Bryan Person's Blog

In two weeks, on Thursday, December 11, I'll be on the "hot seat" in Ottawa (or maybe I should call it the "cold seat" since it'll be Ottawa in December; brrr!) at that city's Social Media Breakfast 5.

SMB Ottawa organizers Simon Chen, Ryan Anderson, and Rob Lane have tapped James Lewis, executive director of the Canadian Interactive Alliance, to interview me for a 2008 Social Media Year in Review.

We'll be focusing on the broad business trends in social media from the last 11-12 months and looking ahead to what changes could be in the offing for 2009.

More details are in this video:



I've already started my note-taking and preparation for the conversation with James, but I'd like to ask for your input, too:

What are the most significant business developments/events/trends you've seen across the social media landscape 2008? Where do you see social media marketing headed in 2009?

You can leave comments just about anywhere I might find them -- on this blog (I'm also cross-posting to BryanPerson.com), on FriendFeed, or on Twitter, using the hashtag #SM0809.

I pledge to provide a full report on the interview and how I included your contributions in a follow-up post next month.

I was in Denver last Wednesday night to moderate a panel session on building and managing online communities, at the monthly meetup of the Mile High Social Media Club.

Community managers Tiffany Childs, from Yelp Denver, and Tim Poindexter, from Disaboom, sat on the panel. They fielded a series of questions from both me and the 30-plus participants who had crowded into the basement of the Whiskey Bar. The result, I thought, was a solid hour's worth of informative and engaging discussion on community best practices.





Below are some of highlights from the panel discussion:

Defining community

Tim said his Disaboom community "empowers people to be who they are and connect with people like them;" it provides a place for members to build "genuine and meaningful relationships."

Tiffany noted that her members can meet and communicate can meet with people they know -- or don't know.

Role of the community manager

Tiffany is charged with raising the awareness of Yelp Denver and growing the membership ranks of her 7-month-old community (other Yelp communities have been around for longer). She supports and connects members to each other by jumping into relevant online community discussions and hosting regular offline events around town. She also writes and publishes a weekly newsletter that highlights members and businesses.

Tim helps keep the online discussions on Disaboom informative, engaging, and civil (more on this third point later in the post). He's also recruited outside disability experts to contribute content to the community, and more recently, he's been charged with managing the site's analytics.

Metrics of success and advertising dollars

Disaboom, a site and community which connects individuals touched by disability, is free to members but is supported by contextually-relevant advertising. Tim said that unique visitors and page views are the key drivers of ad revenue revenue.

For Yelp Denver, according to Tiffany, advertising won't kick in until the community has reached "critical mass."

Managing community conflict

On this front, Tim had the line of the night: "We don't legislate morality; we mandate dignity." While Disaboom supports a full spectrum of opinions and beliefs, it does not welcome or allow personal personal attacks or harassment from its community discussions. Tim said that members who violate the site's terms of use and don't heed the warning to change their behavior will be suspended or barred from the community.

Rewarding members

Good community managers reward their key contributors, and Disaboom and Yelp Denver are no exception. Tiffany organizes special events for members of the Yelp Elite Squad, while Disaboom sends an occasional gift of thanks through the mail.

Following the community managers

Here's where to keep up with Tim and Tiffany on a daily basis:

Tim Poindexter: Disaboom Blog | @6oclockvintage on Twitter
Tiffany Childs: Yelp profile | Yelp Blog

This is the third in a series of interviews recorded at the MarketingProfs Digital Mixer, held in Scottsdale, Arizona on October 22-23, 2008.

Mack Collier is a social media consultant and blogger at The Viral Garden.

One of the most popular features on The Viral Garden is the "Company Blog Checkups," where Mack grades corporate bloggers on their efforts in creating content, generating and responding to comments, and posting regularly on their sites. And in this SocialVoice Conversation, recorded at the 2008 MarketingProfs Digital Mixer (MPDM), Mack explains some of those corporate blogging best practices

SHOW NOTES

* Mack offers his impressions on the MPDM conference.

* Bryan asks Mack what questions companies need to consider when deciding whether to blog.

* Mack explains why a blog shouldn't be an "island."

* Mack discusses how companies can start to create compelling content on their blogs.

Running time: 4:43

(RSS readers: You may need to click through to this post to stream the audio file.)



[Right-click to download]

This is the second in a series of interviews recorded at the MarketingProfs Digital Mixer, held in Scottsdale, Arizona on October 22-23, 2008.



Frank Eliason is the director of digital care at Comcast and the man behind the highly-praised @ComcastCares account on Twitter.

In this SocialVoice Conversation recorded at the 2008 MarketingProfs Digital Mixer, Frank and I talk about Comcast's customer service efforts on Twitter -- and elsewhere on the web.

SHOW NOTES

* Frank emphasizes the value of listening.

* Frank discusses the importance of "being personal" and building one-on-one relationships with customers.

* Frank outlines the simple guidelines he gives to his customer service team for engaging in social media conversations.

* Frank talks about his team's efforts on social networks and websites outside of Twitter.

