community management

For further proof that "social business" is coming of age, Altimeter recently conducted some research (both quantitative and qualitative) of enterprise grade organizations (1000 or more employees). The report focuses on readiness for crisis scenarios, but includes several best practices and findings which illustrate how organizations need to structure themselves for social business.

Yesterday I entertained an engaging conversation with a young professional working her way up through the industry. She made some interesting observations about the company I work for. She observed that we had a very active "tribe" in multiple social systems. She also noted that she associates one of our community managers (Suzanne) with our practice site (edelmandigital.com).

Our friends over at the Community Roundtable have done a wonderful job of summarizing key insights on the state of community management as it relates to the emerging development of social business. I was tapped to write this years Introduction to the report which is full of both breadth and depth of insights and information on the maturation of digital community building as a business strategy.

Guest Post by: Jon Stokes

A few months ago I came across a blog post which compared Nestle’s Polo Mint social media campaign to that of Mars – owned chewing gum brand Wrigley’s Extra.

Now that the campaigns have been going for a few months it’s interesting to see how things have developed.

To celebrate the second annual Community Manager Appreciation Day, we’ve brought together 15 essential articles for online community managers and social media managers. From why community managers should get involved with their online community before it is even launched, through how to manage and grow a community, to how to measure the impact you are having.

Guest Post by: Dan Harris

With the second annual community manager appreciation day just around the corner, I thought it would be a good time to sit back and take a look at he pros and cons that come with online community management.

In the current landscape lots of companies are listening to their communities, and some are participating but few are providing the leadership required to cultivate, nurture and shape that community over the long term. The “2010 Social Media Benchmarking Study” from Ketchum and FedEx documents that only 10% of companies are providing real leadership (by their definition).

Guest Post by: Mark Jennings

Brands are learning and applying a more focused and disciplined approaches to their social assets, the November 2010 ComBlu report finds.

Upon first arriving at Edelman, I noticed that our language was a bit different when talking about community aspects of social media. Instead of saying "Facebook this and Twitter that" we often refer to the properties organizations manage online as "embassies". While we work with clients closely in both consultative, strategic and tactical ways, it seemed like the right time to take a step back and focus on what's really important. Engaging your community. So Call this a blueprint if you will for how you and your organization can think about building and managing multiple embassies in a hyper-connected world.

For all the blog-posts, white-papers, and conference talks on digital community, there still seems to be numerous examples of a failure to get out of a broadcast mindset, corporate arrogance, assumptive thinking and, well, just plain getting it wrong. So I penned a column for the good folks at Mediatel on the subject and it ended up as a list post (which I'm not usually a fan of, yet I seem to remember the last thing I wrote for them was as well).