The Community Roundtable

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Friday Roundup: Introducing The Community Performance Benchmark

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By Shannon Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.Community Performance Benchmark

If you haven’t heard the news we rolled out a new service this week – the Community Performance Benchmark. You can read all about this exciting new offering here, or check out Rachel’s thoughts here. In a nutshell the Community Performance Benchmark is a GPS for your community building journey – a valuable assessment of where your community actually stand. We benchmark your management processes and provide you with community recommendations. It’s information that gives you the ability to set priorities, make decisions and manage budgets with confidence. Sign up here to learn more.

Our favorite news & articles from around the web:

Announcement: #ESNchat + TheCR Join Forces! – So – you might be asking “What does this mean for me?” – and the answer is: almost nothing. #ESNchat will continue to run under the current hashtag and twitter handle (@esnchat) at its current time – 2pm ET on Thursdays. Jeff’s last chat as host will be next Thursday, but he’ll continue to be active as the founder and a frequent participant, helping us make sure we’re providing the most relevant and compelling content for you weekly.

Measuring Community Success: More Than Just ROI – Social leaders ready to take the next step in their community journey now have access to a new assessment tool to help them evaluate their community’s strengths and weaknesses, and make better decisions to build more successful online sharing spaces for their employees, customers and partners.

Stop the Technology Madness – Organizational Cultures Are Decades Behind – Recently the term ‘Digital Transformation’ keeps popping up as the latest buzzword bandied about by analysts and vendors and every time I hear it, I twitch just a little bit. We’ve been here before. Remember the dot-com craze? The term Digital Transformation got batted around a bit then too.

Community Management is No Longer a Mystery – Communities have been around since the beginning of time and online communities sprung up very soon after the Internet was developed. Humans have a visceral need to seek out commonality and connect around shared interests – and it is so instinctive that most people cannot articulate how communities come together and thrive. Because of this community management – and prior to that community development – has been seen largely as an art, learned through experience.

How Creative Outlets Make You a Better Community Builder – Every day I discover a new way that art, design, performance, music, and culture work to build a better world. From the League of Creative Interventionists to fantastical creatures prowling the Burning Man sands to the Thrashbird pieces all over my neighborhood in Los Angeles, I see examples of creativity in action every day. Maybe it’s because it’s my job to discover and connect purpose-driven social creatives (holla?),  but I sense there’s something new happening here. Art is bursting out of our cities at the seams.

The Community Performance Benchmark: Five Reasons Why It Matters Now – We talk about (and believe strongly in) articulating goals, developing roadmaps, and plotting your community journey. But just like a trip – knowing your destination isn’t all that valuable if you don’t know where you are today. Benchmarking is a tool to do just that – tell you where you are so you can figure out how to get where you need to go.

Online Community Helps Nerds, Geeks and Gamers Get Fit     – An online community geared to help nerds and video game fanatics get fit and healthy has expanded with the launch of a summer camp for adults.

New community and social media jobs: 

  1. Social Media Community Manager – JeffreyM Consulting – Bellevue, WA
  2. Community Manager with strong editorial skills – Marketers Anonymous – New York, NY
  3. Stylist Community Manager – Fashion Industry Opportunity  – Stella & Dot – San Bruno, CA
  4. MilSuite Community Manager – Data Systems Analysts, Inc. – Fairfax, VA
  5. Sr Community Manager – Orlando, FL – Pearson – Orlando, FL
  6. Content & Community Manager – EF College Break – Cambridge, MA
  7. Community Manager – Meredith Corporation – Culver City, CA
  8. Community Manager – Braintree/Venmo – New York, NY
  9. Associate Community Manager – Ignite Social Media – Cary, NC
  10. eSports Manager – Blizzard Entertainment – Irvine, CA
  11. Community Manager – FirstService Residential – Norristown, PA
  12. Community Manager – K. Hovnanian Companies – Bakersfield, CA
  13. Community Manager – Big Data – Third Eye Consulting Services & Solutions LLC. – Santa Clara, CA 
  14. Social Media Marketing Coordinator – Marshalls – Mississauga, ON
  15. Social Media Specialist – Mercedes-Benz Canada Inc. – Toronto, ON
  16. Social Media Assistant – Sunshine Village Ski & Snowboard Resort – Banff, AB
  17. Customer Success Guru (Remote) – Shopify – Kingston, ON –
  18. Marketing Manager – Ottawa – Uber – Ottawa, ON
  19. Social Community Specialist – Cadillac Fairview 11 reviews – Calgary, AB
  20. PR and Communications Coordinator – Motek Cultural Initiative – Toronto, ON
  21. Social Media Beast – Liquid Nutrition – Montréal, QC

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Looking for resources to help you excel as a community manager? Check out all TheCR Network has to offer! Toolkits, research, expert advice, case studies and more – for every stage of your community journey.

Friday Roundup: Announcements, Infographics and More!

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By Shannon Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.

This week we got to share some very exciting news – starting in October we’ll be taking over hosting duties for the popular #ESNchat from friend and community professional Jeff Ross. We are thrilled to be able to continue Jeff’s great work with ESN practitioners and are looking for input on upcoming topics. (Missed the news? View both our announcement and Jeff’s.)

Next week will be another big one at TheCR when we unveil our newest service – I can’t say much today, but watch for more info in our next newsletter on Tuesday to learn more! (Want to receive TheCR newsletter? Sign up here.)

