Update: Constantin has created a new wiki of Social Media Managers and Strategists at the New PR Wiki.

I stand by my research, personal experience, and industry monitoring that the need for social media managers will continue to be in demand for the foreseeable future.

This post is a direct response, refuting and correcting Steve’s post that the Social Media Manager will go extinct.

While I enjoy Steve’s predictions (as well as a peer) that the Social Media Manager will be extinct, I’m here to respectfully correct him and leaning on my research findings from my recent Forrester report: How to Staff for Social Computing. In fact, we’ve found that there are two roles to be found in corporations serious about online communities.

Steve comes from the PR agency perspective and from his view, this makes sense. Yet, I come from where demand actually happens: in corporate enterprise marketing, where I was a social media manager at Hitachi.

Currently, in large corporations, specialized marketing managers, are found often sorted by industries, but also sorted by mediums and channels. For example, there are corporate marketers that focus on Web Marketing (my background) Advertising, Direct Marketing (email, mail) Search Marketing, Event Marketing, and even Print Marketing.

While I agree that social media skills will eventually become a normal bullet point in nearly every marketing resume in the future, today, and the foreseeable, we’re needed specializing for the following two reasons: 1) The specific duties are foreign to most other marketers 2) Online communities (like the support team) require a dedicated role.

In our recent report, we indicated that there are two distinct roles appearing within corporations, the social media strategist (I gave the example of VP of Social Media, Ed Terpening at Wells Fargo) and the community manager, who is responsible for being an online face to the community (Lionel Menchaca is a great example).

So, until the roles of medium based marketers (like direct marketer, web marketer, event marketer) go extinct or this skillset completely normalizes or the role of communities (another way of saying customers) go by the wayside, we’ll continue to see the growth of these dedicated and specialized roles.

Steve is wise to assert that the blur between social media and traditional media as we know it is correct –from a PR perspective. But when it comes to corporate communities, developing social media programs, these are skills that the majority of traditional marketers have –nor understand.

As an analyst, many of my clients (at Fortune 5000 companies) consult with us for social media guidance, I’m increasingly on more and more concalls where these individuals have a dedicated role in this new medium.

Lastly, to drive my point home, I’ve been publishing a series of blog posts called “On the move” that list out (in groups of 5-6) individuals that have been hired to fulfill this specific job. If you notice, the rate has been increasing, not decreasing over the past weeks. Looking at actual job movements is a more accurate –and telling—way of looking at social media jobs than keywords from a job site.

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Recently, I published a report called How to Hire for Social Computing, it indicates what management should look for, how to manage them, and how they should think about compensating them.

Just over a week ago, I put out a call to the industry that we were hiring a Community Manager. Because I was a Community Manager and write about it frequently, I received an above normal response rate, 19 Resumes were submitted. Keep in mind, that some of these folks are not community managers, but they’ve all aspired to be in the role.

I promised to protect everyone’s identity, (as many of them are currently employed) but here are the high level findings at average:

A Persona of the Community Manager (based on 19 resumes)

Years of Work Experience
An average of 10.61 Years

Current roles
A majority are working in Marketing or are currently social media position (community manager or social media strategist)

What Industries did they come from?
Most are in tech or media or PR. A handful working in education, religious or non-profit (makes sense as these inexpensive tools have great reach)

Education
Most have a BA or BS, followed by many with MBAs and a handful without a degree.

I think I’m in one of the most rare positions in the industry to have my hands on so many Community Manager resumes in one place, especially so early in the industry

Interesting, I fit almost exactly into that persona: 9 years exp, Marketing exp, from Tech, and Bachelor degree.

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I’ve been presenting in public at conferences or webinars my high level findings from my recent research on Online Community Best Practices, the detailed version is on the Forrester site. I interviewed 17 companies and leaned on my experience launching the social media programs at previous companies. You can view the powerpoint on Slideshare.

The next time I’m presenting this is in Mountain View on March 25 (yes it’s open to men too), discount code for $50 off for Web Strategy readers is SNC325.

It seems counter-intuitive for me to share these presentations on the web as I’m often hired to present these to clients or at conferences, or hired for advisory, but in today’s social media world, my presentation has already been filmed, blogged, and talked about around the industry. The real value comes from the explanations and and insight from a researcher presenting their findings.

I’ve noticed an influx of the $100 Flip cameras (many received them free as giveaways), I spotted 1-3 of them in every panel I spoke at at SXSW, as well as half a dozen in the bloghaus. Cell phones have on board video, and can upload to the web in seconds. See, even analyst firms are impacted by changes that social media tools bring us. Information can’t be hidden, it simply hasn’t been published online.

The key is to learn to let go to gain more, learn how to offer additional value that a .PPT or a YouTube video can never fulfill. I look forward to presenting at your event!

