Online social communities are the voice of your users, buyers, your sales and recruiting prospects, your employees — anyone who’s involved with your products, services or other offerings. Is this impacting the World of Work or what?
Social communities have more power than the individual customer, prospect or employee because they speak with a VERY LOUD voice, even if they’re not all saying the same thing. It’s not just volume any more; it’s reach and amplitude. And, with the number of channels across which these communities interact, you get to contend with the network effect.
One ticked off person talks to you; a ticked off community talks to you and the world. It works the other way as well, but of course we notice it more when communities are unhappy than we do when they’re pleased. This is a direct metaphor with your workplace culture. It’s tough to deny this fact anymore.
I never get tired of talking about social communities and their impact on brands and the recruiting process for the right talent. To broaden the discussion a bit, this week we’re going to add the notion of community managers to our #TChat Twitter get-together.
More companies and organizations are hiring community managers, and the job’s influence is expanding quickly. Of course some communities may organically grow to encompass the need for a community manager, but these tend to happen more with technical communities, and less so with consumer or B2C brands.
When companies decide to develop communities online, they often take a different course. Organizations need to be prepared to manage the trajectory and understand the personalities of people who fit and are passionate about these roles.
Against this backdrop, here are the questions we’ll be discussing this week:
Q1: What is the connection between a social community & a company’s brand?
Q2: What is the role of “community manager” & what does the future of this role look like?
Q3: Why do leaders & companies need social brand ambassadors & community managers?
Q4: Can you manufacture online communities, or are they best left to develop organically?
Q5: What are the pros & cons of social communities as an extension of orgs’ talent attraction & recruiting programs?
The last question is especially important, I think — we need to realize that there are pros and cons of social communities, and pros and cons for community manager roles.
Bringing much wisdom to the discussion, our guest moderator this week is Tim McDonald (@tamcdonald), community manager for HuffPost Live, founder of My Community Manager, and co-organizer of #cmgrUN. Wow! Joining us, too, will be Kevin W. Grossman (@KevinWGrossman) and the rest of the #TChat gang.
So, be prepared: Please bring your experiences and thoughts this Wednesday, Oct. 24, from 7-8pm ET (6-7pm CT, 5-6pm MT, 4-5pm PT, or wherever you are). And, be opinionated — you’re part of the TalentCulture World of Work community, after all.
We’ll chat with you soon!
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