Our favorite news and articles from around the web this week:

Infographic: Drive Success with Basic Executive Coaching – According to the State of Community Management 2014 report from The Community Roundtable, members are more engaged in communities with executive participation. In fact, communities with executive participation see 42% of members actively participate, while those without executive participation see only 37% active.

BIF10: Love as a Platform – Going to BIF10 was a treat for me. My life is full of demands – running a business, mothering a small child and attempting to keep dinner on the table can get in the way of investing in myself… yet it is mentally draining and I recognized that I had to feed myself in order to keep feeding others. BIF, I hoped, would be some sorely needed brain candy and it did not disappoint.

TheCR Network Sneak Peek: September 2014 Wrap-Up – September is a big month inside TheCR Network and as the community manager of this fine community I have been feeling the burn! We launch a robust programming schedule for the Network every September and members took full advantage of the live, interactive sessions offered to them as part of their membership. Here are a few samplings of what was discussed…

Rising to the Human Challenge – All business has a human side. Part of it is the obvious one – human resources. Part of it is the fundamental one – customers. Part of it is what makes work satisfying rather than draining – acting like a human being.The human side of business isn’t easy. It can be difficult to get right and is sometimes emotionally gruelling. But those difficulties are a challenge that we have to rise to, and sometimes they’re what makes the human side worthwhile.

Do You Know Who Owns Analytics at Your Company? – At a corporate level, who has ultimate responsibility for analytics within your organization? The answers I most often get are “Nobody” or “I don’t know.” When I do get a name, it often differs depending on who I asked—a marketing executive points to one person, while finance identifies someone else. That isn’t good. How can analytics become a strategic, core component of an organization if there is no clear owner and leader for analytics at the corporate level?

How Sephora Discovered That Lurkers Are Also Its “Superfans”– That tech support or beauty advice web community you visit? There’s a marketing team behind it looking for big insights.

The Left Brain and Right Brain of Social Media Management – At Head Of Lettuce Media, people usually notice right off the bat that we are quite like an episode of Perfect Strangers, as a right brain and a left brain working together. But it is what makes us as a team work so well, we are good at what we do in our own fields of social media.

New Community and Social Media Jobs:

  1. Social Media Community Manager – Creative Circle – Boston, MA
  2. Community Manager – Favor – Boston, MA
  3. Community Manager – CustomMade – Cambridge, MA
  4. Community Manager – Massdrop – San Francisco, CA 
  5. Community Manager – Needle  – Bluffdale, UT 
  6. Community Manager – Hotlist – New York, NY
  7. Social Community Manager – First Tech Credit Union – Portland, OR
  8. Community Support – – United States
  9. Online Community Manager – DDC Advocacy  – Washington, DC
  10. Online Community Manager – American Sportfishing Association – Alexandria, VA
  11. Manager Community  – Sanofi – Bridgewater, NJ
  12. Communication Specialist II – KCP&L – Kansas City, MO
  13. Manager, Public Relations and Social Media – Futurpreneur Canada – Toronto, ON
  14. Community Manager – Desire2Learn Incorporated – Kitchener, ON
  15. Social Media Community Manager – Intern – Literally – Toronto, ON
  16. Communications Manager – Sega of America, Inc. & Relic Entertainment – Vancouver, BC
  17. Community Manager – 3 Degrees Creative Resourcing Inc – Toronto, ON
  18. Community Manager (Co-op) – RBC – Toronto, ON
  19. Content & Social Community Manager – WorldPay – Londo
  20. Social Media and Community Manager – Lebara Group – Londo
  21. Community Manager, Oxford Global Languages – Oxford University Press – Oxford
  22. Global Community and Pro Liaisons Manager – Gamesys – London

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Want to get involved with the community work at TheCR? Learn more about our training, advisory and networking services!

Friday Roundup – The Strategy Kick-Off Edition

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By Shannon Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.

back to school strategyWhile we’ve heard rumors of kids heading back to school over the last month the first day of school in Boston was yesterday. We are officially back in the Fall swing of things at TheCR. This month we’re focusing on the strategy competency of the Community Maturity Model here on the blog. Our first two strategy posts highlighted best practices for Building a Community Strategy and Engaging Lurkers. We can’t wait to bring you more strategy-focused posts over the next few weeks – plus some fun surprises.

And now – onto some of our favorite articles from around the web this week:

Moving through life like the Dalai Lama – A month ago, I saw an extraordinary post about a way to change your air travel experience, and it included a line I kept thinking about: “Arrive early and move through the airport like the Dalai Lama. You are in no rush. All obstacles are taken in stride, patiently, with a smile.”

I need to build a community strategy. Where do I start? – Whether you are starting from scratch with a new community, or taking over an existing community that could use some love there is a good chance you’ll be tasked with building a community strategy. This can be both daunting and exciting. In our State of Community Management 2014 research we found that the foundation of a successful community really is the presence of a well-defined strategy- one that integrates social tools and methods with business goals and processes.

Community Engagement: Mixed Reviews – This is third blog post in ComBlu’s series on Community Vibrancy. Our research on how communities are measuring up is based on studying the four primary areas of vibrancy best practices: engagement, content experience, gamification and community management, and comes from a study we conducted recently on behalf of Lithium Technologies.