Update: I forgot to include “Forum One Networks” as one of the companies included in the report. I can’t update this version (I tried on slideshare) and since it’s already being spread, I’m not going to update it, but for future iterations it will be updated.

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I write for the web strategist (web decision makers at companies) and was really pleased that we got a top notch professional here at named Michele Frost here at Forrester Research.

A few weeks ago, I announced that Forrester is seeking a Community Manager, and wow did we get a response, over 20 resumes!

I offered her the opportunity to guest post, and she’s decided to take me up on the offer, she shares her experience building the right team, esp in the world of social media

Guest Post from Michele Frost, Director, Web Marketing at Forrester Research

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The custody battle is over! After much debate, I’m thrilled to say that Forrester’s newly created position of Online Community Manager will be part of the Web Marketing team. We’re plugged into the business and work online, so it’s a solid starting point.

With Jeremiah’s input, we drafted a job description and spread the word. Now comes the hard part: We need to hire.

My first hiring experience was my worst: It came to a crashing conclusion with my new employee leaving the office via a stretcher within two weeks. She left behind extensive literature on how to collect workers compensation. Lesson learned.

My methods have since improved, which is lucky for me, my employer, and my new employees. Recent new hires have even been quoted as saying that their job matches the job description outlined during the hiring process. Progress.

But with this newly created Online Community Manager hire, I feel like I’m starting from the beginning. During my agency days at Critical Mass, I developed, sold, and managed community projects. But my team and clients majored in something else and minored in community “things.”

Everything is different in this 2.0 pond. How do you quantify Facebook friends and LinkedIn connections? The personal and professional line is blurred on candidates’ sites and I end up knowing more than I should (or care to) about candidates’ positions on religion, gay marriage, reproductive rights, and music.

Later today, I meet with Forrester’s recruiter: We’ll see how current hiring and legal counsel from Strategic Growth maps with the times.

Fingers crossed.

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Jeremiah: It’s interesting that Michele learns a 360 view of candidates online lives, not just the resume that they put forth, truly a sign of the times.

For those that applied, this is a good example of how we’re trying to be transparent, we’re real live people, as we expect you to demonstrate to our customers and clients.

And I can promise you, we’ll do everything we can to make sure no one leaves on a stretcher!

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Jeremiah: Having been a community manager, I’ve real soft spot to those that are on the front lines, embracing customers using social media tools. Every so often, I hear of really excited folks that landed new jobs, and David thanked me for my blogging and tweeting, which helped him inch toward his goal.

Here’s David’s account on how he became a Community Manager, he’s shared how his networking (using the tools) helped him gain his position.

The following is David’s submitted post:

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How I got my job at Myminilife.com
Guest Post by Community Manager, David Peck

My name is David Peck and Jeremiah was nice enough to ask me to guest blog about how I got my new job as an Online Community Manager for Myminilife.com. If you have not heard of it, Myminilife.com is a virtual world company located near me in Palo Alto, California.

A question that I keep getting is how I got a job in social media. The simple answer is social networking. Yep that’s it. Okay, okay some more details.

I first started listening to podcasts back in 2005. This helped me learn about other social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and such. It was not until I entered Second Life that things really began to change for me. In this virtual world I was able to meet and chat with the people I listened to on podcasts. I got to virtually hang with C.C. Chapman, Chris Pirillo, Jeff Pulver, and Adam Curry among many, many other new media mover and shakers. By doing this I was able to form relationships and get more involved in online projects.

One of the first projects I worked on was for crayon’s Steve Coulson and C.C. Chapman on Coca Cola’s VirtualThirst contest. My task was to help build an online community around the project. Yet, it was not until I discovered Twitter that things really kick in for me.

I went from networking and knowing 25-50 Social Media folk to knowing over 500. I discovered projects, people, places and events I had no idea about. I knew some people’s virtual Avatars but had no idea who they were in the real world. Twitter let me discover that and I got to know them much better. It really is a powerful tool. Everyone should be using it.

From this point I was able to locate freelance work that I had the skills to help on. If potential clients needed recommendations I would turn to my Twitter friends for recommendations from people like Ijustine, Eric Rice & Chris Brogan. In the past year I have worked on new media projects involving UC Berkeley, The Grammys, NPR, & PodShow. It was my being profiled on CNBC for my work in virtual worlds that allowed Myminilife.com to locate me. As their Online Community Manager I will lead incentives to increase membership, run the community blog, help generate quality content that stimulates quality activity and grow traffic on the site. The most important thing about this position though, I get to do something I love and get paid for it.

So yes the secret to getting a job in social media is to use the social networking tools out there to network yourself. Start with Twitter as its one of the best and easiest social networking tools. Where else can you talk to Robert Scoble, Jason Calacanis and Michael Arrington? Heck it was Twitter that let me find Jeremiah and allowed me to be a guest blogger on this site. Oh and don’t forget to add me on twitter!!

