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LinkedIn’s Community Evangelist steps in, prevents PR Implosion (and keeps Rubel Relevant)

Categories: Community MarketingPosted on May 10th, 2007

I was watching the chatter in real time today as Mario Sundar, LinkedIn’s Community Evangelist and friend of mine respond instantly to Steve Rubel, PR A-lister in Twitter. Should his complaints have gone unanswered, this would have spiraled into a LinkedIn complaint fest. Steve’s blog post documents the near catastrophe.

Fortunately, Mario saw the opportunity (he’s linked into the conversation on blogs, twitter, and god knows what else) and responded quickly to Steve’s deleted profile.

[LinkedIn Recently hired Mario Sundar as Community Evangelist, who quickly prevented a PR implosion by rapid customer service using real-time social media tools]

Nothing could be worse than a Social Networking profile of a PR blogger disappear, it’s just two minutes from internet Armageddon, nothing would make a Blogger more irrelevant than a deleted internet profile! (I exaggerate of course). Drama aside, the issue is resolved, Steve is happy, and life continues on.

“LinkedIn restored me! Thanks gang!”-exclaims Rubel via Twitter

This is testament to the value of a Community Manager: Support, Marketing, Customer Advocate, and Product Requirements Documenter. Not sure about this role? I wrote about it, and listed out some good examples.

Mario earns a stripe on his Community Manager Rank. Kudos to Steve for encouraging change. Unfortunately for Mario, LinkedIn will likely insert a router into his spine, and he’ll be forced to watch the blogo/twittersphere 24/7 now to respond in real time.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, May 10th, 2007 at 9:20 pm and is filed under Community Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Comments

Jeremy Pepper

LOL - you're the best, Jeremiah. :)

jeremiah_owyang

when are you guys going to kiss and make up...again?

Jeremy Pepper

Disagree about the relevancy part. :P

jeremiah_owyang

I don't work for Linkedin, nor do I know their strategy, but I think Mario is doing the right thing. I'll bet he has a lot to absorb!

Liz

MLPF (My LinkedIn Power Forum: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/mylinkedinpo...) is what Mario's superiors should be paying attention to.

If the gripes posted there started appearing in public, who knows what dirty laundry might get aired. Maybe it's time for an enthusiastic blogger to start airing.

Jeremiah Owyang

reinkefj, cool, good stuff.

I'm actually not the hugest fan of linkedin either, but this story is about how a community evangelist is working hard to fix things.

From my understanding, LinkedIn is doing very well financially, and is considered a success.

Unhappy users? Probally, just like with every software and website. I've got gripes too, we'll see if they get resolved.

reinkefj

Interesting that to prevent bad press, LinkedIn responds. But the MLPF forum is full of other horror stories. If LinkedIn is being buffed up for a cash out, then the buyer better caveat that old emptor. There are a lot of unhappy users on LinkedIn. Right now, it's the only game in town. Bet Yahoo thought that to. Until Goggle. My personal gripe is the changing "rules of engagement". When LinkedIn was struggling to get buzz, momentum, and subscribers, we were encouraged to upload address books and invite anyone and everyone. Now that they think they have made it, (Always a bad thought!), they want to move upscale. Rules, limits, suspensions! They want the 'quality connection" image. The policy de jour. Like a street hooker aspiring to be Julia Roberts. No, you can't mistreat the folks that got you where you are. I may not be an A-lister anywhere. But LinkedIn's fate rests on all the schmoes like me. Right now they are on shaky ground. They had better cash out before the speck in the rear view mirror runs them over. Yahoo had Google. LinkedIn could have a similar fate.

Mario Sundar

I already have that router inserted! :)

As I'd mentioned in my most recent post, monitoring the blogosphere, discussion forums and other such tools helps me to respond immediately to such requests and that's an integral part of the job: http://tinyurl.com/2kbx2p.

Thanks for the kind words, bud. Appreciate it much.