Don’t Leave Money on the Table: How to Negotiate Your Next Community Job Offer – Negotiation certainly wasn’t something I learned when I started out as a community manager in 2006. Back then, I was just excited to get paid to talk about the TV show LOST in an online forum for 10 or 15 hours per week. However, as Community Management shifted from a fun side-gig to the career I pursued, I knew I had to get more serious about my work and my value. I had to learn to negotiate.

SOCM 2014 Community Fact #06 – How can I get lurkers to participate? – No matter how much strategy building and content planning you do there are still going to be lurkers hanging out in your community, not contributing. The big question is: how do I convert those lurkers into engaged community participants? While there are no silver bullets for community engagement, the SOCM 2014 did uncover a number of strategies for increasing engagement and reducing the percentage of lurkers.

10 Elements of a Winning Member Engagement Strategy – Even though these numbers are meant to guess at online participation as a whole and not specifically address engagement in online customer or member communities, they still seem pretty dismal. It’s difficult not to get discouraged by such speculation when your member engagement is so critical to the success of your online community and association as a whole.

Over and above architecture: Bridges that are going places – When we humans see a massive river or a gorge between us and where we want to get to go, it’s human instinct to want to build a socking great bridge over the gap. Despite what politicians might make some of us think we want, the one urge we truly have is to be connected to everyone else. Bridges are the symbolic glue that binds us together.

New community and social media jobs:

  1. Social Media Community Manager – Prepfoleo – New York, NY
  2. Community Manager & Customer Support – Bowery – New York, NY
  3. Open Source Technical Community Manager – edX – Cambridge, MA
  4. Community Manager – US – EyeEm – San Francisco, CA
  5. Community Manager – VaynerMedia LLC – Los Angeles, CA
  6. Community Manager – Office – Irvine Company – San Diego, CA
  7. Customer Success Associate / Community Manager – Entelo – San Francisco, CA
  8. Associate Community Manager – WeWork – Washington, DC
  9. Social Media Community Manager – KIND LLC – New York, NY 10018 (Clinton area)
  10. Community Manager – Holiday Retirement – Everett, WA
  11. Internship: Technical Community Manager Job – SanDisk – Milpitas, CA
  12. Community Manager – Entertainment and Media Industry – Tribune Publishing – Allentown, PA
  13. Stylist Community Manager – Stella & Dot – San Bruno, CA
  14. Director Mobility Digital Customer Experience Execution– AT&T – Bothell, Washington
  15. Director Digital Customer Service Chat – AT&T – Austin, TX
  16. Director Digital Operations – AT&T – Dallas, TX
  17. Community Specialist – AT&T – Bothell, Washington
  18. Public Relations Outreach Manager – Complete Solar – San Mateo, CA 94404
  19. Community Administrator – Ipsos North America – Cincinnati, OH
  20. MakerBot Community Manager – MakerBot Industries – Brooklyn, NY
  21. Community Manager, MTV – Always On – Viacom – New York, NY
  22. Social Media Manager – Wunderland – Evanston, IL
  23. Community Manager – Think Passenger – New York, NY
  24. Community Manager – CBS Interactive – San Francisco, CA
  25. Social Media Community Manager – Weber Shandwick – Los Angeles, CA
  26. Director of Content & Community – Mobile Apps & Online Gaming – San Jose, CA
  27. Hyperlocal Community Manager – Action PM – Los Angeles, California
  28. Community Manager – Conperio Technology Solutions – St. Louis, MO 63103 (Downtown West area)
  29. Social Media Community Manager – The BOSS Group – Baltimore, MD
  30. Idea Engineer – GumboLive – New Orleans, LA
  31. Social Media Community Manager – Intern – Sociallybuzz, Inc – Hollywood, FL 33021

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Want access to exclusive case studies, templates, research and expert advice? Learn how TheCR Network can help boost your productivity and increase member engagement in your community or join today.

 

Friday Roundup – Last Chance to Contribute

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By Shannon Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.

I might sound like a broken record – but this is my last Friday to remind you that our Community Manager Salary Survey closes next week. The response from the community has been fantastic – but as always, the more responses we receive the more complete and comprehensive the final research report will be. If you haven’t contributed your insights please take ten minutes now to do so. If you have had a chance to contribute – Thank you! Please consider sending the survey to one or two friends or colleagues that can also contribute their input. Remember – the raw data is confidential so you can share with confidence!

Take the Survey

3 Tips for Building Your Community and Social Media Team – This is a guest post from Sarah Price, Community and Social Media Programs Lead for Google Glass and member of TheCR Network. Managing a community team or hoping to someday? Your community managers, forum reps and social support agents will be the face and voice of your brand. Here are a few tips for building a strong team you can trust.

Working out loud at Deutsche Bank – Deutsche Bank , the German global investment bank, employs nearly 100,000 staff across more than 70 countries. Through its Jive-based platform staff are learning a new habit: ‘working out loud’.

How our new CEO leads before he has even started – I’m pretty excited about our new CEO Mads Nipper! It could seem like a paradox, since I haven’t met the man, and he will not even start until August 1.st. But I actually feel I know him enough to be not only excited – but also confident – in him, and that he can make a positive difference for Grundfos.

The Best Community Managers Have These 5 Traits – Do you have an unfaltering attention to detail? Stellar sense of humour? Penchant for puns? In the newest entry in our mini-series on community management, we tackle the traits a community manager needs to have in order to get a handle on the brand, the community, the product and the newest trends.

