Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Social Media Staffing, Malaise and Drama

I'm having writer's block this week for some reason, but am also having blogging withdrawals. So I need to post something. In no particular order here are some things I would blog about but can't get past a few half-baked sentences so will just stick with links/random comments:
  • Yesterday I was reading NTEN's 2010 Nonprofit Social Network Benchmark Report and was drawn to one particular finding in the executive summary: "one-half of organizations indicate that they will increase employee staffing related to commercial social networks in the coming 12 months." I sure hope this means that ASAE plans to provide some sort of salary benchmark for social media positions sometime soon, because you know I'm still stuck on that whole issue.
  • In that same vein (sort of) I loved this post about what to do when you lose your social media enthusiasm.
  • Again, in that same vein, I also loved this open letter to companies planning online communities. All the organizations who, according to NTEN's survey, are planning on staffing up their online community efforts need to read this post before they hire. Points to pay particular attention to:
    1. Make sure your community manager is empowered. You won’t have a successful online community if your community manager has to get approval for any comment or post they make within the community.
    2. You need to be willing and able to change as a company – if your online community is successful you’ll have access to a huge amount of information and feedback. You’ll get to know your customers intimately – make sure you change in response to what you’re learning, otherwise the whole exercise is pointless.
    3. Building an online community signals your commitment to becoming far more customer focused. If you’re unwilling to change, if you’re unwilling to be more open, if you’re unwilling to be more ‘human’, then an online community probably isn’t for you.
  • Not really related to the same issues but interesting nonetheless: lots of drama in the blog ad world this week. Bloggers suing Blogher ad network for breach of contract; Blogher ads claiming the blogger's claims against them are false; Federated Media's employees trolling around using nasty/laughable nicknames. Makes me glad I stopped running ads on my blog.

  • Harvard Law Review calls FTC Blogger Guidelines unconstitutional. Really?

I could keep going but I'll spare you....

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