The Community Roundtable

Empowering global community leaders with research-backed resources, training, and tools.

Kathy O’Reilly on Managing Niche Communities

By

 

The Community Roundtable has partnered with Voce Communications to produce a new podcast series, “Conversations with Community Managers.” In this series, TheCR’s Jim Storer joins forces with Voce’s Doug Haslam to speak with people from a variety of industries about their efforts with community and social media management. Our podcast series, Conversations with Community Managers (a co-production with The Community Roundtable), continues with episode #14, featuring Kathy O’Reilly, Director of Social Media Relations for Monster.com (a Voce client). Highlights include:
  • Handling disparate – but related – audiences via community; in this case, job seekers and employers
  • The challenges of managing many separate niche communities without splintering the corporate mission
  • Using a healthy content library to support community and spark discussion, including use of external contributors
  • Making sure you have the resources (people, content and time) to nurture a community properly
  • Goals: create brand awareness, product awareness and driving traffic

MUSIC CREDIT: “Bleuacide” by graphiqsgroove.

About Conversations with Community Managers*
To better reflect the diverse conversations our podcast covers we’ve changed the name of our long-running series to Community Conversations.
Community Conversations highlights short conversations with some of the smartest minds in the online community and social business space, exploring what they’re working on, why they do what they do, and what advice they have for you.
These episodes are a great way to begin to understand the nuances of community strategy and management.
Each episode is short (usually less than 30 minutes) and focuses on one community management professional.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

Michael Pace on the Roles of Email and Social Media

By

The Community Roundtable has partnered with Voce Communications to produce “Conversations with Community Managers.” In this podcast series, TheCR’s Jim Storer joins forces with Voce’s Doug Haslam to speak with people from a variety of industries about their efforts with community and social media management. Our podcast series continues with episode #13, featuring Michael Pace, Director of Customer Support at Constant Contact. Highlights include:
  • Moving an email-oriented company into social media and community by internalizing the information about social media into the corporate psyche and processes
  • The changing, yet continuing place of email in our communications hierarchy
  • Creating “virtuous cycles” by providing recognition and sharing it with the larger community
  • How social media and community are creating new job roles
  • The “Social Media Council” model of bringing the social media from different departments together- is it necessary to have such a council based on a set of tools?
  • The “a-ha” moment of adopting social media: getting beyond the books and blogs and meeting people to gain knowledge first-hand

 

MUSIC CREDIT: “Bleuacide” by graphiqsgroove.

About Conversations with Community Managers*
To better reflect the diverse conversations our podcast covers we’ve changed the name of our long-running series to Community Conversations.
Community Conversations highlights short conversations with some of the smartest minds in the online community and social business space, exploring what they’re working on, why they do what they do, and what advice they have for you.
These episodes are a great way to begin to understand the nuances of community strategy and management.
Each episode is short (usually less than 30 minutes) and focuses on one community management professional.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

Drupal Commons – Open Source Social Business?

By

Late last week we heard about a new offering from Acquia, an open source software company focused on the Drupal social publishing system and a partner of The Community Roundtable.

The product is called Drupal Commons and it’s focused on expanding the use of Drupal in business. This is an interesting development because it may force proprietary community platforms to re-think their pricing models. Drupal Commons is free. Yes, Acquia will offer a host of value-added services, but the total cost of ownership should be dramatically lower than with proprietary solutions.

Drupal already powers robust communities like Intel’s Atom Developer Program, Novell’s Solution Provider Community and Intuit’s Quickbase Community, so it’s not like Drupal Commons is starting from scratch.

We spoke with the folks over at Acquia and what impressed us the most is that they understand that technology is just a piece of equation in building a vibrant, successful community. Our Community Maturity Model makes sense to them. Keeping your eye on all eight competencies (of which one is technology) is essential if you want to be be successful.

So if you’re trying to do more with less and want a proven community platform, you might want to check out Drupal Commons. You can try out an instance on the Acquia site or sign up for a webcast happening later this week to learn more.

Once you’ve had a chance to kick the tires, we’d love to hear what you think in the comments.

Alex Plant on B2B Social Media

By

The Community Roundtable has partnered with Voce Communications to produce a new podcast series, “Conversations with Community Managers.” In this series, TheCR’s Jim Storer joins forces with Voce’s Doug Haslam to speak with people from a variety of industries about their efforts with community and social media management.

Episode #11 features Alex Plant, head of social media for NetApp. Among his overall social media duties, Alex oversees a video studio and a staff of videographers and editors.

Podcast highlights include:

  • The effective use of video for social media content in a B2B setting
  • While the technical audience for B2B social media is strong, the real growth is expected in the business-level audience
  • The intersection of social media and traditional marketing; including calls to action as a crucial part of engagement
  • Measurement- tying awareness building measurements such as share of voice and sentiment to traffic generation
  • Blogs are very powerful tools for capturing people’s attention (still!)
  • The effectiveness of feeding ideas to bloggers and other influencers to keep a constant flow of external content
  • Determining whether or not to have separate subject channels for separate audience to maintain high levels of relevance, interest and engagement, while maintaining control over the overall content direction
  • Internal culture; the value of support from the top

MUSIC CREDIT: “Bleuacide” by graphiqsgroove.

