Outstanding read Brian. I often wonder myself, given the newness of the medium if company's even know what they are looking for? Its kind of like the early .com explosion. Everyone knew they needed to be in the online game, but so few company's knew how to do it properly. Investment was huge, everyone enjoyed a fat couple of years, then reality set in... You actually need to know what you are doing.
I think the analogy is good. Now we have social media, and every company knows they need to be part of it, in fact, some company's are built completely around it. There is this panic, this mad rush, they all know they need to be in the game, but they really have not the slightest clue on how this game is played. They just know they need to be in.
Investors spent a load of cash based on half baked sales pitches, based on fear of being left behind at the dawn of the .com revolution. They were so quick to invest, they went in without a solid understanding of how they would fit in. Many lost their shirts. The same thing is happening now as brands invest in social media. So few company's do it right, they are clueless, so much so that they will place all their faith in a twenty something hipster salesperson just so they are sure they are in the game. They just don't want to be left behind.
He who makes the best sales pitch wins the job, because frankly, nobody has a clue what they are doing yet.
Well, forgive me for being a fanboy, I really think AMD has a good plan. I was chatting with Chris James about this just yesterday. Whats the plan, what do you look for, what are the tools? They have a grasp, a strategy, they know the tech, they know the tools, they know the skill sets, and they know how to marry them all so they can measure success.
No, it's not. "SM Guru" is anybody and everybody who knows how to use Twitter. CMs are an established role that has been around as long as online communities have been around—there was never really a title for it.
Think about it; you know what I do, you know what we've done here. Am I an editor? Not always. Am I a "site admin"? Sometimes, but so are others. Am I a managing editor? A reporter?
I think if you boil it down, you know as well as I do that what we do is more properly classified under the term "community manager". Just like with anything, it helps to codify it and give it a name so that you can more easily communicate it to and with others.
"We're looking for a person that does... you know, all that stuff you do. Talking to people and social media and making sure our users are happy and keeping everybody on the same page person". It's a hell of a lot easier to say "community manager".
I'm pretty sure I've never seen a job posting for "SM Guru" at any rate
I'm not trolling community managers. I'm trolling ill-prepared people that think they're CMs, when they're totally unprepared to undertake the position (as your article critically illustrates).
I give you, as an analogy, the SM guru, a social media-savvy person that's woefully unprepared to handle SM.
As a cmgr of an internal employee community of 17K members, I have a lot of dealings with IT and dev people, especially when it comes to upgrades, new site themes, hardware improvements and other IT niceties. PR people would be up the proverbial river without a paddle if they couldn't communicate about testing, error codes, load balancing, site stats and the myriad other technical issues that arise day to day.
Maybe some businesses outsource all the IT management side of their communities. If not, then a community manager needs to be able to speak tech talk. The more hats a community manager can wear the more effective he can be at serving the various needs within the typical online business community.
I'm of the opinion that to be a CM, one must have a strong PR background. It's a rather narrow definition but if one is to truly manage a community, they've got to understand the message and medium and how to shape both to achieve some predefined end goal. Without that understanding of communication theory, tactics and best-practices, and the professional application thereof, you're just a moderator, sys-admin, or whatever. CM implies a higher standard of operations to me.
Good read. And we thank you, Brian, for not polluting our streams.
though I LOL'd in my little interaction with the #cmgrchat peeps. "hurr durr you can filter!(^_^) "
and any inclination of tech savvyness would have shown them that I was indeed using tweetdeck, most popularly known for its filters/columns, and just how ineffective that is, (not to mention, the complete lack of filtering on my phone, which is 70% of my twitter reading)
Why should I pander to their pollution? And can they honestly expect every user to filter - let alone all those out there who are incapable or don't understand it?
for the record, only using poorly concieved, badly designed twitter chat tools are a faux pas. Using something like ReTweetBot (which is in the process of being rebranded as Twitfinite) works very well. You can see the @PredFans and @NashTraffic accounts as good examples.
