Social media for your community
From Community Leadership Summit Wiki
Social media for your community
Session Number 1-C
Conveners: Irene Koelher - Almostsavvy.com, Sudha Jamthe – coolastory.com - @sujamanthe
Notes-taker: Steven Dolan
Suggested Topics
- Metrics
- Community Health
- Best Practices (platform specific)
- Interactivity/engagement
- Meetups
11:00 Sudha spoke about Metrics: Find out where your customers are and find out where your competition is. What are your customers talking about, and where are they gathering online to ask questions?
Metrics tools:
- SM2 – social media 2
- Radian6
- Hootsuite
- Bit.ly – if you use it, they have reporting tools.
- http://mashable.com/2009/08/17/enterprise-twitter-tools/
These tools search the internet and find where people are talking about and lists you nice places to start. Also search for your competition. If your competition and customers are talking about a second medium – you should be there too.
What are the handles you will create on Twitter, and what is your personality on the posts? Brand yourself this way. Two different handles can be within the same company to attract different audiences. If you are in business for yourself, use one account. You are your brand.
11:08 Irene Koelher: The only number that really means anything are the people who are listening to you, and are interested. One of the best ways to get people interested in you, is to be interested in them.
Wish them Happy Birthday, and be interested in their day-to-day activity, based on their post. Reading what they say is a great way to find something of interest to them.
When a web designer searches for something like “website down” – don’t zoom in with a “click here” solution post to them – instead, offer help – “I saw that you wrote _____, is there something I can help with”
Sudha had an experience where she had a problem with a service, and vented on Twitter, just to complain, and someone genuine came in and posted their product as a different solution, which prompted her to explore another product than she had intended to buy.
3 ways to be successful in creating relationships through social media
- People want to know you – first, connect with them
- You want them to like you – coming in and spamming is not a way to do that. Be genuine, the user wants to know that you’re interested in them, not their business.
- Develop trust – if someone likes you, they are more likely to buy into your product. If you solve their problem, then you have the beginning of a relationship/community. Be personal. “Let’s meet for coffee”
