Today’s guest post is from Candis Robinson, our second community manager training scholarship recipient. Candis is transitioning from her position with Apic to venture into freelancing offering social media support for nonprofits and social enterprises. Her goal is to help many more organizations deliver unique value to their customers. She blogs about new age business and social drift at Emerging As.
Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected. ~Sun Tzu, “The Art of War”
How do you conquer and learn what you’re NOT doing at your company?
Community Management Training, Module Two, just wrapped up. After all has been said and done, I can’t help but have an overall feeling of “how the heck am I supposed to retain and implement all that I’ve learned”! Before I get your “in due time, my dear” response, let me illuminate the precarious situation in which I have found myself…and why you should care.
When I began the training module I worked for a healthcare association, APIC. They are just entering social media. Many of the things covered in training are still theories for them—as they aren’t in certain social spaces yet, nor do they have the more extensive (& expensive) analytic technologies. They have a twitter (PR) account and a private community site and are just getting around to the ROI discussion and thinking strategically about goals—the ETA for further exploration of this space is unknown.
They are limited by the reality or perception of where their members are and therefore where resources should go. Though a giant step was made in getting in the social space, they’ve yet to take the leap of integrating social into the organization’s business strategy. How then does a social media/community management professional implement what he/she learned from this training in such a scenario? Should your professional development then be stunted or limited based on what your org is doing?
I say a resounding “NO”! Do it yourself. Publish your own blog/sell your own product to learn the skills necessary. This is the resolve I have come to from participating in this community management training. There were some real heavy hitters presenting on various aspects of community management from market context to program management and everything in-between, especially ROI and metrics… And I am dying to try it all out.
“Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.” Key challenges for many nonprofits and associations are
1) integrating communities into the organization’s business strategy in a way that achieves the strategic goals
2) staffing for social media & community management
I for one, was not hired for community management, nor was it my sole responsibility. This means there will be a splintered focus on community management, where managing expectations for what priority, time & talent is needed will be difficult. Often responsibilities are minimized to technical troubleshooting and customer service.
I learned during the training that 50% of community management is internal. You are perpetually training, educating, and engaging the staff around community strategy. If you successfully manage employee engagement around the community, you can then better address both challenges mentioned above. Tie your community into strategy and then the resources will follow. I know…easier said than done, particularly when culture and leadership factors enter.
To those contemplating taking this training, but choosing not to because their company is dabbling in social media on a smaller scale—will you be poised to lead them when the opportunity comes? Are you currently where your org isn’t? In such an unchartered territory for many organizations, it is important for the organization to feel that they already have someone on staff that is competent in this area. If you already have a personal portfolio of your capabilities you will be positioned to not just run an initiative in the short term, but set strategy and create a culture that allows social tools and communities to enable your company’s business. These things come with practice, confidence, and training. If you can’t get it on the job, then you better get it somewhere else. Then at that point, “You only lack experience if they want it done the same old way”. But that’s another blog post altogether.
That said, I know the nonprofit/association sector is a niche market, and the training was not particularly geared towards this but I learned a lot. I especially learned don’t be afraid to “appear where you are not expected”; a lesson in career preparedness and also for owning the business goals and techniques of community management. What did you learn?