But agreed - that's a good example of why someone needs to know what they're doing before trying to hop in an "join the conversation!!!11!1!!"
Paul, I don't understand what you mean: How would me using a good Twitter chat tool prevent my followers from seeing spam/off-topic tweets?
If all you DO on Twitter is participate in chats, and all your followers do the same, that makes sense; but ultimately, Twitter is a microblogging platform, not a groupware solution.
Then again.... Twitter provides a platform for asynchronous communications. The other methods (IRC, et. al.) are synchronous. The people you want to talk to have to be online at the same time as you. Not always convenient for busy people. This is probably why they resort to using Twitter to converse.
Then again.... Twitter provides a platform for asynchronous communications. The other methods (IRC, et. al.) are synchronous. The people you want to talk to have to be online at the same time as you. Not always convenient for busy people. This is probably why they resort to using Twitter to converse.
Good point...
Caveat: I mean organized, real-time chats at a scheduled time, such as "Join us at 2pm est for #cmgrchat" which is what happened.
To be pedantic: This is all in reference to using Twitter as a real time, synchronous chat.
prime, the tool Paul is describing as a "good Twitter chat tool" is a lot different from how people think of Twitter chats... I for one don't think there's a huge problem with the whole hashtag chat participation -- in most cases, people follow enough people and begin enough tweets with @replies to not be extremely intrusive or seen as spammy to followers who don't participate. Also, most Facebook integration apps can be configured to exclude @replies from being imported as status updates.
Anyway, the tool Paul notes -- @predfans is a great example -- works very differently. When you follow @predfans, any tweets that begin with @predfans are automatically retweeted by @predfans to all of its followers. This prevents those who don't follow @predfans from seeing your replies, and ensures that those who want to stay updated with other Predators fans' tweets (I can't imagine why) can easily do so.
Paul, correct me if I'm wrong on any of the details here
Oh, one more thing -- I totally agree that CMs should be somewhat techie -- I'm floored by how many people in my industry don't understand basic technical language, Gantt charts and listing requirements... I was asked recently what a URL was. Huh?
Brian great read but also missed a few points. While CM's are the outlet for customers to contact or make contact with, We are still PR folk at heart. CM's develop programs and do outreach across the board in regards to their brand and or products. PR is a high level of outreach. The CM slot is a grass roots effort. We are the ones who truly go to bat for our company and then again for our consumers /community every day.
If an issues arises that isn't picked up on CNN or some major outlet, some companies treat those issues as a non-issue. It is our job as a CM to bring those issues to the table and make the argument of why it is an issue and why it needs to be fixed.
In fairness I think CM’s and their roles vary by industry & than by being company specific. The things I do daily at EA would not tie directly to the same things let say a CM at Ralph’s Groceries is doing daily.
First, CM's don't need to be techies - they need to work with techies - sure - but being good with people is more important than being good at technology.
Second, you're judging #cmgrchat by whether you like it rather than whether it works. If it's popular and being used, I'd say they picked the right tool for Twitter.
Third, the biggest challenge isn't that many CM's don't understand technology. Technology is getting easier to use every day. The challenge is they don't understand people.
I'd like a community manager to have been tried by fire in either IRC or forums where they deal with trolls regularly. Sending some PR dude into the wild west of forums or communities without a little bit of battle hardening is a recipe for disaster. Also, much of the stuff that goes on in a community is pure meta and there's a certain type of person who can put up with that bs without going insane.
primesuspect
Beepin n' BoopinDetroit, MI Icrontian
Comments
I think the analogy is good. Now we have social media, and every company knows they need to be part of it, in fact, some company's are built completely around it. There is this panic, this mad rush, they all know they need to be in the game, but they really have not the slightest clue on how this game is played. They just know they need to be in.