About Conversations with Community Managers*
To better reflect the diverse conversations our podcast covers we’ve changed the name of our long-running series to Community Conversations.
Community Conversations highlights short conversations with some of the smartest minds in the online community and social business space, exploring what they’re working on, why they do what they do, and what advice they have for you.
These episodes are a great way to begin to understand the nuances of community strategy and management.
Each episode is short (usually less than 30 minutes) and focuses on one community management professional.

Lisa Beatty on Brand-Focused Communities

By

The Community Roundtable has partnered with Voce Communications to produce a new podcast series, “Conversations with Community Managers.” In this series, TheCR’s Jim Storer joins forces with Voce’s Doug Haslam to speak with people from a variety of industries about their efforts with community and social media management.
 

Episode #10 features Lisa Beatty, “Chief Jane Advocate” for Jane Nation, one of the first online communities for women to share their opinions and ideas about brands, and information among themselves and with brands about the uniqueness of their community.

Podcast highlights include:

  • Running a community that is a hybrid of centrally-produced and controlled content, and more self-moderated forums
  • The relationship between a community about brands and the brands themselves, including the need to comply with disclosure guidelines, and how to include the brands as part of the community (with examples from the Mayo Clinic and General Motors)
  • Approaching community monetization without ads, with approaches such as sponsored content and access to community members for private conversations
  • The challenges of managing a community including people at different stages of their lives (age, careers, parenthood, etc)
  • Reconciling running a brand-focused community with a career as an advertising executive, as Beatty does

MUSIC CREDIT: “Bleuacide” by graphiqsgroove.

About Conversations with Community Managers*
To better reflect the diverse conversations our podcast covers we’ve changed the name of our long-running series to Community Conversations.
Community Conversations highlights short conversations with some of the smartest minds in the online community and social business space, exploring what they’re working on, why they do what they do, and what advice they have for you.
These episodes are a great way to begin to understand the nuances of community strategy and management.
Each episode is short (usually less than 30 minutes) and focuses on one community management professional.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

Dave Olson on Pre-Social Media Communities

By

The Community Roundtable has partnered with Voce Communications to produce a new podcast series, “Conversations with Community Managers.” In this series, TheCR’s Jim Storer joins forces with Voce’s Doug Haslam to speak with people from a variety of industries about their efforts with community and social media management.
Episode #9 features Dave Olson, Marketing Director for HootSuite, which helps people and companies track, monitor and manage their Twitter communities.

 

Podcast highlights include:
  • How the traditional title of “Marketing Director” translates to online marketing, customer service and social engagement
  • Turning metrics into meaning by realizing the personalities behind the community members
  • Tips on community: making members feel like they belong and are contributing, and that they are being heard and acknowledged
  • Stories about communities in the 1970s, enabled by “ditto machines” and other pre social media technology (the roots of Dave’s current personal projects are found at https://www.uncleweed.com/)
  • An example of a company (SubPop records) that started their community building in the pre-social media era (pre-Internet, even), and evolved it into the age of Twitter
  • Adding value, context and storytelling vs simply “attracting a crowd”

MUSIC CREDIT: “Bleuacide” by graphiqsgroove.

PHOTO CREDIT: kris krüg

About Conversations with Community Managers*
To better reflect the diverse conversations our podcast covers we’ve changed the name of our long-running series to Community Conversations.
Community Conversations highlights short conversations with some of the smartest minds in the online community and social business space, exploring what they’re working on, why they do what they do, and what advice they have for you.
These episodes are a great way to begin to understand the nuances of community strategy and management.
Each episode is short (usually less than 30 minutes) and focuses on one community management professional.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

Jodi Gersh on “Old School” Journalism and New Media Channels

By

The Community Roundtable has partnered with Voce Communications to produce a new podcast series, “Conversations with Community Managers.” In this series, TheCR’s Jim Storer joins forces with Voce’s Doug Haslam to speak with people from a variety of industries about their efforts with community and social media management.
 
Episode #8 features Jodi Gersh, Social Media Content Manager at the Gannett Company, where she helps Gannett’s 80+ newspapers and 20+ TV stations with their social media needs and strategies.
 

Highlights include:

  • Meshing “old school” journalism with new media channels
  • How Gannett coordinates social media learnings and tactics among more than 100 separate entities.
  • The importance of internal communications in keeping employees at all levels- and in all markets- engaged in using social media, including the use of “old school” methods like email
  • Upcoming trends: you guessed it, location and mobile
  • Melding “citizen journalism” with professional investigative journalism

MUSIC CREDIT: “Bleuacide” by graphiqsgroove.

