Things I’ve Learned from Lately #21

“Things I’ve Learned from Lately” is a regular compilation of articles that have made me a smarter social media marketer. Hopefully, they’ll help you, too.

Four Rules for Community Managers – SmartBlog shares four rules for community managers to become great community leaders, including reflect your community, champion the community, create a leadership identity and show results.

Key Takeaway: Community managers hold an immense amount of responsibility. They are the bridge between online customers and the brand. Good ones are hard to find, so invest in them and give them a solid framework to build the brand by building community.

Conversation Overload – Shea Bennett of AllTwitter predicts that the influx of tweets related to the US elections will make Twitter very overwhelming. There will be so much information coming in at such a rapid rate, it’s going to turn into a broadcast mechanism in which everyone is shouting, and listening becomes nearly impossible. Bennett does explain that even though this may be the case, it’s going to be a “joy” with multiple perspectives coming in and the ability to track reactions in real-time.

Key Takeaway: Social media is incredibly powerful, but with the good also comes the bad. The ability to maintain connections and follow content from as many connections as you can create also means managing that content in a way that’s beneficial. Use the channels to your advantage. If a platform becomes so cumbersome that you get no value out of it, it’s time to look at your current efforts and optimize them.

The Shift to Niche Communities – The Age documents the perspective of Troy Carter, the person behind Lady Gaga’s impressive social media efforts. Carter discusses his focus on the fans. He also discusses the incredible level of data that’s been generated by Lady Gaga’s private social network, littlemonsters.com. “We think the future of social media are micronetworks and communities built around specific interests," he says.

Key Takeaway: Carter’s observation that we’re moving toward micronetworks is a big one. People are looking to be more expressive now than ever online. Networks and brands that allow people to be unique and to stand out from within their own personal networks through social currency have a big opportunity.

Social Media Is Not a Replacement – The Globe and Mail asks whether or not social media replaces traditional selling, and the answer is no. Social media “has not changed the underlying nature or function of buying and selling, it has merely enhanced or enabled the way sales are executed.”

Key Takeaway: Social media isn’t destined to replace everything marketing has been to date. Instead, it’s more effectively used to enhance and to be enhanced by what a business is already doing. Social media doesn’t completely change the game, but it does change the way the game is played. Look at your business and implement social media in a way that makes you do your job better.

Brave Ad World - Episode 76

Episode 77 of Brave Ad World is here. This week we saw another chapter close on a once great social media juggernaut, more acquisitions and much more.

This week’s headlines: Oracle Acquires Involver, Twitter Rolls Out Mobile App Updates and The End of Digg as We Know It.

The week’s news quick hits cover: Facebook and CNN Team Up for the Election, NBC Joins Facebook for the Olympics, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo Says They’ll Go Public When They Want To, Google+ Comes to iPad, Facebook Potentially Launching Job Board, Facebook Updates Events with a Calendar View, Twitter Unrolls Its Age Verification Tool, Google+ Allows Work and Personal Profiles to Merge and Facebook Timeline for Pages Comes to Mobile.

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