David Peck

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Jeremiah: Thanks to David for sharing his story, hopefully what he learned on how to network with others will spur others to move forward. Also, David was featured in this recent video news clip covering his alter ego as Britney Mason, his blond bombshell avatar (female) in SecondLife.

If this blog has helped you with getting a new job (or getting promoted) in your career, I want to know, send me an email. Keep at it!

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Something that I didn’t disclose in public, that my research on Community Managers (that I published yesterday) serves two purposes, Forrester is seeking a Community Manager at our Cambridge Mass HQ.

I contributed the basics to this job description, which as modified by the hiring manager, our fabulous Web Strategist Michelle F. I know there’s a lot of community folks reading this blog, so I’m really hoping that you’ll come and submit your resume directly to me.

I’m not the final decision maker on this role, but I’m going to do my best to find someone from the community I support, so come work us!

Send me your resume
You can submit your resume directly to me by emailing me at jowyang@forrester.com, the subject line must say “Community Manager”. I promise to keep your identity secret, as I’m suspecting you work at an existing company now, my research indicated how hard it is to find these qualified folks.

Here’s the job description:

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Forrester Research, Inc. (Nasdaq: FORR) is an independent technology and market research company that provides pragmatic and forward-thinking advice to global leaders in business and technology. For more than 24 years, Forrester has been making leaders successful every day through its proprietary research, consulting, events, and peer-to-peer executive programs. For more information, visit www.forrester.com.

Forrester Online Community Manager
Cambridge, Mass.
FLSA status: Exempt

At Forrester Research, we believe a direct conversation between customers and employees is essential to helping our customers make the right decisions in their jobs. We are looking for someone who is passionate about helping customers on a daily basis and who can energize and breathe life into a gathering of minds.

The Forrester Online Community Manager�s mission is to develop a strategy and plan to launch, grow, and maintain customer communities at Forrester. As a passionate customer advocate, you are responsible for representing the best interests of the community. In this hybrid role, you are part support, coordinator, facilitator, yet always remaining customer-focused. You lead, guide, and moderate discussion topics between members and employees, as well as collect and represent the needs from the community. You will align the business and operational needs of the community programs and integrate it with various facets of the business.

Responsibilities:

* Develop strategy for the launch and growth of our customer communities
* Monitor internal and external Web sites and facilitate discussions
* Engage with the community through a series of online and offline events
* Provide real-time alerts and monthly reports to key internal stakeholders
* Coordinate, publish, and follow up on Forrester content as it serves the needs of our customers
* Identify and develop relationships with research analysts and key internal content developers
* Evangelize and train internal clients on the value of the online community, including research, client group marketing teams, and IT
* Prioritize incoming member requests and redirect to internal clients as needed

Requirements:

* Bachelor�s degree and experience in managing similar online business communities; experience in marketing preferred
* Well-versed in online communications and social media tools including forums, blogs, podcasts, wikis and social networks
* Strong sense of urgency and ability to respond quickly and timely
* Savvy online communication skills � presenting a welcoming and professional voice yet, able to manage online detractors in a discreet and tactful way
* Ability to multitask in several communities
* Proficiency in basic systems administration such as permissions, content publishing, and other �back-end� tools
* Good social and interpersonal skills that translate well into an online persona

Forrester Research is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer; M/F/D/V are especially encouraged to apply.

The same job description is on the website, and you should see our careers section, there are currently 123 jobs available.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I get a bonus for finding the right person, but I’m pretty sure they are in my network (or perhaps a node one off) so please spread the word.

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We shouldn’t be surprised that Social Media Strategists know how to share. Forrester was pleased to host the Online Community Roundtable, you can continue the discussion in the Facebook Group.

(Update: I uploaded this video with the Flip Camera, man it’s easy capture, edit and publish with this thing)

Bill Johnston is a community servant (Update: he posts his thoughts from his blog), and I mean that in the best possible way. He organizes events for the Social Media industry that serve those who are practicing, it’s really a very valuable service. Every other month, he organizes the Online Community Roundtable for anyone who’s struggling with the day to day job of reaching to customers using online tools, a different company hosts this event each time. Update: Chris Kenton provides his thoughts from the event, he was expands off the idea of Identity Escrow. Ken Kaplan gives context on his presentation on storytelling, I’d like to see Ken speak more often.

To me, perhaps the most interesting topic was one around the “Future of Social Networks” and Chris Kenton’s historical look at marketing, and how technology has empowered and disabled marketers

This is actually a ‘user group’ or in Forrester terms, what we call a ’support community’ where friends, colleagues, peers (and competitors) come together to share and learn from each other. The size of the event is limited, around 35 yielded quality conversations, any more would have caused fragmentations. Bill is masterful in not letting anyone pitch, and anyone who wants to share puts their name up on the board, here’s the list of presentations.

