Virtual roundtable: managing a community of purpose

We recently wrote a white paper on the issues brands face when managing a ‘community of purpose’: an online community of people with a common, clear, defined goal. In researching that paper, we had some invaluable input from some of the best community managers working in this area. We included many of their valuable insights within that paper, but, as tends to happen with these things, our conversations with them led to discussion of all sorts of related issues, many of which were out of the remit of the white paper.

Their insight was so interesting that, with their agreement, we hosted a ‘virtual’ round table discussion, to address some of the very specific issues that arise in managing a community of purpose. Each of the community managers we spoke to addressed a specific issue as it related to their own experience.

Our thanks go to the community managers that we spoke to and who took the time to share their experiences with us:

Leah Williams, Community & Social Media Manager at Breast Cancer Care; Patrick O’Keefe, owner of iFroggy Network and author of "Managing Online Forums"; Alison Michalk, Director of Quiip and ex-community manager for Essential Baby at Fairfax Digital Australia; Blaise Grimes-Viort, Head of Communities & Social Media at National Magazine Company and Hearst Digital and Vanessa DiMauro, CEO of LeaderNetworks.

Over the next few weeks, we'll be discussing the following questions:

1. How do you engage with a community, as opposed to just informing a community?
2. What is the value of that community once someone has reached their goal?
3. How do you make an information-based site relevant to newbies as well as to those who’ve been using the site for a long time?
4. How do you encourage experienced members to help out new members? Mentoring programmes / ambassadors?
5. How do you keep members motivated (for example in a weight loss site)?
6. What are the best ways to lay out the terms of the site to make it clear to all members what the site is trying to achieve?
7.  Do you recruit community ambassadors to keep the site alive and growing? If so, what should these ambassadors do and how do you recruit and reward them?
8. What are the best ways of encouraging people to share experiences and help each other?

We'll start with question one tomorrow....in the meantime, read up on the subject with a free copy of 'Communitites of Purpose'  - or just read an introduction to it on our previous blog post.

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The Giddy Social Whirl: Umpteen Ways to Make Your Blog Post the Same as All the Other Blog Posts

Kate Williams ponders the world of social media, and today asks: What’s with all the numerical lists?

Today the first feed in my Google Reader looks something like this:

4 Ways To Build Your Brand With Social Media
, 9 Social Media Best Practices
, The 6 Commandments for Online Conversations, 
7 Brand-Building Tips for your Community
 ...

And so on. It’s clear that someone, somewhere once noted that readers liked lists - it gave them a sturdy raft of meaning to cling to, in this stormy sea of intangibles we call social media. But that was then, and this is now, and I would like to extend a heartfelt plea to you all: Stop it. Stop it now, I beg you.

I understand why you rate numerals as an organisational principle for your thoughts. I get that letters just won’t cut it: for starters, you’d need to make exactly 26 points in each post, since an A-Q of Social Media Musts, say, sounds well lame. But all these numbers don't tell me that you can 'think outside the box'. They tell me that you are in thrall to a fixed linearity which has no place in the kinetic hive-mind that is social media.

So. A thrilling prize to the first reader to who uses one of the following as a conceptual framework for their next blog post: Mime, Space/Time, Music, or Dance.

And while I’ve got you - if we must have Commandments, could we stick to the customary Ten? It doesn’t do to play fast and loose with the entire Judaeo-Christian tradition.

That's All Folks!


For more social media snippets, follow @emodkate - or for general twittery, @KateVWilliams.

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eModeration publishes new white paper: Communities of Purpose

We're really excited to release eModeration's new white paper today.  The paper, Communities of Purpose, focuses on interactive online communities with a clear goal, otherwise known as 'communities of purpose'.

Brands and not-for-profit organisations can establish these communities to act as a focal point for  members to meet, contribute content and provide mutual support as they try to reach their shared goal - whether that be to lose weight or elect an official to office.  Think of Weight Watchers,  Walk the Walk (raising money to comabt breast cancer) or Liberal Democrat Voice for example.

This paper (co-authored by eModeration's CEO, Tamara Littleton, and Head of Community Ashley Cooksley)  gathers the thinking from some of the highly respected voices in community management today to provide clear, practical advice to those thinking about establishing a community of purpose.  It details best practice for the management of Communities of Purpose in order to maximise the engagement and support that these communities can offer their members.

For example, here is our list of things a brand should consider when creating a community of purpose:

• Create the ‘burning imperative’. The community has to have a strong goal for people to join and continue to be active members.
• Add value. What does your community offer that members can’t get elsewhere?
• Stay relevant. The community will lack credibility if there’s a clear disconnect between the community purpose and the brand.
• Agree timeframes. Goal focused communities are mainly transitional. A member - or the whole community - meets their personal goals and so they move on, or the community as a whole comes to an end. It’s essential to have a clear exit strategy before launch.
• Keep members motivated by setting goalposts. It’s not unusual for community members to wax and wane in their interest and involvement in the community. Motivate members by setting smaller goals and promoting feelings of achievement.
• Set clear guidelines. These should be the mission statement of the community, and provide the structure for your community management decisions.

To read more, download a free copy of Communities of Purpose, which includes detailed information on issues that brands may face and how they can be addressed.

Our huge thanks go to the community managers that we spoke to and who took the time to share their experiences with us: Leah Williams, Community & Social Media Manager at Breast Cancer Care; Patrick O’Keefe, owner of iFroggy Network and author of "Managing Online Forums"; Alison Michalk, Director of Quiip and ex-community manager for Essential Baby at Fairfax Digital Australia; Blaise Grimes-Viort, Head of Communities & Social Media at National Magazine Company and Hearst Digital and Vanessa DiMauro, CEO of LeaderNetworks.

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The Giddy Social Whirl - Chatroulette's Todger Filter

Kate Williams ponders the world of social media, and and worries about Chatroulette's core offer

I hear that Chatroulette’s stats are heading south, and that pint-sized CEO Andrey Ternovskiy is worried that an excess of what we’ll gingerly call male nudity is putting users off. In an attempt to halt the decline in visitor numbers, he plans to develop a filter which will eliminate images of the body part in question.

But I’m not so sure. As you know by now, in general I err towards the chaste, but I can’t help but thinking that Andrey might be meddling with his key ingredient. Rather like a vegetarian sausage roll, a SFW Chatroulette might lose its raison d'etre...


That's All Folks!

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The Giddy Social Whirl - The Importance of Being - You Know, Not Dumb

Kate Williams ponders the world of social media, and today takes another bite at the Apple.

Poor Apple - it struck another sour note this week, after backtracking on a questionable decision to ban an adaptation of a literary masterpiece from their App Store.

It is now Some Considerable Time since a US court, in a case widely acknowledged to mark a turning-point in Western literary culture, ruled that James Joyce's Ulysses was not, in fact, obscene. But never mind all that - Apple had decided that Ulysses Seen would only be considered if a frame, depicting what I'll describe as “the decorous nudity of a Graeco-Roman goddess” were redrawn. With her kecks on. Another, similarly innocuous, drawing was also rejected.

You know, chaps, I’m not wildly keen on porn, and I don’t buy into many of the civil liberties arguments touted in its defence. Truth is, I reckon we are sleep-walking towards a piercing wake-up call when it comes to how easily young kids can access mobile porn, and what that might be doing to their developing psyches and sexualities.

But Steve. Steve. If you want this ‘no-porn’ thing to pan out for you, you really need to pay a bit more attention to the game. Nixing Meisterwerks of Modernism®, alongside similarly literary depictions of gay canoodling in an Oscar Wilde adaptation, while allowing graphic heterosexual coupling in other graphic novels? It’s somewhat injurious to your argument.


Granted, two cheers are due, now that you’ve changed your mind. But you might want to beef up the integrity of that whole decision-making process - because it also recently concluded that The Sun’s bare breasts, wrapped, as they are, in ‘respectable’ (and profitable) newsprint, were perfectly okay for family viewing.

That's All Folks!

For more social media snippets, follow @emodkate - or for general twittery, @KateVWilliams.

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The Giddy Social Whirl: A Bite of the Apple

Kate Williams ponders the world of social media, and today takes a bite of the Apple ...


The week, for Apple, was both sweet and sour. Exhibit A: Tuesday's opening of the pre-order list for the iPhone 4.

Now, nothing in life is certain: I’ve recently discovered that the rain in Spain in fact follows a fairly random precipitation pattern; and it turns out that bears don’t always sit in the woods.

But it is a truth universally acknowledged that popular demand for anything which begins with an ‘i’, and ends with a ‘Phone’ will likely be so enormous as to be literally (okay, not literally) visible from space.

With this in mind, I think we can reasonably postulate that Apple were somewhat taken aback (you may translate that as you see fit) to discover that AT&T, their exclusive carrier in the States, had bungled the opening of the iPhone 4’s pre-order list so comprehensively.

In case you weren’t following the thrilling debacle with quite such rapt attention as I, AT&T’s phone and online systems buckled, like a bunker made of butter, under the strain; frustrated customers faced endless busy-signals and repeated online error messages, whilst over at AT&T's retail stores, in-person customers had their details taken down with (wait for it) pen and (oh the joy!) paper for subsequent manual input into the system. To ice the cake of chaos, several people reported being automatically logged in to other users’ accounts, while checking their upgrade eligibility.

Thus far, AT&T has not commented on their colossal Fail, and Apple remain zip-lipped – perhaps having in mind the fact that, despite the Keystone Cops ambience which permeated the whole sorry muddle, they have shifted not only their launch day inventory, but their second wave stock as well.

The upshot: if you want an iPhone anywhere near June 24, you need to persuade Grandma to cash in her ISA right now - no dawdling. Next, start scoping eBay, where a 32GB model, hand-delivered by June 27th, is currently available at five thousand bucks.

You hesitate, I see? You are, perhaps, unsure whether to mortgage your soul for the fleeting thrill of early adoption? Well, for an alternative view, let us ponder Mark Zuckerberg’s now-deleted Facebook update from earlier in the week, in which he mulls the bittersweet truths of iPhone ownership.

Ah. Well, if I’m honest, I was already reeling from the cruel disappointment of the iPhone 4’s UK pricing plan, revealed earlier this week. If you missed it, it seems Apple’s new baby will be delivered in the UK without the traditional ‘2 years and your first-born, please’ lock-in contract - but only if I cough up a super-sized £499 for the cheapest model . If you’re not from round these parts, you should be aware that it’s entirely possible to buy a second-hand car in Britain for a similar figure, if one isn’t too picky about the number of wheels and so forth.

So, on balance, I think I will wait till the hoo-ha dies down. This early-adopter thing is vastly overrated, don’t you think?

That's All Folks!

For more social media snippets, follow @emodkate - or for general twittery, @KateVWilliams.

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Social Media in Business 2010 - eModeration video and presentation

Last month I was really pleased to be invited to speak on 'The Rules of Engagement' at Social Media in Business Conference (#SMiB10 on Twitter) in Richmond London.  It turned out to be a really well-attended and informative event, with some great contributions from entertaining and erudite speakers.  Have a look at the line-up here.  I'd really recommend the events for others in future: it was a well organised conference, drawing to it an interesting mix of social media professionals and those newer to the game. And I met lots of Twitter friends I'd never actually come face-to-face with before, which is always nice.

They've published the videos, presentations and photos from the event for the participants only - but are kind enough to let me share mine here. In summary, this was:  "Engaging with consumers through social media platforms is far from a one-size-fits-all solution. How you should participate will vary according to your aims, resources and audience, but in order to really develop a community, you will need dedicated resources and support from within your organisation. Talking you through your options and pointing out some of the pitfalls."


Untitled from SMIB EVENTS on Vimeo.

The presentation really needs my talk-around I'm afraid, but here it is as an accompaniment:

Tamara Littleton - #smib10 presentation

View more presentations from smibevents.

And for a flavour of the event, here are some of the shots taken during and after, via Flickr:

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You do whaaat? A glimpse behind the scenes of technical moderation

For anyone who believes that a moderator spends his or her time deleting rude words from forums and hitting 'reject' on naughty video submissions (although we do this also), I wanted to give a quick glimpse into the nitty-gritty involved in eModeration's most complex project for a mobile phone provider client.  (Warning: this gets technical.  If your eyes glaze are glazing over at this point, just move along).

To explain briefly our role in this project: eModeration tests commercial 'mobile application' content submitted by publishers for suitability of publishing on the client's online store.  We receive global submissions and need to ensure the content meets guidelines for distribution in various "sensitive" countries as selected by publishers: we have extensive guidelines on sensitive issues that help us to determine the correct distribution and action.
We also check if the item meets certain standards - that there are no poor descriptions that would mislead end users, spelling or grammatical errors, that there are no direct links leading to competitive mobile content stores, that all the sections of the item fit together and match.

