing campaigns, organizations and senior managements have warmed up to the idea of actually looking towards social media and other online platforms as an important part of their brands marketing entourage. This has in return given rise to the concept of hiring “Online Community Managers”, Social Media Specialists, Online content specialists, and the list goes on.
Certain important traits which I have found to be innate in all Online Community Managers or Social Media Specialists, or should be naturally present in Community Managers are:
- They love to have conversations,time and again I have mentioned that Social Media is all about having conversations,developing conversations, starting and carrying them on. A Social Media Specialist should be able to talk to people,start conversations not only this he should be have the quality of loving talking to people. If he is all this then your Social Media/Network page will flourish, if not…its time to think on alternatives.
- is good with analysing emotions, trust me when i say empathy can be one of your most important weapons on the social media,it allows you to understand the emotional state one is in, and create a favourable path for you to communicate your opinion and take control of the conversation accordingly. A good online Community Manager knows how to handle frustrated customers because he is able to assess their frame of minds and thinking at that very instant, therefore he knows how to handle them/criticism appropriately.
- Staying informed, a good social media manager makes it a point to stay informed about trends,major events, trends in conversations to judge where to pick up a good angle from. In other words, he/she should be hooked to the social network.
- Reflecting on the culture of your customers.Understanding the customer and what are his inclinations is a very important trait of any Online Community and Social Media Managers. Analyse conversations which go on around your page. What are your page fans talking about? what topics do they normally bring up when interacting with other fans on the page? you might want to have someone in your social media team who,if not an expert,possesses knowledge on the topics being talked about so that he can add in to the conversation, and ultimately steer it in whichever way he wants to.
- Needs to have a sense of humour,lots of it, No one likes dry messaging on Fan pages, the whole concept of a Facebook Fanpage is interacting with the fans, you need to interact with the fans using techniques which develop conversations and a flow of comments,opinions and preferably,ideas. Having a sense of humour helps in breaking the ice,getting information which the brand might be able to use for future, and pretty much an honest opinion from the users.
- Word-play: perhaps one of the most important traits in an effective Community Manager is that he knows how to craft conversations, content and statements. Always remember, in order to get “inside” information out of the customer/user, one needs to know how to angle a conversation in such a way that the information which he/she requires falls right in his/her lap. in other words an effective community manager will always be a good Wordsmith.
DIGITARIUM 