One social network even got up and told the group that they were having challenges growing in a particular market and asked for opinions and help. A few questions from the crowd asked for demographic information, objectives, and clarification, then a barrage of suggestions from seasoned community folks came back to help, now that’s community.

There’s a “Soft NDA” in place, so if a member wanted something to stay confidential, then all will have to respect this, it leads to greater sharing and trust. Some of those who attended included those from Intel, Webex, CyWorld, Charles and Helen Schwab Organization, Cadence, YouTube, Lithium, Leverage, LiveWorld, Ringcube, Intuit, Symantec, VM Ware, Wyse, Babycenter, Tesla Motors, Joyent, SixApart, On24, ZapTXT and hosted by Forrester. (who did I miss?)

I think I can speak for Charlene, that for us this was a real treat, these are the folks we research for, these are the problems that we’re also trying to find out what works and what doesn’t for. I’d like to to thank Forrester’s Frans V.E. for funding the food and drink, Frank C. for helping drag the tables around, and Joan M, the Foster City office manager for all her work and preparation.

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I’m talking to more and more clients who are starting to budget for social media programs, this also includes hiring the right kind of people.

As you know, I hail from Hitachi Data Systems (2003-2006) as the Online Community Manager, I know the role, and what it means to connect with customers using social media tools. While I don’t officially hold that title now, I have the rare pleasure to actually do some research on the role and what it means to customers and business.

Methodology
In the last few months, I’ve interviewed nearly a dozen community managers at many companies, and compiled 16 specific job descriptions to create these 4 Tenets of Community Managers. We also had many internal discussions to whittle down what’s important and what’s not.

Companies assemble Social Media Teams
The report, entitled How to Hire for Social Computing actually outlines there are TWO roles needed for a successful social computing program. It’s available for all clients to download at will, for non-clients, you can purchase it online, and if not satisfied, benefit from the money back guarantee.

The Social Computing Strategist
The Social Media Strategist, whose job is to lead the internal charge, develops the program, gains resources, convinces management, and measures success. In the report, I reference Ed Terpening, VP of Social Media at Wells Fargo as a Social Computing Strategist,

The Community Manager
Secondly, the Community Manager, who’s job is to primarily be a community advocate Lionel Menchaca as Dell’s Community Manager as examples of best practice (big shoes to fill eh?). There are thousands of other community managers who are pushing the membrane of the corporation to reach to customers, the list grows longer every day.

What you’ll learn
This report (which is one of our products, like consulting) outlines who these people are, what do they do, where to find them, how to manage them, and how to compensate them. If you’re trying to convince your management about the validity of these roles, this report will help you.

Also, I strive to walk the talk, if you’re a client, you can leave feedback on my blog, but also leave it on the Forrester site after you login. I promise to respond to any of your questions about the report. (we allow clients to rate and leave comments on every report).

Lastly, If you’re seeking to hire or get hired as one of these social media folks, start here, and read all my On The Move posts.

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(Above Graphic: Sean’s suggests that word of mouth will travel through networks at different speeds, and with different accuracy depending on the network. He lists many attributes that will impact the speed of sharing)

Sean O’Driscoll, who did a fantastic job, who has extensive experience managing the Microsoft MVP program has struck out on his own and has launched his own consulting shop Community Group Therapy.

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SAP Salon: Social Media and Online Communities

Key highlights:

To be an effective community professional, you need to walk the talk and use the tools

Google is not a search engine, it’s a reputation tracker

Sean scored high on search engine results for Microsoft Support after a bad story was on Digg.com

Admits there are many buzzwords, yet many forget to look at the bigger picture

Rather than focusing on the Techcrunch/Scoble “Shiny Diamond” to develop a social media strategy

The 5 P’s of Social Media: People, Places, Process, Platform, Patterns

Process is potentially the most important P –but often overlooked

There are more smarter people about your product outside of your company

It’s good and horrible news that it’s easy to publish. Many fractures due to lack of strategy.

Google is the enemy of brand loyalty, if I can find the answer to a question not on your corporate property

Most advocates and influencers are not
helping to help a brand, they are helping other users.

“Pay it forward” a good model and metaphor how a community works

Participation:

Impacts to busienss: Customer Service and Support, Sales and Marketing, Innovation and Product Development

You can’t own the message and the audience is going to change it on their own

Word of Mouth has been a key driver why people buy what they buy, now with access to information through social tools greatly impacts this

Engagement is about brand inclusion, making sure people have their voiced involved

We’ve all seen ugly babies but never had one. We’ve strong attraction to our own products. Uses a MS open source as a case study

Beta is not early enough to get your community involved

If you want raving fans, get affinity, talks about Harley Davidson

Influencer Framework in Web 1.0: Envision and develop, test and release, and sell and support

Suggests that social aspect of employees were only in sell and support aspect, not other areas

Sean had an executive champion, Steve Ballmer

Social graph: as a business strategy we should think about it as

For some reason, webex auto-showed webcams (powerbook users?) which was a potential major hazard for those who did not know they were being streamed at their desk. This needs to be fixed, could be a major embarrassment for folks.