About Conversations with Community Managers*
To better reflect the diverse conversations our podcast covers we’ve changed the name of our long-running series to Community Conversations.
Community Conversations highlights short conversations with some of the smartest minds in the online community and social business space, exploring what they’re working on, why they do what they do, and what advice they have for you.
These episodes are a great way to begin to understand the nuances of community strategy and management.
Each episode is short (usually less than 30 minutes) and focuses on one community management professional.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

Brian Simpson on Combining Online and Offline Relations in Hospitality

By

The Community Roundtable has partnered with Voce Communications to produce a new podcast series, “Conversations with Community Managers.” In this series, TheCR’s Jim Storer joins forces with Voce’s Doug Haslam to speak with people from a variety of industries about their efforts with community and social media management.
Our sixth episode features Brian Simpson, Director of Social Hospitality at the Roger Smith Hotel in New York City.
 

Highlights include:

  • How online extends and combines with the vital offline relations and events in the hospitality industry
  • A discussion of whether or not being a nimble small business is an advantage over being a big chain when it comes to using social media
  • How hard metrics and the more “touchy-feely” side of social media mesh
  • A critique of Roger Smith Life and the value of showing an off-product side of your business; “It’s got to be interesting.”

MUSIC CREDIT: “Bleuacide” by graphiqsgroove.

About Conversations with Community Managers*
To better reflect the diverse conversations our podcast covers we’ve changed the name of our long-running series to Community Conversations.
Community Conversations highlights short conversations with some of the smartest minds in the online community and social business space, exploring what they’re working on, why they do what they do, and what advice they have for you.
These episodes are a great way to begin to understand the nuances of community strategy and management.
Each episode is short (usually less than 30 minutes) and focuses on one community management professional.

Sonny Gill on Social Media Participation in Education

By

The Community Roundtable has partnered with Voce Communications to produce a new podcast series, “Conversations with Community Managers.” In this series, TheCR’s Jim Storer joins forces with Voce’s Doug Haslam to speak with people from a variety of industries about their efforts with community and social media management.
Our sixth episode features Sonny Gill, Community Manager for DeVry University.

Highlights include:

  • Regulatory hurdles for social media participation in the education sector
  • The importance of integrating and harnessing the disparate internal communities at educational institutions
  • The importance of students as an, ever-changing and tech-savvy resource to help drive community-building
  • Extending connections beyond the current faculty and students to incoming freshmen and alumni- is that happening enough?
  • A discussion of “Community Chat,” which Sonny ran with Bryan Person on Twitter andFriendFeed (and how to keep momentum going in community- bring the chat back, guys!)

Download this episode.

Subscribe to this podcast series.

MUSIC CREDIT: “Bleuacide” by graphiqsgroove.

About Conversations with Community Managers*
To better reflect the diverse conversations our podcast covers we’ve changed the name of our long-running series to Community Conversations.
Community Conversations highlights short conversations with some of the smartest minds in the online community and social business space, exploring what they’re working on, why they do what they do, and what advice they have for you.
These episodes are a great way to begin to understand the nuances of community strategy and management.
Each episode is short (usually less than 30 minutes) and focuses on one community management professional.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

Shwen Gwee on using Social Media Tools to Grow Community

By

The Community Roundtable has partnered with Voce Communications to produce a new podcast series, “Conversations with Community Managers.” In this series, TheCR’s Jim Storer joins forces with Voce’s Doug Haslam to speak with people from a variety of industries about their efforts with community and social media management.

Our fifth episode is an interview Shwen Gwee, who works in the health care and pharma industries, and heads up a network called SocialPharmer* and the blog Med 2.0.

Highlights of the conversation include:

  • Taking a community cultivated at a conference and continuing to grow it online with social media tools
  • Conversely, how online groups (like Twitter chats) can be used to lead to more substantial offline events
  • The reluctance in highly-regulated industries like pharmaceuticals to using social media, and how to counter those
  • How growth in industry participation has actually taken off in some areas, particularly Twitter, and Facebook, which has seen many popular Fan Pages grow up around support for people with certain diseases
  • Lessons learned from live events, including: the ability for people to talk across different verticals, the opportunity to speak with patients in an informal setting, and in-depth discussions of the mutual trust needed to keep social media use growing in pharma

Download this episode.

Subscribe to this podcast series.

MUSIC CREDIT: “Bleuacide” by graphiqsgroove.

* Note: SocialPharmer is currently a Ning group, but with the announcement that Ning will stop support for free groups, Shwen has told us that he is working on moving the network to a new platform, to be determined soon.

About Conversations with Community Managers*
To better reflect the diverse conversations our podcast covers we’ve changed the name of our long-running series to Community Conversations.
Community Conversations highlights short conversations with some of the smartest minds in the online community and social business space, exploring what they’re working on, why they do what they do, and what advice they have for you.
These episodes are a great way to begin to understand the nuances of community strategy and management.
Each episode is short (usually less than 30 minutes) and focuses on one community management professional.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS