Since it has become painfully obvious for many established companies that marketing has definitely reached new heights in the digital world, it is imperative that they established their online presence as well.  This means requiring the assistance of community managers to create, cultivate and engage a community of potential customers through social media.

It is not only about creating a valuable shopping experience but allowing customers to form a relationship with the company and other customers as well.  This is very important to online marketing for any type of business, regardless of size and nature.  Indeed, social media has fully revolutionized marketing.  This has taken the word-by-mouth advertising into new levels.

What are Community Managers?

Community managers are basically the online faces of companies.  In truth, they also represent the company offline.  These managers need to be outstanding strategists, products managers, designers and marketers.  They should be very adept at community building.  They are basically responsible for strengthening online community of potential and existing consumers and clients.  If you are the community manager of your own company, how do you make sure that you are an effective one?  Here are some useful tips that you can take note of:

1.    Know your product.  In fact, be an expert of your own product.  There is nothing worse than a marketer who does not know what he is marketing.  People will ask you questions and you have to know the answers to each and every question that will be thrown at you.  People will have problems with your products, and you need to know how to address these problems.  You need to believe in your own product, so you will be able to market it more effectively.  Imagine a customer service representative talking to an irate customer who suddenly asks him, “Are you using your own service?”  Taken aback, the customer representative answered, “Uh. That’s private information, sir.”  You can very well imagine how the customer would likely react, “You probably don’t, do you?  Because you have a crappy service!”  You have to use your own product, so you will know all the benefits and drawbacks to using it.

2.    Be your consumers’ advocate.  There is nothing more irritating to a customer than a community manager who refuses to listen to his problem or complaint.  Yes, you love your product and your company, but do remember that it’s your responsibility to make sure that your customers love it too.  This is why you need to have a thorough understanding of your product and how it works.  You need to know potential problems that customers may experience with your product.  This way you will know how to address customers’ queries, problems and complaints.

3.    Improve your communication skills.  You do not have to have the finest vocabulary.  However, you need to learn how to engage potential customers into a conversation. You need to learn how to attract people and get them to notice you and talk to you.  You should know the tips and tricks on how to start and sustain an effective dialogue with potential clients or customers.  You need to understand your two basic roles.  First, you need to be able to attract consumers and help them out.  Second, you need to be able to help consumers interact and connect with one another easily and effectively.  In order to do these roles well, you need to be an effective communicator.

4.    Create a venue of communication.  Social presence is crucial to an effective communication especially if you are trying to communicate with people online.  You need to fully utilize all avenues.  You have to learn social media and how you can best use it to your advantage.  You can create a blog for instance and engage customers through it.  Of course, you need to learn how to get people to visit your blog.  Otherwise, it will be a useless venue.  You can also join various social platforms where you can meet people and engage them.  Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Plaxo are just a few of the social media sites that you should join for marketing purposes.

5.    You need to be an authority.  In order to do this, however, you need to have an authentic voice and you need to learn how to multitask.  It is difficult to sell a product when you do not have the authority to do so.  If you are going to sell a cook book, make sure that you have the credentials to write or sell the same.  If you are going to sell an SEO system, you have to make sure that you have the data to prove its effectiveness.  If you write the program, you need to be able to prove that it worked for you – and it worked very well!

6.    You need to learn how to prioritize and multitask.  These two things are crucial to your role as a community manager.  In order to be effective, you have to be very good at identifying tasks that need to be address first as opposed to tasks that could be completed at a later time.  You also need to learn how to multitask.  This involves learning how to write, how to create back links, how to do social media, how to do viral videos – and doing all these things effectively.  Sometimes, you may be required to do two or three tasks at the same time!

7.    Learn how to engage customers and build trust.  People will respond to you if they know they can trust you.  You have to listen to people.  You need to build relationships.  Be genuinely interested.

These are a few of the things that community managers need to take note of in order to become effective at their job.

Image Credit: Social Recruiting Summit

Popularity: 2% [?]

Currently 2 comments - But what do you think?

In personal branding there are two types of style. One is the kind which has little meaning. If you’ve ever heard someone refer to personal branding as “style over substance” that person is thinking of this: a signature haircut, a catch phrase or a special hat.

If your personal brand relies on the shape of your eye glasses, you’re in trouble.

Chances are there’s not much going on with your dishes either.

In marketing there’s a phrase that you sell the sizzle, not the steak, but what happens when the customer finds out the steak is no good?

It’ll be pretty hard to sell that steak again.

The style that feeds substance into your personal brand is the style that drives your actions.

Are you a creative thinker?

Are you highly organized?

Are you an eloquent speaker or a person of few words?

Are you Mr Clean?

Are you the “Soup Nazi?”

Do you seek the opportunity in all things or are you the type who points out all the land mines?

Are you a high energy person or the “even keel?”

None of these examples are right or wrong. They’re reflective of the way people do the things they do. When you recognize your style you can apply it to one of the most important attributes of a personal brand: consistency.

Lacking self-awareness of your style can lead to more erratic and reactive behavior. Others aren’t sure what to expect of you.

Professionally, this can lead to trouble.

Imagine watching Emeril on TV and seeing him slowly walk out on set.

Hi…[sigh] it’s Emeril here…bam…I’m  little tired today, but we’re gonna cook up a storm…can I get a bam? [sigh]

That just wouldn’t do, would it?