Also the chat room in the webex client was very active, I saw Kevin Marks, Marita, Pistachio and others chiming away. The organizer said this chat room was the one of the most active they’ve ever seen. Twitter was a big recruiter.

There are several graphics that I could not effectively blog to text, I’ll link to the slides if they are published.

When I live blog webinars or conferences (even doing screen grabs), not only does it help everyone else, but it helps me to get smarter. Writing really helps to cement knowledge to actionable work.

Thanks Sean and thanks SAP for hosting this!

Tagged SAP Salon

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[Above: I peered over the balcony to take a shot of the main hall]

I attended the Customer Service is the new Marketing Summit in San Francisco, really a tremendous view, weather, and vibe at the Presidio a converted military base with a great view. (Both my Grandfathers were officers and used to attend events there).

Think about that concept for a second, the new marketing is actually the customer experience. Absolutely, and with social media, friends will tell friends about their experience with a company, thus impacting how traditional marketing used to flow –now it will be direct from customer to prospect.

They handed this company customer pact document to all attendees, please take a look, I think it’s fantastic, and I’ll hold myself to making sure people I talk to in the industry upload this, and that I also follow these rules.

I was asked to give two sessions on Online Community Best Practices (my coverage area as an analyst) and we had a great sessions on contributors at each of the two meetings.

Although I’ll keep the specifics anonymous, we had startups, small companies, large companies from many different walks of life.

I structured the workshop where we’d identify key problems, then would get folks to share their different best practices, and I’d be sure to add my own. I promised to share all the content and here it is:

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Findings from the Online Community Best Practices Workshop
Here’s what the attendees at my workshop said were important to them

The Many Objectives of Communities

Insight from customers, give them a voice

Better experience

A social experience, where common folks get to hang out

Get users to know that they are a human company, and support

Building communities around products, and to learn from customers

New users don’t know how to start. Or are unclear of what to do

50 million customers, get them to self support

For a low engagement product, how do you get them to be sticky so they are top of line next time it’s time to buy

Bringing service innovation to a higher level, getting constituents to collaborate

Issues: Raising awareness to get customers to use community, the value is low

Improve customer support issues

Collaborate and get customers to internal

The Many Benefits of having a community

Decreased Cost of Support

Increased Revenue

SEO

Improved Loyalty

Transparency: less time spent on marketing programs as they use

Consumer Trust and improve

The many costs of communities

Moderation costs

Negative discussions, or not dealing with them, lack of control

Difficulty monetizing social networks

Cost to take action on what customers ask for, closing the loops costs money

Development costs

Surveys and samples

Measurements

Different ways with Dealing with Detractors

Varies in every situation

1 to Many communications

They have a process is in place

Make them feel heard

Compensate them (depending on severity)

Creating a direct feedback place, rather than having in community forums

Good practice: Develop process for the different types of detractors

One company categorized members to put them into different buckets

Having a good tone, being consistent with all members

General Best Practices
In this final topic, I asked all attendees to participate and share what works for them

Trust is the foundation of every community

Great relationships with members that want to share

Make sure every question that is asked gets an appropriate answer

Create a year long plan, so it’s effective across the business, thinking strategic

Create valuable content

Recognize valuable contributors

Have knowledgeable moderators

Incorporate it into your products

Being Human: Make sure that people know that the community manager is a real person

Acknowledge people

Loyalty programs

Focus on experience

Quality Content

Ask permission: Ask the members if we can reach out and talk to them first

Start threads with questions to get the conversations going

Help users connect with other users, identify ‘super users’

You can never give too much information

Encouraging feedback from the community

Always have a direct email so it can encourage rapid response

Rewarding and recognizing members that have done good work

Embrace what the community is actually doing

Acknowledge when people are right –even if they are hostile

Bubbling up information, turning things into FAQs

Internal encouragement for employees (points)

Every question that someone else can answer, have it answered by the right person

Track Google Alerts, if someone tracks outside the community pull them in.

Be transparent, let the community monitor and police itself (rather than the company taking too much control)

Reward and thank users that participate

Plan and integrate internal knowledge bases

At Forrester, I’m publishing a handful of reports on this topic, they will be available to clients, or you can purchase them on the site, they are very, very succint and tell you what to do do have a successful community.

Didn’t attend the event? Andy took notes Ideas from Customer Service is the New Marketing #3, Christine has captured why Zappos Shares Secrets of 75% Repeat Business Ross Mayfield shares his insight Geek Squad on Marketing is a Tax You Pay for Being Unremarkable, and a few others according to Technorati.

