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Feb
17

Shit Community Managers Shouldn’t Say

By | community, Online Community Management

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I'm sure many of you are familiar with the videos popping up on YouTube entitled " Shit a <fill in the blank> Says."  There is even a recent one called "Shit a Social Media Community Manager Says" Well just for fun (and no I'm not doing a video) here is a quick list of things I think a Community Manager should NEVER say: "Hey a troll ……. great!!!!" "I am so exited to see how much spam has been posted in the community this morning." "Yes of course you can have as many usernames as you … [Read more...]

Feb
14

Your Twitter Followers Aren’t a Community

By | community, Facebook, Twitter

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I believe that the job titles Social Media Manager and Community Manager are becoming confused. Do people often take on both roles under one umbrella … yes they do …. absolutely. Indeed many companies are hiring Social Media Community Managers. But there is a distinct difference between the duties carried out by each. Many Social Media Managers are aligned with the Marketing dept and use social media platforms to reach their customers, and they don't generally manage a community. On the other hand, if you … [Read more...]

Nov
28

A Couple of Minutes – Tales From My Community Manager Letterbox

By | community, members

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Contact Us

Do you have a "contact us" link/section in your community? Do you get those emails? If not then you should. As the Community Manager you are on the front line of your community and it's important that you have  your finger on the community pulse. Many people will use the contact us link to ask site usability questions, express concerns, complain, or from time to time (but don't hold your breathe) say thanks. How you deal with those emails is extremely important. Don't just resort to generic responses. Let the … [Read more...]

Nov
25

The Personal Touch

By | community, members

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Back in May I explained how I email new members of my community each month. With over 1000 members joining monthly it's impossible for me to contact each and everyone of them, but I still believe it's important to try and connect with as many community members as possible. I still use the same email template, as the one I posted in May, but with slight variations, and as I mentioned in my original post the key to this email is that it comes from my personal site email address as opposed to a "contact@email.com or … [Read more...]

Jul
08

From My Community Manager LetterBox

By | community, issues

2 Comments

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Over the years I've had everything from swearing, threats, questions, suggestions, and the odd compliment drop into my Community Manager's letterbox. So I thought it would be fun if I posted some of the emails and my responses here.  Of course you may handle these situations differently (and that's absolutely fine) but I would ask that you take into account that due to privacy issues etc, (and the culture of the community I manage that) that it won't always be possible for me to go into the background of each … [Read more...]

Jun
12

Oops – What do to when it goes wrong

By | community, complaints, members, Online Community Management

3 Comments

Sorry

Your community is experiencing a little (well alright it might be a big) technical glitch, or you tried something new and it went down like a lead balloon. Here's my little mantra of what I do when it all goes pear-shaped: Listen. Acknowledge. Fix what can be fixed. Change what can be changed. Own up when it goes wrong. Admit when you're wrong, or have messed up. … and when you can't do any of those things say sorry, and mean it. We can't always please every single one of our members every … [Read more...]

May
18

An Example of Doing it Right – Aberystwyth University

By | community, Online Community Management

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It's so easy for us to highlight the cases we come across where community or social media is "done wrong"  and to pick holes in those examples. Yes we all need to understand and learn about doing it wrong so that we can avoid those pitfalls ourselves, but I feel that examples of "doing it right" are just as important. For instance, I've been taking horse riding lessons for the past year, (I know at my grand old age of 45 ... oh blimey did I just type that out loud ... shhh don't tell anyone) and when I'm … [Read more...]

Apr
21

Community Easter Egg Hunt

By | community, forum, members

2 Comments

Easter eggs

Love, love, love this idea on the Sitepoint forum. It's a great way of fostering some community spirit, and fun competition, between members. People often to stick to areas of a community they are familar with. In some cases I've seen people who won't even venture out of a thread/topic let along interact within another section of the site, so I love this because it's simple, creative and encourages members to explore areas of the community that they might not otherwise have ventured … [Read more...]

Feb
24

Private or Not?

By | community, manager, members, Online Community Management, Trust

7 Comments

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My thoughts on whether a Community Manager should read member's private messages without their knowledge. It takes time to build trust between a community and the person who helps facilitate the connections and conversations. Members want to know that the Community Manager has the best interest of the community at heart. So with that in mind I was a little miffed to read a blog advocating the need for tools so that Community Managers/Admin can read member's private messages. Whilst I feel all the other suggestions … [Read more...]

Jan
07

Is There A Spammer Hiding In Your Community?

By | community, spam

3 Comments

Spam

You've gotta feel sorry for a spammer. He spends inordinate amounts of his time posting his spam links all over the place only to have 99.9% of those links removed. If you have an active community your members can spot a blatant spammer within seconds, and will alert the moderators. It can take longer on a less active community, but they are still spotted in the end. So what is a spammer to do? Apparently they are now thinking up new inventive ways to spam. The trend seems to be that rather than the usual … [Read more...]