Passion2Publish

The Single Tenet of a Community Manager

Jeremiah Owyang -- one of the biggest movers and shakers in web strategy, whom I sometimes refer to as Jeremiah to appear important myself, culled together 16 actual job descriptions for an online community manager.

He distilled the job down to four essential tenets:

1) Community Advocate -- "the community managers’ primary role is to represent the customer"
2) Brand Evangelist -- "the community manager will promote events, products and upgrades to customers by using traditional marketing tactics and conversational discussions"
3) Savvy Communication Skills, Shapes Editorial -- "The community manager should first be very familiar with the tools of communication, from forums, to blogs, to podcasts, to twitter, and then understand the language and jargon that is used in the community"
4) Gathers Community Input for Future Products and Services -- "Perhaps the most strategic of all tenets, community managers are responsible for gathering the requirements of the community in a responsible way and presenting it to product teams."

Now before I give my input, I'll point out that the second way you can appear more important than you may actually be (remember, the first one was to name drop) is to find some way to disagree with a talking head.

But I do disagree with Jeremiah, even for reasons beyond growing my own self importance. I think Jeremiah is putting too much on the shoulders of a community manager -- in fact, these four tenets could really be called the four essential tenets of a customer facing company.

I think a community manager should subscribe to one and only one essential tenet -- increasing customer efficacy.

I don't think a community manager should be a brand evangelist or a marketing mouth piece. At the start, the community manager should be product agnostic until that community has been able to shape that product. I know, that sounds dangerous -- but a community manager should never tell a lie, even a lie well disguised -- and no company recruiting a community manager that I've seen has that kind of unbeatable product. The goal of an organization should be to plug their customers into the production process as early as conceivable -- through the work of the community manager.

But I don't think that editorial shaping and requirements gathering alone creates the kind of relationship we want from our customers -- and I'm certain it doesn't offer the type of relationship our customers will come to expect.

When I say customer efficacy, what I mean, at the very core of it, is that every customer should feel that their patronage changes the business, that they're uniqueness contributes to the uniqueness of the brand, that every thing that emerges from the assembly line (literal or figurative) was crafted with them in mind. The star of the show isn't the community manager -- its the customer. In turn, the customer becomes the marketing mouthpiece, the customer starts to help shape the editorial, and the customer gathers the requirements. Companies are looking to hire someone they have the control over -- but if you're looking for a fruitful relationship, you'll hire someone that the community will control. 

It's a great article, and a fantastic resource -- go read Jeremiah's full post.

It's Statistics Tuesday! Teen Shopping & Multimedia Usage

A couple posts caught my eye today in the ol' Google Reader and I thought I'd share:

From Search Engine Guide on Multimedia Usage:

• Most Web users watch online video today. In fact, 1 in 5 say they stream video every day. (Source: Pew Internet)
• Americans don’t get their news from static print sources anymore. Only 13 percent say they get their news from newspapers and magazines, compared to 40 percent who use the Internet and 32 percent who watch TV. (Source: Zogby)
• The media has a high demand for video content. Use of video by newspaper Web sites is expected to double over the next 12 months. (Source: Borrell Associates)

And Jennifer's reasons to integrate multimedia content were dead-on:

• Increased search presence -- video is a great way to break into universal search
• Stronger sales pitch -- some products just need to be seen, not described (iphone)
• Portability -- let your users have something they can walk away with and show off
• You spark the conversation -- capitalize on the strong communities at sites like flickr and youtube

And from Ypulse -- an excellent source of youth marketing resources, comes some teen retail shopping figures just in time for black friday:

Where do they learn about new products?

The web (65 percent)
Friends (62 percent)
TV commercials (54 percent)

We know they're headed to the malls (95 percent), but which stores are they going to?

Electronics (46 percent)
Bath & body (45 percent)
Music (surprise. surprise.) (41 percent)

Who gets the most of teens' hard earned money? ($100 or more)

Their sweetie (28 percent)
Mom and dad (20 percent)
Grandma and grandpa (18 percent)

What do they want most?

Money! (39 percent)
Laptop or desktop computer (30 percent)
Clothes (25 percent)
A new car! (24 percent)

If they could ask for just one gift, it would be:

Laptop/desktop computer (15 percent)
Money (12 percent)
Car (11 percent)

And as for the brands they want?

When specifically asked about brands, Apple was the most cited brand in the music technology category, Dell was ranked #1 for computers/laptops, the Motorola RAZR phone led the mobile phone category, and Microsoft’s X-Box 360 was the leading video game console, while Halo 3 was the leading video game. Abercrombie and Fitch was the clothing brand most teens say they want and when it comes to cars, Ford and Cheverolet brands were most cited.

Anastasia is quick to point out that teens are still brick-and-mortar shoppers because of the lack of credit cards and the social aspect of shopping.

Wow. I can't believe there was a period of time when I actually liked going to the mall ...

Measuring the Return on Engagement

As the nature of our business, custom publishing, changes -- we have to recognize that the education we provide our clients also needs to be shared internally as well. For the last 4 weeks or so, the Digital Media team in our company has been giving 30-45 minute talks each Monday about the very basics of what we do. And we're only halfway through our schedule of conversations.

Yesterday I introduced metrics and how, as a company, we can be more agile to respond to user needs. Here are the slides from that presentation (It's not my most creative presentation, usually I load up the slides with photos of kitties from Flickr...):

Click through for my thoughts about the presentation AND our adoption of an internal social network.