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Click To Play

Connie Benson is a community advocate, and is the community manager at ACDsee photo management software that I’ve used when I was a UI designer. Aside from that, she helps me co-moderate the Community Manager group in Facebook, and has been a big contributor in my research, defining the four tenets of community managers, and is becoming a great friend.

I asked Connie what to do when detractors criticize your company, brand, or products, we also talk about dealing with an overwhelming negative community or forum.

I also recommend setting up a process in advanced that helps to identify what type of detractor you’re dealing with, as some should be responded to quickly, and some should never be responded to (ongoing trolls). Develop a plan on what to do, as you’re going to have to deal with different personalities throughout your community program.

Update: Nicholas Butler says in twitter that Connie’s direct actions helped him give the ACDsee products another try, talk about understanding the value of having a community advocate like Connie.

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I’m starting this post series to recognize and congratulate folks who get promoted, move, or accept new exciting positions. We should congratulate the following folks:

Congrats to Sean O’Driscoll who’s moving on to new opportunities. He served customers as Microsoft’s MVP online advocate program, a 15 year veteran of MS, and based upon my interviews with him, a true community expert.

Recently, Connie Benson accepted a position at ACDSee as community manager. She’s a community maven, and helps manage the Community Manager Facebook group (link below)

Shashi Bellamkonda accepted the position of Social Media Strategist at Network Solutions. He often provides great insight in Twitter, follow him.

Eric Suesz joins Get Satisfaction as the Community Manager, Amy welcomes him in. (Also congrats to Amy and Thor for their new baby)

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How to Connect with others:

Submit an annoucement
If you know folks that are moving up in the social media industry, leave a comment below, or if you’re feeling shy (it’s cool to self-nominate) send me an email.

Seeking Social Media Professionals?
If you’re seeking to connect with community advocates and community managers there are few resources

Also see my Web Strategy Jobs powered by Job o Matic

Also see my community manager group in Facebook

Check out Jake McKee’s community portal for jobs

See Chris Heuer’s Social Media Jobs

SimplyHired aggregates job listings, as does Indeed

Hiring? Leave a commentt
If you’re seeking candidates in the social media industry, many of them are within arms reach, feel free to leave a link to a job description (but not the whole job description, or I’ll delete it.

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Click To Play

Sean O’Driscoll, the General Manager of Microsoft’s MVP program shares with me the three different layers and levels of community. Sean has served the program for 15 years, and had just announced he’s planning to leave Microsoft to try some exciting things (we’ll be hearing from him soon). Thanks Sean for sharing with us and with your community.

Find out: 1) What the three stages of communities are: Satisfaction, Loyalty, Affinity 2) How to find key advocates 3) How to thank/reward them 4) How to engage with them.

Folks have been asking what my life is like and how we do research, I interviewed Sean for over half an hour, and was taking furious notes. It was a great warmup for this video, so in many ways you’re coming with me to the research interviews.

Sean, good luck on your new ventures!

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Summary
The budding Community Manager industry holds 4 tenets; these values resonate as a common thread within the role. The include community advocation, brand ambassadorship, online communication skills, and product requirements gathering and improvements.

Methodology
Recently, I’ve been doing some research on the Community Manager role, which is appearing at most brands that take online communities and communication seriously. This was a role I had this role at Hitachi Data Systems, and many of my friends and peers have this role around the industry, and I’ve written about it extensively.

16 real job descriptions
I put out requests on Twitter, blog and email to get submissions, as well as scoured the public job listings and I’ve reviewed 16 job descriptions from companies ranging from LinkedIn, Buzz about wireless (Sprint), Vancity, Communispace, Imagination Corp, Microsoft, Flock VMware, GamesforChange, Disney, ACDsee, Dogster, SimplyHired, Yahoo, and many others. It was a global sample from B2B to B2C, and the beliefs and values that these individuals require in the job description indicate a direct pattern.

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The Four Tenets of the Community Manager
In the following, I’m not going to list out all my findings, but it was clear there were 4 number of Tenets, or beliefs that each role holds. In nearly all the job descriptions, the following beliefs were spelled out as requirements for the role.

1) A Community Advocate
As a community advocate, the community managers’ primary role is to represent the customer. This includes listening, which results in monitoring, and being active in understanding what customers are saying in both the corporate community as well as external websites. Secondly, they engage customers by responding to their requests and needs or just conversations, both in private and in public.

2) Brand Evangelist
In this evangelistic role (it goes both ways) the community manager will promote events, products and upgrades to customers by using traditional marketing tactics and conversational discussions. As proven as a trusted member of the community (tenet 1) the individual has a higher degree of trust and will offer good products.

3) Savvy Communication Skills, Shapes Editorial
This tenet, which is both editorial planning and mediation serves the individual well. The community manager should first be very familiar with the tools of communication, from forums, to blogs, to podcasts, to twitter, and then understand the language and jargon that is used in the community. This individual is also responsible for mediating disputes within the community, and will lean on advocates, and embrace detractors –and sometimes removing them completely. Importantly, the role is responsible for the editorial strategy and planning within the community, and will work with many internal stakeholders to identify content, plan, publish, and follow up.

4) Gathers Community Input for Future Product and Services Perhaps the most strategic of all tenets, community managers are responsible for gathering the requirements of the community in a responsible way and presenting it to product teams. This may involve formal product requirements methods from surveys to focus groups, to facilitating the relationships between product teams and customers. The opportunity to build better products and services through this real-time live focus group are ripe, in many cases, customer communities have been waiting for a chance to give feedback.

While there is much deeper research on this role to be completed such as where are they, how much do they make, who do they report to, best practices, etc, I’ll just be publishing the above. Thank you so much to all those who’ve submitted content to me.

Additional Resources
I’ve been very involved with this new role, here’s some related content:

Meet your peers and Join the Community Manager group in Facebook

Understanding the Community/Evangelist Role, and profiles of a few of my Favorite Folks

Capture from the Community UnConference

Forum One Community Roundtable–Strategies for Community

Video of Dell: When the Web team leads product development, the evolution of Dell Hell to Dell Swell

Video: Web Strategy Show: Community Strategies with Jake McKee

Update: Also see this association of community managers (IOCMA) that are now calling for members (link via Connie)

(Update: based upon comment feedback, I modified the language of this 4th tenet for clarification, thanks Shashib, and Connie)

(Update 2: Kevin adds a lot to the conversation and challenges the idea that “They aren’t your communities to manage“, also read Evan’s response to Kevin.)

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The following is an exclusive interview with Alex de Carvalho, the Community Manager of Scrapblog.

I learned that pictures can really help tell a story, you’ll see that I use images in many of my posts from events, conferences, or interviews. The web brings a rich experience that helps us humans convey meaning, emotion and stories.

Even if your company isn’t an image based company (like Scrapblog) you can use photos to enhance your online communications.

I was impressed with the great photos that I was seeing out of the BlogHer conference this past week, as Alex (his personal blog), the Community Manager at Scrapblog had been publishing photos he poste on Flickr of their “photobooth”.

I wanted to know more, so he agreed to this interview:

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Jeremiah: Alex, Scrapblog attended the recent BlogHer conference, which attracts a great deal of women bloggers, what’s this have to do with Scrapblog?

Alex: With Scrapblog, you take your media a step further. You may combine your photos and videos with text, stickers and backgrounds to create collages, slideshows or scrapbooks. We launced in April and so far about three-quarters of our users are female, many of whom are bloggers. So BlogHer was an ideal conference to get to know and connect with our user base.

Jeremiah: I was impressed and amazed to see all the great looking pictures on your Flickr account, what’s the story?

Alex: We partnered with BlogHer to run a sweepstakes: the lucky winner got a trip to the BlogHer Conference in Chicago. At the conference, we set up a photo-stand area at the exhibitor’s hall using backdrops designed by Veerle Pieters. We had ordered a bunch of props, boas, glasses, picture frames and hats, including the very popular flamingo hat. When people came to talk to us and to get their t-shirts, onesies, stickers and other swag, they would also pose for a fun photo. Cindy Li and Tara Hunt came up with the photo-stand idea and Carlos Garcia, Caleb Elston, Jordan Fulghum and I had a great time helping out!

Jeremiah:I know that Scrapblog relies on images and pictures to build its unique product, but how did you use images in the context of the event?

Alex: In addition to pictures of the speakers, conference attendees, Chicago and so on, we though it would be fun to have a photo stand to take original, colorful and unique pictures. Within Scrapblog, you may use a variety of themes, backdrops, props, stickers, patterns and such. The photo area was a fun way to show what these backdrops and props would look like in “real life”. We think it was a great match for the event: for most attendees, BlogHer is also an opportunity to meet other bloggers in a fun setting and the photo-area turned out to be a great way to capture some of those memories.

Jeremiah: What will you be doing with these images?

Alex: We took hundreds of picures and right after the conference created a series of scrapblogs with the images. We also posted them to Flickr in this set and also in this year’s Blogher07 Chicago group. The images are also all tagged blogher07 and sbboothblogher07 so they may be found easily within Flickr and within the Scrapblog Builder, using the Flickr API.

Jeremiah: Give me some practical tips for other Community Managers to use those digital cameras at events.

Alex: I think I can learn from you, judging from your Flickr photostream! I think it boils down to telling a story with your pictures, taking interesting photos and being generous by taking as many pictures as you can. Let people know where you will publish your pictures so they may find them later. When uploading to Flickr, describe what each picture is about in the title, tags or description. Hyperlink them in the description field and add them to relevant groups. Encourage others to take pictures and tell the story from their point of view. Then, find these pictures and comment when appropriate. These basic tasks make a significant difference over time.
I upgraded to a DSLR camera this year and focused on learning how to shoot higher quality pictures than previously with a point-and-shoot. I also process them in Adobe Lightroom and/or Photoshop prior to publishing, to adjust the white balance, contrast and saturation. It takes a bit longer, but I think the jump up in quality is worth it.

Jeremiah: What’s next for Scrapblog? What’s in the works?

Alex: We’re very happy with the Scrapblog Builder and are regularly updating it with new photo editing features and new themes from leading designers. We are now working out the new functionalities for our site which will make it easier for you to find, visualize and interact with scrapblogs and with the Scrapblog community. We’ve got lots of great stuff planned!

Be sure to check out my other text based interviews, or watch the Web Strategy Video Show.

Alex de Carvalho, photo by Josh Hallett

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Dell’s blog champion, Lionel Menchaca spends time with me to talk about some of new programs that they’ve put out over the last year. From the Dell blog, IdeaStorm, and how they’re adapting to the needs of customers.

This video is a bit outdated, as Dell has done a few other things since I filmed this, so be sure to see the chronology at the Dell Social Media Saga Timeline.

Questions I asked regarding IdeaStorm: “Isn’t getting product requirements for the computers the role of the product team? Not the web team?”

What has Dell done that’s so great? Over a year ago, they were getting beat up very badly on blogs, support, and exploding laptops. Now in 2007, they’ve launched a blog, are creating videos and sharing, and have even created the revolutionary “IdeaStorm” website that lets customers tell Dell what features they want on their products. The most shocking? Many of them said they don’t want Microsoft Windows (A strategic partner of Dells) on it, what did Dell do? Watch the video to find out.

Dell is quickly leading the social media space for corporations, as they’ve really embraced the changes, have empowered customers to make decisions about products. That’s revolutionary.

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I was able to interview Jake McKee, the Community Guy, in Austin Texas. He shares some key strategies on building a community program, finding consultants, and the do’s and do nots. Jake’s background?

“Jake McKee is an evangelist for online and offline community building, social media, and customer-company interaction. He has been working with online communities, fan groups, and consumer groups since the early days of the Internet, and has a rich background in Web development, community management, business strategy, and product development.”

Although I turn my phone off, and ask others to as well, I apologize for the cell phone interference noises, I suspect that was from others around us.

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My respected friend Lionel Menchaca at who runs the community programs over at Dell exchanged a series of emails this last week. A former sales employee of Dell released a series of tips on how customers can ‘work the system’ to get the best deals for a Dell computers.

Dell asked for the post to be removed by the consumerist who posted the information, they refused. Lionel, the blog warrior at Dell is working hard to open up the company to build better products, have open lines of communication and do what’s right was sick, and was unable to respond during the chaotic exchanges.

Later, Lionel released this apology, which according to the 120 something comments was a sincere apology. Corporations, which are run by humans, make mistakes. Corporations that give human, sincere apologies can win back customers.

Lesson: The power of media control is shifting, corporations that embrace this change stand to benefit, and um, Lionel, I hope you’re feeling better.

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I’ve known Robyn for over a year, we used to be members of the Podcast roundtable and have spent hours debating, discussing RSS, Marketing, Analytics. The MyBlogLog team has been very fortunate to snag her as their new Community Manager. There’s celebrations everywhere!

I can’t say enough great things about her outward and friendly persona, she’s also techie geek, loves video games and can do a great job representing both her company and the community. From one blogger to another, I congratulate you Robyn! (Martin does too)

Her biggest challenge will be to get me to come back and be a user again, I tried it out, then decided it wasn’t for me, as I’m not sure where that data is going and how it’s being used.

There’s been quite the trend lately of Community Evangelists, in fact I even met a VP of Community Evangelism at the Web 2.0 Expo this week.

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(Left: Dell’s Blog Warrior, Lionel Menchaca)

I’ve met Lionel Menchaca a few times, I consider him to be one of my peers, as we shared the same experience deploying social media at large tech companies. Today, Lionel visited one of the most well known detractors to the Dell brand, Jeff Jarvis who coined the business blogging case study “Dell Hell”.

Dell’s Lionel the program manager of the Dell one to one site, and IdeaStorm does blogger relations in real life, here’s what Jeff had to say himself:

“And there is the genius of Lionel Menchaca. In a flash, he transformed the image of Dell in my eyes. From a company that wanted to look at but not touch people like me, that wanted customers to come deal in the company’s space on the company’s terms, here suddenly was a guy who spoke honestly and directly.”

You should read directly from Jeff’s blog.

Related Topics

I’m chronicling the Dell Hell to Dell Swell Saga

Understanding the Community/Evangelist Role, and profiles of a few of my Favorite Folks

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