Nerd Note: How Zombies Make Your Writing Active – I’ve written here before about the importance of writing in active voice. Simply, active voice makes your writing strong and more concise. This typically means writing in subject, verb, object format. I loved this little quip, originally introduced to me by a former editor-in-chief. If you can add “by zombies” to the end of a sentence, you are writing in passive voice.

Tips & Tricks for Building a Community Management Reporting Dashboard – Creating dashboards that your management team will actually review is a tricky task. I spent the last year of my community management career heavily focusing on reporting and community objectives, and thought I’d share what I learned with the broader community tribe.

Brand Anonymity is Dead: Meet Community Manager 2.0 – A few years ago, I wrote a piece about the future of marketing. Within the post, I made a few predictions: 1. We would see people begin to reach a point of marketing max saturation; leading consumers to become more selective about which brands they engage with.

The Evolution of Community Management: Preliminary Data from the CMSS 2014 – Online community management is far from new – it’s been around since the beginning of the Internet, and in more formal capacities at media companies since the 90s. Our aggregate understanding of the role, however, is still evolving. What we know from our work over the last five years with clients is that the role varies pretty dramatically based on the strategic importance of the community, experience and responsibility level of the community manager, community use case and the maturity of the community program

New Community Manager and Social Media Jobs

  1. Full Time Marketing Manager – Digital Brand Expressions – Plainsboro, NJ
  2. Community Manager (Contract) – DocuSign – Seattle, WA
  3. Brazilian Community Manager (Remote Possible) – Red 5 Studios – Orange County, CA
  4. Content Marketing Manager – Guidepoint Global – New York, NY
  5. Community Manager – FirstService Residential – Lyndhurst, NJ
  6. Community Manager – Transformers Universe – Jagex Games Studio – California
  7. Social Media Community Manager – TechnologyAdvice – Brentwood, TN
  8. Community Manager – MassMutual Financial Group – Boston, MA
  9. Customer Community Manager – Agilent – San Jose, CA
  10. Community Manager – TimeWarner Corporate – Burbank, CA
  11. Community Manager – Turner Broadcasting 108 reviews – Burbank, CA
  12. Community Manager – University of Minnesota – Minneapolis-Saint Paul, MN
  13. Community Manager: Mobile – Electronic Arts – Austin, TX
  14. Community Manager – HBO – Burbank, CA
  15. Community Manager – K. Hovnanian Companies – Milpitas, CA
  16. Community Manager – Warner Bros. Entertainment Group – Burbank, CA
  17. Community Manager – The CW Network – Burbank, CA
  18. Part-Time Digital & Social Media Specialist – Francis Tuttle Technology Center – Oklahoma City, OK
  19. STEPS Marketing and Communications Coordinator – University of Kentucky – Lexington, KY
  20. SEC Marketing Coordinator – ESPN – Charlotte, NC
  21. Social Media Coordinator – Velcro USA Inc. – Boston, MA

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Looking to take your career in community management to the next level? 92% of members agree that TheCR Network supports and advances their personal and professional goals. Learn how our research, access to peers and experts, targeted content and exclusive concierge service can help you achieve your goals.

Friday Roundup: Calling All Community Professionals!

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By Shannon DiGregorio Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.

vermont

The first week in August is already over! Are you plotting all your last minute summer fun? Or maybe you’ve already hit the back-to-school rush? Full disclosure – I’m posting this from a mini vacation. As you read this I’m on the road to beautiful, green Vermont!

We are still looking for community professionals to take part in our Community Manager Salary Survey. If you haven’t had a chance to complete the survey, please do! It’s for more than just community managers (although we’re looking for those too, especially internal community managers!) and every response helps us better document the reality of the community manager role today.

If you know any community professionals please share the survey with them: https://www.tinyurl.com/CMSS2014

Six Principles to Win Friends and Influence People on Social Media – Dale Carnegie’s international best-selling book, “How To Win Friends and Influence People” was first published in 1937. I first read this treasure about 25 years ago and to this very day I still refer to it often.

Community Manager Salary Survey Sneak Preview – Part One – We’re collecting Community Manager Salary Survey responses until the end of the month, and we’re excited about the results we’ve already received. We can’t help but start looking into the data and wanted to share some early findings with you here:

5 Ways To Get Management Behind Social Business – Despite what you may think about it, social media has become one the most influential, fastest growing and most ubiquitous forms of communications in decades. It can create and diminish world leaders in 150 characters, unite people around the world to humanitarian causes with just a few clicks, and it can help companies accomplish large-scale business objectives.

Tapping Into Employee Advocacy – Including employees in your social strategy improves your reach and gives you an edge.

Interview: Learn the Secrets of Online Community Management from Moz’s Erica McGillivray – Today I’m happy to share an interview I did over email with Erica McGillivray. Erica is a die-hard geek who spends a ridiculous amount of time being nerdy (her words, not mine!), both professionally and personally. At Moz, she’s the senior community manager and helps wrangle a community of over 400,000 members, co-runs the annual MozCon conference, and works on whatever else is thrown her way.

Infographic: Social Business Driving Positive Outcomes – The findings from our July 2014 global study on social business indicated that “social business maturity” is related to the level of results that companies achieve. A new infographic illustrates how social business creates value, and outlines the primary drivers for companies seeking to advance toward social business maturity.