Rupert Murdoch is a fan of Passion2Publish.com

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"News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch said Tuesday he intends to make access to The Wall Street Journal's Web site free, trading subscription fees for anticipated ad revenue."

Rupe'... err. Can I call you Rupe'? For such a busy, extravagantly rich man, I'm surprised you had the time to read my blog -- but I'm flattered nonetheless. Obviously you spent some time with these posts of mine:

• Times Select and the Flawed Logic of Paid Content Models
• Scarcity: Catch it Before It's Gone
• Advertising Age Declares the Paid Content Model Dead

and my call to action to ol' Rupe' -- Someone Should Meddle with the Wall Street Journal

Thanks Rupe', but next time you're interviewed, would you please toss me a little press? Credit where credit's due, and all....

Testing the Facebook SocialAd System

Following Jeremiah, I've set up a one-day, $20, run on Facebook's new SocialAd system to promote this is a conversation, the facebook group.

The SocialAd system lets you segment and target your ad based on the user attributes in your profile. Want to market to a single college graduate who is politically liberal but is interested in guns? Well, according to Facebook, there's 420 users who fit that profile!

I'll be providing live updates on twitter throughout the day -- come check me out, micro style.

PIC: Steve Carell & The Office Immortalized in Pumpkin

Beth and Gretchen in our office entered this pumpkin into the building's Halloween competition:

And they lost!

Obviously this is the result of a cloak and dagger, sinister type, pumpkinista agenda to deny these two gifted pump-craft-people of their due. Now, I would never suggest calling up the staff at 600 W Fulton, Chicago, and demanding justice -- I just think if you leave really nice comments it may bring these two back from the brink of personal crisis.

Oh and here are some fun friday vids to watch:

And in a personal victory, this is my 100th post!

Join the Conversation on Facebook

If you're a marketer that isn't actively pursuing the conversation, you're making a grave mistake.

I am a man obsessed with the web's ability for a brand to talk to a consumer, a consumer to speak to a brand, an evangelist to reach out to everyone that chooses to listen... and the magnitude of the ripples between us all.

With every conversation, your competitors and your customers are getting smarter. What have you risked? What have you learned? What have you won? Nothing ventured, nothing gained. It's an old expression, 1.0 if you prefer, but it fits this 2.0, this 3.0 landscape.

I'm inviting you to come join a new group on facebook that I've started -- as a precursor to larger things to come perhaps.

Call it alpha, wrap a starburst around it, and give it a gradient -- this is a conversation on facebook. Don't be passive, don't be a lurker -- I'm looking for people with something to say.

I've Been Everywhere, Man

My memory is a little hazy, but I'm pretty sure that for the last few weeks I've been talking about social media and engagement strategies in Atlanta, San Francisco, Charlotte, Philadelphia -- and before that Minneapolis, Raleigh-Durham and a couple more I might be leaving out, all the while handling a cross-town move. Pretty soon I'm going to start selling ad space on my luggage.

One phrase that keeps falling out of my mouth is this: Engagement is really about efficacy. Of course, it goes to all the research that shows that people are coming to expect more two-way communications with brands -- but when it comes to the web, my participation better mean something. We know that if we can put something in the hands of a evangelist, they can spread the word far faster and far more effectively than we can -- but how do you find those evangelists? You have to turn the experience into a personal one -- and you have to commit to personal levels of metrics. You can turn some regular customers into fans -- but evangelists seem to be born that way. Make your presence malleable, roll it like play-doh, like a "do-touch" museum, and give people something to get interested in.

I typed in your address, I clicked on that link, I have email sitting in my inbox, a bubbling over to-do list and boxes to unpack sitting in my living room -- make my time worth it and reward me for my attention.

On a "what's he up to?" note -- I'm looking for others like myself, those who are interested in the conversation between brands and customers, evangelists and non-affiliates, to start a new online publication. Details to follow.

Content Creation in an Economic System

I was reading through a post by Steve Rubel, discussing the declining value of content based on how an economic system works.

Steve got a few things about economic systems wrong -- and his readers let him know it in their comments, but that doesn't mean the conclusion of his argument is wrong.

As strategists and as marketers, we live and breath in an attention economy. You hear about things like permission marketing or interruption marketing because of how fickle, how scarce, and how precious attention really is.

Creating content and monetizing that content is only going to get harder and more costly. That's a fact. Media saturation will only continue to increase and unfortunately attention is a limited resource. Therefore, the time and the care we want people to give our content will dwindle and its effectiveness will falter. UNLESS, we get smarter. All the tools are at our disposal. We can poke and prod and study our users like mice in virtual skinner boxes, aka websites. Never before are we given such a two-way medium to better understand our customers, to involve them more richly in the production process, and of course to help promote our finished product. The real difference between old media and new media is the willingness, or the outright fear, to be driven to this conclusion and to embrace it.

User generated content is putting your toe in the water, user co-creation is being up to your waist. Companies like etsy, and threadless and countless more are at the forefront of this philosophy -- where moving forward, organizations will only thrive with an active cult of participants -- not de-saturated, numerated customers, but vibrant, voracious participants.

Podcast: Social Media Tracking on the Cheap

Check out the podcast with Katie Delahaye Paine -- she has some great tips -- but her strategy talk is especially engaging. She's right, it's not about eyeballs, it's about the special type of eyeballs, those users that are just built to be your evangelists and having a conversation with them. You can't be all things to everyone -- but you can engage that powerful niche group that can grow your business.

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