Investors spent a load of cash based on half baked sales pitches, based on fear of being left behind at the dawn of the .com revolution. They were so quick to invest, they went in without a solid understanding of how they would fit in. Many lost their shirts. The same thing is happening now as brands invest in social media. So few company's do it right, they are clueless, so much so that they will place all their faith in a twenty something hipster salesperson just so they are sure they are in the game. They just don't want to be left behind.
He who makes the best sales pitch wins the job, because frankly, nobody has a clue what they are doing yet.
Well, forgive me for being a fanboy, I really think AMD has a good plan. I was chatting with Chris James about this just yesterday. Whats the plan, what do you look for, what are the tools? They have a grasp, a strategy, they know the tech, they know the tools, they know the skill sets, and they know how to marry them all so they can measure success.
Great observations Brian.
No, it's not. "SM Guru" is anybody and everybody who knows how to use Twitter. CMs are an established role that has been around as long as online communities have been around—there was never really a title for it.
Think about it; you know what I do, you know what we've done here. Am I an editor? Not always. Am I a "site admin"? Sometimes, but so are others. Am I a managing editor? A reporter?
I think if you boil it down, you know as well as I do that what we do is more properly classified under the term "community manager". Just like with anything, it helps to codify it and give it a name so that you can more easily communicate it to and with others.
"We're looking for a person that does... you know, all that stuff you do. Talking to people and social media and making sure our users are happy and keeping everybody on the same page person". It's a hell of a lot easier to say "community manager".
I'm pretty sure I've never seen a job posting for "SM Guru" at any rate
I give you, as an analogy, the SM guru, a social media-savvy person that's woefully unprepared to handle SM.
Maybe some businesses outsource all the IT management side of their communities. If not, then a community manager needs to be able to speak tech talk. The more hats a community manager can wear the more effective he can be at serving the various needs within the typical online business community.
though I LOL'd in my little interaction with the #cmgrchat peeps. "hurr durr you can filter!(^_^) "
and any inclination of tech savvyness would have shown them that I was indeed using tweetdeck, most popularly known for its filters/columns, and just how ineffective that is, (not to mention, the complete lack of filtering on my phone, which is 70% of my twitter reading)
Why should I pander to their pollution? And can they honestly expect every user to filter - let alone all those out there who are incapable or don't understand it?
bah!
But agreed - that's a good example of why someone needs to know what they're doing before trying to hop in an "join the conversation!!!11!1!!"
If all you DO on Twitter is participate in chats, and all your followers do the same, that makes sense; but ultimately, Twitter is a microblogging platform, not a groupware solution.
Good point...
Caveat: I mean organized, real-time chats at a scheduled time, such as "Join us at 2pm est for #cmgrchat" which is what happened.
To be pedantic: This is all in reference to using Twitter as a real time, synchronous chat.
Anyway, the tool Paul notes -- @predfans is a great example -- works very differently. When you follow @predfans, any tweets that begin with @predfans are automatically retweeted by @predfans to all of its followers. This prevents those who don't follow @predfans from seeing your replies, and ensures that those who want to stay updated with other Predators fans' tweets (I can't imagine why) can easily do so.
Paul, correct me if I'm wrong on any of the details here
If an issues arises that isn't picked up on CNN or some major outlet, some companies treat those issues as a non-issue. It is our job as a CM to bring those issues to the table and make the argument of why it is an issue and why it needs to be fixed.
In fairness I think CM’s and their roles vary by industry & than by being company specific. The things I do daily at EA would not tie directly to the same things let say a CM at Ralph’s Groceries is doing daily.
First, CM's don't need to be techies - they need to work with techies - sure - but being good with people is more important than being good at technology.
Second, you're judging #cmgrchat by whether you like it rather than whether it works. If it's popular and being used, I'd say they picked the right tool for Twitter.
Third, the biggest challenge isn't that many CM's don't understand technology. Technology is getting easier to use every day. The challenge is they don't understand people.
CM's must be ahead of the curve, not following it.