6 Huge Benefits of Listening to Your Community – It often takes an outsider’s perspective to learn about new opportunities, whether they take the form of flaws, bugs, or unique use cases. The most valuable opportunities often come from customers themselves — the people who are hands on with your product every day.

How this one simple chart made me happier in 6 weeks – I’d been actively trying to be happier for the better part of a decade – researching, experimenting, wanting. Yet it’s only recently that I found something that worked, something that’s simple, effective, and free. Now I want to tell everyone about it. Here’s the story of my personal Happiness Project.

New Community Manager and Social Media Jobs:

  1. Sr Social Media Strategist/Community Manager – Creative Circle – Detroit, MI
  2. Lead Community Manager (Engagement Manager) -Starpoint Solutions – New York, NY
  3. Social Community Manager – PULP – Ferndale, MI
  4. Community and Social Media Manager – cLink- Toronto, ON
  5. Community Manager – Bridj – Boston, MA
  6. Community Manager – NoshList – San Francisco, CA
  7. THINK Community Manager – IBM – United States
  8. Communications Manager (Digital & Social Media) – Aga Khan Museum – Canada
  9. Community Manager – Nexon America – El Segundo, CA
  10. Community Manager – Draftfcb – Chicago, IL
  11. Community Manager – SIR Corp – Greater Toronto Area, ON
  12. External Communications and Media Relations Specialist – Union Gas Limited – Chatham-Kent, ON
  13. Social Media/Community Manager – IGG – Fremont, CA
  14. Community Manager – Ivy – San Francisco, CA
  15. Junior Social Media Manager (Internship) (Montreal, Quebec) – Groupe Hashtag Média – Montréal, QC
  16. Junior Community Manager – Fashion Industry Opportunity – ICED Media – New York, NY
  17. Social & Community Manager – Conductor, Inc – New York, NY
  18. Digital Community Manager – Petrol Advertising – Burbank, CA
  19. Community Manager– go2gether – Vancouver, BC
  20. Community& Social Media Manager– PumpUp Inc. – Toronto, ON
  21. Community Manager – Boost Agents Inc. – Toronto, ON
  22. Community Manager – Geocaching – Seattle, WA 98103 (Green Lake – Wallingford area)
  23. Community Manager – E-Line Media – Seattle, WA
  24. Community Manager – heartYN (Love Your Neighbor) – Malibu, CA
  25. Socia Media Manager– OX Agency- Toronto, ON
  26. Community Manager – NCsoft Corporation – Orange County, CA
  27. Community Manager – IPG Mediabrands – Birmingham, MI
  28. Marketing & CommunityManager– Invoke Labs- Vancouver, BC

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Looking to take your career in community management to the next level? 92% of members agree that TheCR Network supports and advances their personal and professional goals. Learn how our research, access to peers and experts, targeted content and exclusive concierge service can help you achieve your goals.

Friday Roundup – News for Community Managers

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By Shannon DiGregorio Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.

Welcome to August! This summer is flying by and we are hard at work on some exciting community management programs for the Fall – most notably the first Community Manager Salary Report, slated for a Fall 2014 release! The research is currently open and we’d love to here from you. The survey is short (about 15 minutes) and we are looking for community professionals representing all community job titles and types of communities.

There were so many great articles this week – enjoy this news roundup:

9 Problems Keeping Your Online Community from Being Great – I’m not one for lengthy introductions, the title of the post brought you here, so let’s dive in. Below are the aforementioned 5 problems, and I’ve attempted to provide a solution to help you remedy the problems. Would love to hear more from you in the comments or on Twitter.

The New Visionaries: Richard Martin on the Peloton – Richard Martin wrote a series of posts in which he characterized people working together productively as being like the bicycle racing phenomenon of the peloton: the main group of riders that conserve energy by riding close together. The final in his series — Peloton formations distilled — has links to the other, earlier posts.

It’s complicated: Why we need a new etiquette for handling what’s private and what’s public – It’s tempting to see private vs. public as something binary or black and white, but there is a whole universe of human behavior expressed through services like Twitter and Facebook that falls somewhere between those two extremes, and we need to figure out how to handle it properly.

Sharing isn’t caring: stop being fooled by collaborative consumption – Labeling companies such as AirBnB, Uber and TaskRabbit as “the sharing economy” is one of the finest and most deceptive bits of branding of the past few years.

TheCR Network Sneak Peek: July 2014 Wrap Up – Summer is just flying by inside TheCR Network. I exercised some work-life balance and took a fully unplugged vacation this month thanks to my supportive team who held down the fort while I was out of the office. And while we decrease the number of virtual live events we host due to vacation season the network has been quite busy in the forums. Here are a few samples of discussions, collaboration, and knowledge sharing that occurred inside TheCR Network this month.

The Innovation Turbo-Charge: How To Train The Brain To Be More Creative – The data is overwhelming: creativity is far and away the most important skill needed to “thrive” (and this word is being used in opposition to “survive” here) in today’s world.

5 Ways That Systems of Engagement Bring Out Our Full Social Selves – Technology has a way of sucking the humanity right out of us. Consider how we describe, design and deploy ‘enterprise 2.0′ and work system technologies in our organizations: When we talk about technology systems, we talk about machines, platforms, inputs and outputs. We forget about values, emotion, flourishing, meaning and purpose.