Now before you start leaving comments about Emeril’s cooking below, let’s focus on the point of this example. He delivers his content with a style that reflects the fires burning inside him. This is a guy who loves his food and it shows. Maybe you’re not getting up on stage week after week, but in your job and your profession people are expecting you to “perform” in some way.

The style of Emeril is not dictated by the nature of his content. I’ve met other chefs who still show the passion and excitement with a calm, measured demeanor.

What are you styles? If you haven’t thought about it before, make a list (or better yet, a mindmap) and do a bit of self-exploration. Call friends. Call enemies. Solicit input and get a feel for what other people think your natural style happens to be. Then, take that knowledge as start using it as a “North star” for your activities in your job, your business, on social media and with your friends and family. The result should be a lot more relaxed enjoyment in life.

Popularity: 35% [?]

Currently 0 comment - But what do you think?

The first thing that comes to your mind when you visit folkd is its uncanny resemblance to digg. If you use Mozilla Firefox, you can access this website from the toolbar downloaded as a Firefox extension. The basic purpose of this website is to enable people to share their bookmarks with each other. Further, this site helps you not just find the right link but also determine whether the link in question is a good link or not. This can be determined from the number of votes or ‘folks’ that the link receives. If you have an account with the website, all you need to do is click on the two links given below to either folk it or save it to your list of favorite links. While most of us would vote for a link only if we like it and would save it, it is not mandatory to save all links that you vote on. You can choose to folk it or save it or folk and save the link as you choose.

However, this site is not all about links alone. This site supports various modes of media. You can upload not just images but upload music as well. Once uploaded, you can listen to music as well. Additional media support is not restricted to music and audio alone. You can watch videos on this site as well. This marks the transition of normal social bookmarking websites to fantastic entertainment zones which provide links, music, videos and lots of friends as well.

If you know different languages, you can make good use of the international language support of this site to browse through various links without any language problems. Why restrict yourself to the ‘English’ version of the web when the World Wide Web is available in different languages. Unlike other social networking websites which restrict you to English sites and links alone, this site will take you to all the great sites on the web irrespective of the language of the site.

One problem with such social bookmarking websites is that spammers submit various links which do nothing but take the surfers to different scam and spam websites. However, this website combines voting as well as moderator support to ensure the site is not flooded with fake links and scam websites.

If you do come across a website which you feel should not be on the site, you can report the link and the moderators shall take the final decision.

Another important feature of this website is the easy to navigate design of the website. The design was made popular by Digg and has become the norm for all other social bookmarking websites. Unlike other websites, this website has done a good job of following the standards set by Digg and other such popular websites.

The name of this website emphasizes on the ‘social’ aspect of social bookmarking websites. More and more people are climbing on to the bandwagon to exploit the popularity of such websites. Folkd is one such website to include in your social media portfolio.

Click here to download the firefox extension for folkd

Image Credit: folkd

Popularity: 9% [?]

Currently 0 comment - But what do you think?

There was a time when managing bookmarks was a very simple affair. Of course, web browsing software applications did not offer even half of the functionality that social networking websites offer today. However, considering the large number of web sites available today and considering the fact that each website claims to be the best, it does become difficult to ascertain whether you have chosen the right service or not.

There are many web sites offering the ability to store bookmarks online, share them with friends and assign tags to make them easier to search. The end result is that we store all our bookmarks online and access from anywhere on the World Wide Web. However, there always is a doubt whether the bookmark stored on the site is private or not. Of course, we are given the choice of determining whether the bookmark should be made public or not. However, one can never be sure that one has marked a bookmark as a private. Most social networking websites work on the principle of making bookmarks public unless specifically instructed as private.

To solve this problem permanently, Yahoo has their come up with a different websites for bookmarks storage. One is bookmarks.yahoo website which is totally dedicated to private bookmarks. The other website is Digg which is exclusively dedicated to social networking of bookmarks. You can a share the same account on both the web sites. However, you cannot make any bookmark private on Digg and you cannot make any bookmark public on Bookmarks.Yahoo.

Both the sites are very user friendly and have been designed in a very intuitive manner. The private bookmark web site offers the ability to assign tags to the links. Hence, you can quickly search through your private collection of bookmarks without any difficulty.

You can upload your public bookmarks like links to blogs, current event, news and happenings to the public bookmarking web site and retain your private recipes, cooking information, and private financial information to your Bookmarks.Yahoo site.

Had the site in question been managed by any other entity, the issue of privacy and security would definitely have arisen. However, Yahoo has established itself as a brand that is synonymous with quality service and security. You can be rest assured that your private bookmarks shall remain private at all times. Your account can be accessed only through your username and your password.

When one thinks of Yahoo and lots of links, one cannot help visualize the directory service offered by Yahoo. This feature has been incorporated into this website as the surfers can store all private bookmarks in different directories. The different folders will ensure that your list of bookmarks remains completely organized at all times. Pankaj opines “I like the folder options. It keeps my things organized and clutter free.”

Of course, this web site offers the Yahoo toolbar which can be used to add links to your private account without any difficulty whatsoever. The best part is that you can access your private as well as your public links by logging on to the web from your personal computer or even from a café.

Click here to know more about this site.

Click here for some tools related to this site.

Click here for the Yahoo Toolbar

Popularity: 11% [?]

Currently 0 comment - But what do you think?