As these are mobile phone apps, this isn't nearly so straightforward as reviewing text, image, video or audio. We check the content and certain technical features by installing content on mobile devices/emulator programs.  What do we look out for?  We check for certificate/installation errors, that the content matches the description, that all meets guidelines, that there are no hidden links that lead to other stores for upgrades/other mobile content /inappropriate content.  We make sure that it is displaying properly and that the basic menu options function. In some cases we need to register an account for the particular service that is offered to allow us to complete checking for example on social networking applications such as Facebook. Oh, and of course, sometimes the content type involved will dictate what we do: working with 6+ different content types (Java, Flash, Maemo,…), each item requires some additional checks and procedures.

Speed and accuracy are crucial in dealing with the thousands of daily submissions: moderators work two or three to a shift, liaising to consult over issues and avoid stepping on each other's figurative toes as they try to make sure is item is dealt with as soon as possible. There is a strict workflow between ourselves, the client's own QA team who will often conduct further technical checks, and the publishers' rejection/resubmission processes.  On top of all that, we also perform some qualitative analysis to help the client decide which apps they might like to highlight to consumers in the online commercial store.

That's a lot to handle. It takes about twenty-four contact training hours to train up a previously experienced technical moderator for this project.  Moderators are selected for their technical know-how, ability to work accurately under extreme pressure and also for their language proficiency.  Because, just to ramp it up a little,  we are currently moderating in forty-one different languages ...

When you factor in the time zone requirements in order to cover the necessary forty-five moderator hrs in every twenty-four hours that we work, you get some idea of  the challenges involved in staffing a project of this sort.

Still think we just asterix out the rude bits?

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Who should be the creator and admin of your Facebook Fan Page?

Update 12th July 2010: I tested it again and lo! Facebook must have changed something, since I was able to create a page, transfer admin to another user and remove myself as admin for the page. Hoorah!

Original post: I'm not going to go into whether or why you should create a Facebook Fan Page (now called an 'Official Page').  Let's just say that you've decided to do it, you've got some great ideas about content and apps, your moderation is sorted out, you're fully resourced and someone's about to press the button ...

But who?  Who in your company or your supplier's company should be the creator of the Page?  Whose profile, whose email address should the fan page be inextricably linked to, for now and evermore? Because if you're the creator of a Facebook Page , it's not just for Christmas.  It's for life: regardless of changes of employment or role. 

Imagine.  You've invested in your Page, it has over a million fans, communication is going great - but one of the people with full editorial control over this page is a Facebook User Profile belonging to a 24 year old who interned with your web design company four years ago.  Rumour has it, he's gone travelling ...

According to Facebook, there is currently no way to take away admin status from the creator of a Page (although rumour has it that your account manager might be able to help, especially if you advertise with them).  However, Page admins can add or remove other admins by following these steps:
   1. Click the "Edit Page" link below the Page’s photo.
   2. On the right hand side, click the "Add" link in the Admin section.
   3. Select the friend (fan) you would like to add as an admin.

The point is that you can add extra admins, but you can't remove yourself from admin if you are the creator.  Even though the alert box messaging tells you that you are doing so, it ain't actually so.

I tested the system and gave admin of a test page to another person.  Then went to remove myself from being admin and got this message:


Which was odd, since I had just assigned a friend of the page admin status.  But I went ahead anyway - and on checking, found that I still admin of the page - and the person was the second administor.

I had previously thought that the only way around this would be to register a fictitious profile (with a company email address) to create your page - and in doing so, contravene Facebook's Terms of Service.

But, thanks to the excellent Tamar Weiberg, her 'Open Letter to Facebook' and all the lovely people who have contributed to the comments, I now have the solution.  It's possible to set up a page which is not owned by a profile.

Just go to this URL when you’re not logged into Facebook. You will see the regular page setup, but when you confirm the creation of your page, you get a screen like this:

Use an email address not already registered on Facebook (I'd recommend a company alias which could be re-pointed at whoever is currently admin), and then hey presto - you have a page with no profile associated with it (although you do have the option of creating one if you wish).

I really wish I'd known about that before.  Do pass this news on:  it could save a few headaches. See also this All Facebook post on the topic.

Update:  This post was published in Social Media Today, and is picking up some really helpful comments, with lots of additonal information about this topic.  Do check it out at http://socialmediatoday.com/SMC/203002#18120

Read more about Facebook current issues over at Tamar's blog: http://www.techipedia.com/2010/an-open-letter-to-facebook/#comments#ixzz0pgdZD5lp

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