A Day In The Life Of A B2B Community Manager – Somewhere, in the stillness of the night, an online community manager rolls over in bed, reaches for his iPad, and checks to see if anyone in his online community needs help, if there are messages that need attention and to make sure the site is running fine.

Bringing Community Management to the Boardroom – Community management has been around for at least 20 years – ever since the first AOL chat rooms and newspaper forum message boards made their debut in the 1990s. Fan sites and gaming rooms were also early incarnations of online communities. Back then the community manager moderated posts by the thousands on a daily basis.

 New Community and Social Media Jobs: 

  1. Social Media Manager for 3 month contract job! – The Creative Group 2,120 reviews – Norcross, GA 30092
  2. Business Systems Lead – Community Manager – Firmenich – Princeton, NJ
  3. Communications Specialist – Federal Aviation Administration – Washington, DC
  4. Community Manager – SIR Corp – Greater Toronto Area, ON
  5. Stakeholder & Community Relations Advisor – Progress Energy – Calgary, AB
  6. Senior Social Collaboration Analyst – Aon – Chicago, IL
  7. Knowledge Manager – KCM Solutions – San Bruno, CA
  8. Junior Social Media Manager (Internship) (Montreal, Quebec) – Groupe Hashtag Média – Montréal, QC
  9. Selections Editor & Community Manager / New York – Bookspan – New York, NY
  10. Community Manager – go2gether – Vancouver, BC
  11. Customer Care Online Community Manager – Aquent Staffing – San Francisco, CA
  12. Customer Support & Community Manager – DODOcase – San Francisco, CA
  13. Community Manager – Online – 125th Street Business Improvement District – New York, NY
  14. Senior Manager, Organized Play Promotions – Wizards Of The Coast – Renton, WA
  15. Senior Manager, Organized Play Promotions Job – Hasbro – Renton, WA
  16. Community & Social Media Manager – PumpUp Inc. – Toronto, ON

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Community Managers – Declare Your Value!

Have you taken the Community Manager Salary Survey 2014 yet? Your insights into your role are invaluable as we document and define community manager best practices across industries. The survey is short (15 minutes) and we’d love to hear from you. Take the survey now.

Friday Roundup: Mid-summer Stretch

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By Shannon DiGregorio Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.thermometer

What a week! With temperatures soaring in the Boston area we set up camp in the AC and had some fun. In addition to hosting our very first community manager AMA (watch the blog next week for a recap and archive – plus bonus questions!) we talked about what aspiring community managers can do as they job hunt.

Next week we’ll be back with our monthly look at what’s going on behind the scenes in TheCR Network – and more! Have a great weekend!

How do I get started in community management? – This week we’re discussing what it takes to get started as a community manager. Whether you’ve just graduated and are looking to dive right in, or making a mid-career move into the world of community management you might be unsure of what the best plan of attack is.

Industry Interview: Vicki Tambellini, Enterprise Hive – As part of our ongoing series of expert interviews we’re excited to bring you excerpts from a chat wehad recently with Vicki Tambellini – President and CEO (and Founder!) of Enterprise Hive. Vicki shares some background on what’s happening at Enterprise Hive, shares some passionate words about her role and some inspiring advice.

From Employee to Advocate: How Whole Foods Mobilizes their Team to Share Brand Content – Your employees can help you reach an audience on social media that is 10x larger than what your brand is currently reaching. Many of your employees are willing, if not already sharing, your brand content.

Announcing FeverBee’s Sprint – This is shaping up to be a great community manager in San Francisco this Fall. Our very own Rachel Happe is on the line-up of speakers, along with community folks from Wikipedia, FitBit, AirBnb and more!

Content Marketing Best Practices for B2B Brands – Defining great content is no easy matter.To some CMOs or execs the definition may be similar to the Potter Stewart’s quote about obscenity: “I know it when I see it.”I wish I could tell you it is this easy. It’s not; but, here are critical benchmarks you should be aware of to create meaningful content.

It’s About the Customer: Using Customer Journey Maps Effectively – Customer Journey Mapping continues to grow in popularity among marketers and those responsible for improving the client experience for their companies. But moving from the customer journey map to the execution of a customer experience program can be challenging to execute, particularly in the B2B world where sales and service people execute the touch points that form a full customer experience.

How To Make the Business Case for Social Customer Care – A lot of great info in this deck by Blake Landau at Intel.

How working out loud circles could transform your organization There’s a growing chasm between what executives say they want for their organizations and the experience of their employees.

Lessons from the man who managed reddit’s community of millions – Reddit is considered one of the world’s leading news and social sites, with over 5.5 billion pages served to over 100 million unique visitors spanning 186 countries.

 New social media and community jobs:

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Community Managers – Declare Your Value!

Have you taken the Community Manager Salary Survey 2014 yet? Your insights into your role are invaluable as we document and define community manager best practices across industries. The survey is short (15 minutes) and we’d love to hear from you. Take the survey now.

Friday Roundup: Almost Summer Edition

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By Shannon DiGregorio Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.

June is flying by – we’re only eight days away from the official start to Summer and I for one can’t wait. Hillary and I have been plotting fun summer content for the Network and the blog. Tell me – does your community have any special summer traditions or programming plans?

