I’ve been putting off a new post for a while now and was inspired by this post from Jeremiah Owyang on “Community Manager Appreciation Day”. Within the organization where I am employed the community manager role has evolved as an essential role with our launch in 2009 of an external community for clients. Even more, I read about it every day thru Twitter, Friendfeed, articles from major publications and the blogs of those that have evangelized and basically created this space we call social media.
At the end of 2009 I carefully aggregated perceptions and predictions on what would happen in digital/social space in 2010. Social network aggregation and growth, video, and mobile were the key trends that I found. Although I do agree, I’ll put my bets on community building online (via paid community platforms).
Community building can be looked at a few ways. There are external communities that are housed on networks such as LinkedIn and Facebook, but I see a big play in the organizationally created community. This would be something on a community platform such as Jive, KickApps, Telligent, and Awareness (to name a few). These types of communities can be structured to meet every organizational goal, which is something not easy to do on a “free” social network. They can be used internally and/or externally.
Home-grown communities can be driven from key initiatives in the organization through the collaborative nature of these platforms. If it be to drive sales, deliver thought leadership, customer support, consulting, or just giving a platform for customers to talk to one another, these platforms will be able to support it. Even better, you will have all of the activity on one dashboard, tailor promotions around one community (rather than multiple i.e. facebook, linkedin, etc.), and more importantly, moderate [and in a way] control the message – at least this is the tactic you can take to get executive buy-in.
When making this move it is essential for organizations to designate a community manager to be the “go to person” in building out more communities within the organization – did I say that these platforms are very scalable! In talking to colleagues from various industries, I am seeing the creation of one community spark ideas and interest from many business units and groups within the organization that may have shyed away from the original idea of talking to customers online. And a community manager can facilitate all of this giving best practices and leveraging one platform across the organization.
The role is real and essential to build the proper roadmap and strategy for the entire online community involvement of the organization. I put my bets on seeing more and more community manger roles evolve for both internal and external roles. What are your thoughts?
3 comments
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January 26, 2010 at 3:27 am
Rick Austin
Interesting thoughts here and certainly something to think about. I do agree that organizationally created communities can provide a platform that provides for a consolidated view and messaging to customers, partners, employees, and potential customers. It is a one stop platform that meets the multi-facted needs of the community.
I also believe there is additional value in having these platforms pierce through into “public” social platforms (e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn, etc). Imagine the consistent messaging that can occur if internal platforms have the ability to push content and support interactions across these public arenas. Do these platforms support these capabilities today? I’m not sure but doubt it. I think it could be a powerful capability and one that allows a company to leverage content and messaging of the internal platform to public communities which increases the reach of the brand.
Good post Sam, and something I’ll continue to chew on!
January 26, 2010 at 5:04 pm
Michael Fraietta
Sam,
First off, thanks for mentioning Jive Software in your short list of community platforms. I can’t help but agree that there will be both a large demand for these platforms and community manager positions. However, I feel as if companies (depending on size, of course) need not just a CM but a team to be efficient including a director, an external CM, an internal CM and a few “listeners”.
Rick,
As far as your question about the “public” social platforms, we at Jive are integrating Filtrbox to pick up mentions from them and respond from within.
Michael Fraietta
Jive Software Community Manager & Chief Listener
@MichaelFraietta
January 28, 2010 at 1:39 am
samsova
Rick – Thanks for the comment! I totally agree with you on having a presence on both a “home-grown” community as well as the external world. This is all about convergence of the two. Big picture, all organizations will have to do this for sure. As you know, the pain is how long? I’d love to pick your brain more on this. Let’s get a call some time in the next few weeks. Of course we can talk about geeky stuff like the iPad, my reason for the delay in response.
Michael – I love the “Chief Listener” title. Completely agree with you and after looking into I believe that your acquistion of FiltrBox is huge for this convergence and bridging to happen.