When The Community Manager Is Smarter Than The Marketing Department
You saw it, you judged it, you participated in a heated argument with your beloved about it - The Dress.
So... #TheDress.
You saw it, you judged it, you participated in a heated argument with your beloved about it.
(My views shall remain anonymous in the interest of self-preservation.)
First, we couldn’t believe that such a stupid subject went viral. Then we realised that it was an actual issue because nobody agreed with our view.
That’s when it became clear that this was an actual thing. A real thing. The type of thing that makes Marketing departments shout "D’oh" and slam their heads on desks. Because it wasn’t a Marketing campaign.
It was posted by Cates Holderness, the Community Growth Manager at Buzzfeed. Click here to read her story.
Like all Community Managers, Cates has her finger on the pulse of what’s happening with the Community. She sees the hot topics, or topics that could become hot, and she engages with the Community.
And bless her, she created a sensation! But in true Community Manager fashion, she was just doing her job: she reposted good content, and then shut down her computer and went home for the night.
Cates’ story has proven that this level of community engagement can have massive payoff and in turn, it highlights that Marketing and Community must work together.
Marketing needs to understand what’s happening in Community for the benefit of both the Community and the Organisation. Great content and great ideas for content come from the Community (user-generated). This is not a new concept for any of us - everyone from Content Marketers to Copywriters to CMS vendors have been banging on about this for years.
Isra Garcia, clearly tired of this conversation in a blog post for Social Media Today, said, ’content is at the core, the epicentre of it all. Without it, there are no “Likes” (which you’d like); there is no traffic, no visibility, no exposure, no content, there’s nothing! You’ve been warned. Your content must be regular (minimum daily,) coherent and attractive. Moreover, it must start a conversation.’
He’s absolutely right.
The next time you run into a Marketing person in the hallway, tell him about a particularly interesting thread occurring on your forum. Tell him the numbers of people commenting and liking the post. Tell him how much engagement the post received within a specific time frame. And watch his eyebrows go up. Then schedule a meeting with him and give him an overview of your Community and your Forum. Be armed with statistics, facts and figures - as Lithium’s Chief Community Officer Joe Cothrel says, do your maths.
Marketing and Community can be a powerful ally to one another, and it’s for the good of everyone.
And after all, there’s no better feeling than being the smartest person in the room.
Original Post
About Author:
Christie Fidura is a Senior Consultant at The Perfect Circle, helping brands devise a strategy to build community to obtain maximum market impact. http://www.weareperfectcircle.co.uk/
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