This week on the blog we shared a look at what to do when you might be operating as a community team of one, shared the first part in a two-part series on defining community requirements and posted the recap and archive of last week’s awesome webinar with Ian White from Rackspace. We also hosted a really fun #CommBuild chat this week – I’m excited to share a Storify of the event next week, as well as an interview with some of our favorite twitter chat leaders. Today I’m sharing some of my favorite articles from the week, as well as a handful of new social media and community jobs.

How to Build a Community-Based Support Model: A Webinar with Ian White – In this webinar Ian provides a fascinating look at the culture at Rackspace, shared the guiding principles for their community and lessons learned from their early days, and even gave us a sneak-peek at a new launch.

Social Business is not about technology! – It seems that a majority of social business conversations veer off into a discussion about technology. In a recent white paper titled “Social Business: Patterns in achieving social business success”, IBM defines social business and the benefits as: An organization whose culture and systems encourage networks of people to create business value…

Defining Community Requirements that Scale, Part 1 – Community is subject to the old adage, “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” But simply planning isn’t enough. We often discuss that simply building a community is not enough – sadly, the average community is not the Field of Dreams.

Ten Community Management Practices Learned From WoW Leadership – I have tapped into my experiences as a World of Warcraft guild/raid leader to draw parallels to real-life community management.

Does my community need a water cooler? How community managers leverage TheCR Network – One of the greatest challenges for many community managers is a feeling of isolation in their role. We know one internal community manager who is officially part of the IT team at her company – leaving her few colleagues who have a true interest or understanding in the issues she faces on a day to day basis.

Why Asking the Tough Questions Builds Stronger Communities – On May 31, the World Health Organization (WHO) does something that’s not popular with everyone. The WHO and partner organizations across the globe mark World No Tobacco Day. This year, the goal is to convince more nations to raise the tax on cigarettes and other tobacco products.

New social media and community job postings:

  1. Associate Community Manager at KingsIsle Entertainment – Austin, TX
  2. Social Strategist/CommunityManager
  3. Digital CommunityManager at WGBH Educational Foundation – Boston, MA
  4. Community Manager at Canonical Ltd. – Home Based
  5. CommunityManager at Gainor Staffing – New York, NY
  6. Social Media Manager at Darden – Orlando, FL
  7. Senior Community Manager Emerging Products & Services at Autodesk – San Francisco, CA
  8. Social Media Marketing Manager
  9. Social Media Strategist at Analytic Recruiting – Baltimore, MD
  10. Social Media Community Manager at Republic Publishing – UK
  11. Social Media Support Associate at Lyft – San Francisco
  12. Community Manager at PSFK
  13. Social Media Strategist at IBM
  14. Community Manager at Multiple Companies – NYC

That’s it for this week. I hope you have a great weekend – we’ll see you back here on Monday!

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Did you know that 95% of TheCR Network members agree that the content and peer input improves the quality of their work? It’s true! Membership in TheCR Network saves community and social business leaders time and improves the quality of their work by connecting them quickly with peers, experts and curated information. Learn how joining TheCR Network can improve the work you do.

Friday Roundup: Saying Thank You, 30,000 Times

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By Shannon DiGregorio Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.

Thank you

UPDATE: The State of Community Management has now been viewed more than 75,000 times! Learn more about The Community Roundtable and what we do for hundreds of organizations and community managers by clicking here.

The first week of June has been an exciting one here at TheCR. The State of Community Management 2014 had it’s 30,000th view yesterday! We are thrilled that the research is connecting with and engaging community managers around the world – and we can’t thank you enough for reading along. We’ve also spent a good chuck of this week brainstorming upcoming projects, new research initiatives and more content to help members, and non-members alike advance the business of community at their organizations.

Also related to the SOCM 2014 we released our 4th poster in a 10-part series of fun facts from the report. You can check out the latest here. Do you have a favorite fact or stat from the report? Send it our way and it just might be selected as a future poster!

The Email Embargo Policy: Turn Smartphone Off and Chill!: Be honest. How often do you check your email? Do you scroll though messages before work? In bed? On vacation?

Let Your Employees Mix Business and Personal Time at Work: While taking time out of the workday to run personal errands has previously been frowned upon in the corporate world, a recent infographic by Captivate Network on “homing from work” – doing personal activities during the workday – shows mixing work and personal time may be the best way to rectify work/life conflict.

Spark Creativity with These Tips from Pixar’s President: Growing up, Ed Catmull was transfixed by two things: Disney films and computer science. He went on to earn his PhD in the latter, but he never forgot the magic he discovered in animation.

LiNC 14 social media conference: five key takeaways: Marketers and business leaders from global brands BuzzFeed, Sony and Telstra debated the future of social marketing and the value of online communities at the LiNC ‘14 conference in San Francisco.

Why You Hate Work: The way we’re working isn’t working. Even if you’re lucky enough to have a job, you’re probably not very excited to get to the office in the morning, you don’t feel much appreciated while you’re there, you find it difficult to get your most important work accomplished, amid all the distractions, and you don’t believe that what you’re doing makes much of a difference anyway.

3 Tricks to Make It Easy for Busy Executives to Participate in Your Online Community: As easy as it would be to show your executives this data and have them immediately begin actively engaging your online customer or member community, we all know that isn’t likely to happen. Executives are busy.