* Frank explains why the "question of ROI will go away."

Running time: 9:03

(RSS readers: You may need to click through to this post to stream the audio file.)



[Right-click to download]



Photo credit: (CC) Brian Solis, www.briansolis.com and bub.blicio.us.

I've just finished reading "18 Ways to Engage Users Online: A Guide for Community Managers," a short eBook (eight pages) from GOLO.com managing editor Angela Connor.

It's a quick and easy read -- and a good one. Whether you're a longtime community manager or a newcomer to the profession, you're sure to come away with some practical recommendations that will apply to your own community.

Here are a few suggestions from Angela that stood out to me:

Encourage communication between members
Just like the host of a good party, a community manager works to connect members with similar interests to each other.

For example: If Kevin posts about his plans to attend a NASCAR race in Miami this weekend and Kathy is asking on a separate forum how she might score tickets to the event, a plugged-in community manager will spot the link and introduce Kathy to Kevin.

Acknowledge good work publicly
From Angela:

When you come across a great blog, interesting comment or great photo, send your compliments to the author, and do it publicly on their profile page or directly on the content. Remember, you’re the community leader and your opinion matters a great deal. So don’t be stingy with it. Positive reinforcement goes a long way, and it will make that member feel valued and vested

Get to know the community
On the surface, your members may be coming together around a product or service from a brand, but what really keeps them coming back again and again is the strength of the personal connections they make within the community.

As a community manager, you can help build those relationships by learning -- and then talking about -- just what makes your members tick. Is it their kids? Their job? Their church? Their pets? Dig into the topics that really matter to your community, and the members will stick around.

To read Angela's daily insights into community management, follow her on Twitter (@CommunityGirl) and on her Online Community Strategist blog.

This is the last in a series of interviews recorded at the 2008 Marketing & Online Communities Conferences, hosted by Forum One Communications at the Tribeca Grand Hotel in New York City on Wednesday, November 5, 2008. Elisa Camahort Page is the co-founder and chief operation officer of BlogHer. In our audio conversation, Elisa and I talk about her conference presentation: The Social Web: How Consumers and Brands are Connecting. Show notes * Elisa recounts the genesis of the BlogHer conference and the launch of BlogHer.com and BlogHerAds. * Elisa talks about the motivation of many mommy bloggers to leave behind a digital legacy for their children and future descendants. * Elisa notes the overwhelming percentage of women who consider blogs as a reliable source of information, and who make decisions to buy and not to buy based on what a blogger or blog commenter writes. (Check out the BlogHer 2008 Social Media Benchmark Study for more details.) * Elisa offers advice to brands and PR professionals wanting to pitch bloggers. * Elisa shares her top takeaways from the conference. Running time: 10:56. (RSS readers: You may need to click through to this post to stream the audio file.)

[Right-click to download]

Photo credit: Mil8.

This is the second in a series of interviews recorded at the 2008 Marketing & Online Communities Conferences, hosted by Forum One Communications at the Tribeca Grand Hotel in New York City on Wednesday, November 5, 2008.

Brad McCormick is the executive vice president of U.S. digital communications at the PR agency Porter Novelli.

In this video interview (in the shadows!), Brad and I talk about the beakout session he led at the 2008 Marketing & Online Communities Conference: The Role of PR: Public Relationships.

Show notes

* Brad talks about the merging spheres of marketing, advertising, PR, and digital

* Brad answers the question: "Should PR own social media?"

* Brad discusses Porter Novelli's global digital strategy "to have no digital strategy."

(RSS readers: You may need to click through to this post to see the video.)

This is the first in a series of interviews recorded at the 2008 Marketing & Online Communities Conferences, hosted by Forum One Communications at the Tribeca Grand Hotel in New York City on Wednesday, November 5, 2008.

Steve Broback is president and founder of the Parnassus Group. In this video interview, Steve talks about the Brand Monitoring in a Web 2.0 World breakout session that he led at the 2008 Marketing & Online Communities Conference.

Show notes

* Steve says there's "no magic bullet" to brand monitoring.

* Steve talks about the value whitelists.

* Bryan asks Steve whether brand montoring should be outsourced or done internally.

* Steve promotes his favorite free tools for RSS and brand monitoring.

* Steve offers his top takeaway from the conference.

(RSS readers: You may need to click through to this post to see the video.)

This is the first in a series of interviews recorded at the MarketingProfs Digital Mixer (MPDM), held in Scottsdale, Arizona on October 22-23, 2008.

David Alston, VP of marketing at Radian6, is a guy who spends his days immersed in the social media community. From jumping into Twitter conversations and speaking at Social Media Breakfasts, David has his finger on the pulse of what the influencers are saying and doing. (He's a heck of a photographer -- and a decent singer, too.)

In the video conversation that follows, David and I talk about his insights on social media marketing.

RSS readers: You may need to click through to this post to see the video.

Show notes

* David says Twitter is a good barometer of how invested a marketer is in social media.
* David talks about the "transformation" of marketing toward social media.
* David explains the importance of "reactionary marketing."
* David discusses the value of content marketing.