Effective Online Community Managers And Their Habits.

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.

Are you Social Media Marketing..or Stalking Audiences?

Whenever we see a new commercial on television, or listen to a product ad on the radio for the first time and like it, we usually want to watch it again soon to enjoy it once more, this happens a couple of times until we grow used to it and then want to distance ourselves from it because we have seen it or heard it way too many times, however if that particular ad still keeps up with increasing appearances on our television, pretty soon it becomes really annoying and at times irritating to your senses, so much so that you just cant stand it and you change any and every channel it is being aired from.

My point here is that the Social Media follows a similar if not the same cycle as orthodox marketing does.

YES social media is all about interaction and connecting with people BUT, in a SANE MANNER. Brand communications need to revolve around creating a positive impression in the mind of all potential and current customers/audiences and not to drive them insane with unnecessary tagging, self promotion and projecting a “Saint” image every 2 minutes. The line between promotion of your brand and cyber stalking your potential market is very very thin and should be understood before your brand/you end up getting on the last nerves of people and face social media boycott for your brand.

With the growing trends in Social Media businesses or “Digiprenuers” as i like to call them especially in growing countries like Pakistan it is imperative for these Digiprenuers to understand how to cater to their online audience, Yes they only have one way of communicating with all potential customers, BUT that does not mean they should be force feeding every bit of their brand to any and every user that stumbles across the Social Network. You need to understand the difference between promotion and stalking, feeding and smothering.

According to Insight Strategy Group in a research which they conducted on how people react to Brands on the Social Media, 58% thought it to be “invasive” when brands use social networking to promote because the Social Network is for people coming in to socialize and not to hear brand pitches, and self promotion of products which 80% of the time turn out to be mediocre. Then there is the problem which they highlighted is face by all new Digiprenuers, if not at,most of them (the anxious ones especially) , They are all trigger happy status/update bombardiers… a big no no like NO. Always remember that if a potential customer finds something of value or something that he likes on your Brands Social Media page he will find you himself, he will become a regular part of the feed HIMSELF, if he doesnt then you try to improve your content and your offering and NOT bombard him with Self promotional updates.

Jeremy Gutsche the best known Trend Hunter in the world mentions that no matter how average your product is YOUR STORY in promoting it should be awesome… but that by no way means that you unload a truck load of updates and picture tags on your online customers every 1 min. Promote NOT bombard and so NOT Stalk.

in summary:

• Maintain a steady stream of updates ( once or Twice a day) or if its something important to promote 4-5 times a day extended over planned regular intervals. NOT after every 1 minute,and not A MILLION UPDATES in 1 min.
• Do not DO NOT SELF PROMOTE yourself. Promotion of the Brand is Necessary but a brand SELF PROMOTING ITSELF obsessively is not cool. if it is that good people will notice it LET THEM be the JUDGE.
• Maintain a distinction between what you update/status through your brand and what you update as an individual, remember THE BRAND cannot have a be-grudging tone on its page, your brand will face criticism,hate comments,and biased remarks, DO NOT take them personally and start fighting with customers on the page, turn it into a positive and resolve it, DONT THREATEN them with claims and brute arrogance.
• I cannot stress on it enough DO NOT BLOW YOUR OWN HORN continuously, people WILL get irritated and they will start hating the brand and you and they will start posting trash around.

This is for all the new Digiprenuers on the Social Media. Sell your cupcakes, take your t-shirts, promote your photographs, but do not tick off the customer you are promoting to,  do not make them hit that invisible “hate” button instead of the “Like” one.