New social media and community jobs:

  1. Senior Community Manager – Social Listening Expert at iCrossing- New York, NY
  2. Senior Manager, Online Community Management Consulting – at Socious – Mesa, AZ
  3. Social Media Strategist at Analytic Recruiting, Inc.- Baltimore, MD
  4. Social Media/Community Manager at Extreme Networks- Salem, NH
  5. Social Media Community Manager at AAA Auto Club Enterprises- Costa Mesa, CA
  6. Social Media Manager at Villa- Philadelphia, PA
  7. Community Manager at Meredith Corporation- Los Angeles, CA
  8. Community Idea Exchange Manager at AT&T- Atlanta, GA
  9. Community and Contents Manager at OneTraction- San Francisco, CA
  10. Social Media Community Manager at A.T. Kearney, Inc.- Chicago, IL
  11. Stylist Community Manager at Stella & Dot- San Bruno, CA
  12. Social Media Community Manager at Cardtronics- Houston, TX
  13. Community Manager at Electronic Arts- Los Angeles, CA
  14. Community Manager at Cie Games- Long Beach, CA
  15. Content/Community Manager at Lawley Insurance- Buffalo, NY
  16. Community Manager at Blizzard Entertainment – Irvine, CA

It’s so exciting to see so many new community manager jobs cropping up every week all around the country! We’ll see you back here next week. We’ll share the recap from this week’s awesome Community Manager Spotlight webinar with Ian White and more!

 

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Are you a Community Manager looking to take your career to the next level? 92% of members agree that TheCR Network supports and advances their personal and professional goals. Learn how our research, access to peers and experts, targeted content and exclusive concierge service can help you achieve your goals.

Friday Roundup: The Roadtrip is Over

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By Shannon DiGregorio Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.road trip

Happy Friday, everyone! If you’re in the US you might already be out taking advantage of a long weekend and celebrating the Memorial Day holiday! Our month-long roadtrip came to an end today with the conclusion of the LiNC event in San Francisco, and our whole team is ready to re-charge after a busy May.

This week we have some great links for you, a new Community Fact poster, and of course – social media and community jobs!

The links:

  • Webinar: Community Manager Spotlight with Ian – If you’re considering, implementing or managing a community-based support model this is a don’t miss webinar. Join Ian White, Manager of Support at Rackspace, as he discusses his award-winning customer support tactics.
  • SOCM Community Fact #03 – Executive Engagement Matters – We’ve heard a lot of talk in the last few weeks about the link between executive support and community success It seems like executive adoption is on the mind of many community practitioners, and with good reason.
  • The Flip Side Of Employee Engagement – “In a world where Gallup pollsters say 71% of American workers are “disengaged” from their work, “employee engagement“ is clearly an issue needing to be addressed.”
  • Social ROI = Return on Insanity – “There’s no way to put this delicately, so I’ll be blunt: quantifying the financial benefits of an enterprise social network is turning your company — and the entire social technology industry — into a three ring circus.”
  • Culture Eats Strategy For Breakfast – “I used to think corporate culture didn’t matter. Discussion of vision, mission and values was for people who couldn’t build product or sell it! We had work to do and this MBA BS was getting in the way! And then my first company failed.”
  • Webinar: How Real-World Community Managers Build Successful & Thriving Online Communities – Does your branded customer community have what it takes to be best-in-class? Find out May 29 when DNN hosts The Community Roundtable for a discussion on how top-performing online communities deliver quantifiable business value.
  • How to Design Your Enterprise Social Network for Maximum Impact – Check out this four-part series which highlights the Fogg Behavior Model and strategies to drive member engagement.
  • Beyond Adoption to Value Creation – “A great deal of attention in enterprise social networking has gone into ‘driving adoption’. A focus on adoption can distract organisations from the real challenge of any business activity, creating value in fulfilment of the organisation’s strategy.”
  • Ask Me Anything (or how to steal the best ideas for making work better) – Great overview on the popular “Ask Me Anything” open discussions from John Stepper. We think AMAs are a great content and engagement tool in networks.

Social Media and Community Jobs:

  1. Senior Manager, Online Community Management Consulting at Socious – Mesa, AZ
  2. Community Manager at Moementum – Bend, OR
  3. Blackbaud Net Community and Social Media Administrator at Clark University – Worcester, MA
  4. Director, Global Marketing, Digital and Social Media at Global Specialty Retail Company – New York, NY, USA
  5. Community Manager at Synergis – San Francisco, CA
  6. Coordinator Athletics Social Media at College Sports – Murfreesboro, TN
  7. Sr. Associate Social Media Community Management at Capital One – McLean, VA
  8. Community Manager/Social Content Strategist, Multicultural at Marina Maher Communications – New York, NY
  9. Associate Manager, Online Communications at ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership – Washington, DC
  10. Associate Director of Communications at SeriousFun Children’s Network – New York, NY
  11. Leader, Social Media & Digital Communications at MasterCard – Miami, FL
  12. Digital Client Engagement Strategist at Fleishman-Hillard – Dallas, TX
  13. Senior Community Manager at Townsquared – San Francisco, CA

Have a wonderful weekend wherever you are! I hope the weather is lovely and you have excellent company. We’ll see you back here on Tuesday with a new Faces of Community Management profile!

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Did you know that TheCR Network members work with all kinds of communities? In fact, about 25% work in either internal or external communities and 50% work with both! No matter what kind of community you work with membership in TheCR Network will save you time and improve the quality of your work by connecting you with peers, experts and curated information. Learn how joining TheCR Network can improve the work you do.