Videos & Presentations | Redefining Community Management

June 29, 2010

Most community managers need to wear many different “hats” within their role. This presentation will review 3 of those “hats” and explain how the community management role has taken shape in the past, present, and what it will most likely look like in the future. In addition, you’ll find some great action steps for each role below the presentation.

Ambassador Action Steps:

• Act as a bridge across the organization: A community team is meant to touch and support many of the other areas of the organization to deliver both content and subject matter expertise, provide insights and feedback, and act as a bridge both inside and outside the organization.
• Be the communication hub: At Radian6, the community team is the home for everything communications related instead of having separate PR, marketing, and communications departments.
• Create a listening grid: Set up a system for capturing, routing, and responding to posts that will help your engagement across the organization. Right person; Right time; Relevant response.

Story Teller Action Steps:

• Align communication objectives with business objectives: It’s important to have measurable objectives to emphasize the relevance of online engagement.
• Develop progress reports: What actionable items do the key leaders and stakeholders want to see from your community efforts? Establish methods for measuring progress toward those items.
• Establish emotional investment: Share the feel good stories and relationship building that occurs through two-way dialog to help create an emotional bond.

Face of the Brand Action Steps:

• Develop a playbook: At Radian6 we have a playbook that outlines specifics like workflow, procedures and protocol, and response guidelines. This way, our whole team works under the same set of expectations, and new hires have a great resource to facilitate integration into the team.
• Move beyond ego-centric discussion: Do proactive listening and engagement and get involved in broader, relevant industry discussions. Listen, absorb, learn, and contribute expertise when you can.
• Establish offline relationships: Attend industry events and talk with clients and prospects in person when possible. This personal interaction will keep you apprised of customer and community issues and build relationships face to face.