Overview: Online Community Management

As commented on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/groups/New-Narrative-Europe-closing-event-4203563.S.5916497700450234368), a poll with an interesting set of options to choose from: "Do you: a) Love Europe as a state of mind? b) Love Europe as a solution to the challenges we face together? c) Love Europe for its victory over the barriers which o…

Written for journalists, but good for brand journalism & gov comms, where content is usually unfailingly sunny or relentlessly bleak: "Studies show that stories which explore solutions to problems rather than just the problems themselves prompt audiences to engage with the news and share ... the media should also pay attention to the responses p…

As I mentioned in my previous post, the past couple of years have seen a lot of innovation in online content strategy, coupled with growing disenchantment with "Big Internet".

"As #ISISMediaBlackout gathered pace it became one of the world's first anti-viral virals. Tweeted around 20,000 times, it managed to eclipse the content itself. #ISISMediaBlackout might be a sign that social media is taking the step forwards that it most badly needs.... It needs digital citizenship, the realisation that our behaviour online a…

"the biggest impact on competitive advantage comes not from products, processes or technology, but empowered employees. And with the lines between Internal and External Communication becoming increasingly blurred, ensuring your people are engaged and empowered has never been more critical.... Leading Internal Communication teams are already bla…

"The Guardian released a beta version of its new website to get reader feedback as it continues to tweak its design.... Content discovery is a major focus ... “container model” allows the paper to implement a responsive design while also retaining a story hierarchy, user experience director... Each item contains a story, which are put together…

"3 main talking points of why your B2C clients should want to work with bloggers."

Unsurprising that LinkedIn promoted this post.... the comments rapidly turned into an interesting conversation on Linkedin v. Facebook... people seem to comment more on LinkedIn posts than elsewhere. Perhaps the return of blogging that people are starting to talk about is next.

Beat this: "Each day, HBR.org publish five to seven pieces of top-notch content with a staff of fewer than 10 full-time digital editors and no full-time writers ... four million unique visitors every month." What really stood out for me was how they get the "expert take", using the Content Partnership model I used when trying to decentralise com…

"Because blogging isn’t new and hip, many people dismiss this form of content as less effective.... Blogging is a great front door for any individual or organization because it is real estate that you can own.... Contrast that with social networks like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and G+. All are good, but you will never own your real estate the…

"Your community, as it grows, is not really your choice. ... Your first 10 members will define your 100 will define your 1,000 will define your 1,000,000. The only choice you have as a business and as a host is who you invite to be your first 10-100 members. After that, you sort of have to get out of the way and then meet the needs of this new thi…

"Continuing its tradition of airing its internal discussions outside the office, the staff at Jezebel today called out the higher-ups at parent Gawker Media today over some pretty disgusting trolling at the site." I wonder how much more loyalty Jezebel's community feel for the site because they air their internal problems so publicly? I wonder ho…

"Canadian researchers have confirmed what most people suspected all along: that internet trolls are archetypal Machiavellian sadists.... via Heather-Anne MacLean's post: https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140730175026-5723090-don-t-feed-the-trolls-research-reveals-psychopathy - Online trolls are psychopaths and sadists, psychologists …

Brown Moses made his name crowdsourcing information in conflict zones, such as analysing weapons in Syria ... from his front room in Leicester, England... using social media, open source tools, and public information to verify details that news organizations can miss. Today, he's launching a site to pool his and others knowledge together in one…

Apart from 3 good videos to watch, a good example of content curation... "We have all heard (ad nauseam) about the “power of brand storytelling,” and I know that I have read more than one blog that spits off a numeric list of tips that I just “can’t live without” as a content marketer..." - 3 TED Talks That Uncover the Secrets of Storytelling | …

LinkedIn lost my last post, so I expect that this will be my last post there. Apart from announcing that, the post also sets out some of the other problems I’ve discovered with LinkedIn’s attempt to become a blogging platform.I’m not predicting their failure - as my first post pointed out, the concept has huge inbuilt advantages. But any system wh…

Fascinating article in Issue 14 (theme: Evolution): "It is a case of convergent evolution—where different species separately developed similar biological adaptations when faced with the same environmental pressures. Salamanders are Wake’s go-to example when asked a decades-old question in evolutionary biology: If you could replay the “tape of lif…

"On Monday, at almost the exact same moment as tens of thousands of people — including dozens of professional journalists — were checking the SCOTUSblog site to see whether new decisions by the country’s top court had been posted, the site itself was being denied a press pass" - Senate press gallery ignores the evolution of journalism, denies SCO…

"Gallup's State of the American Consumer ... appears flawed on multiple levels... based on surveys performed back in December 2012 and January 2013... a virtual lifetime ago... [moreover] "You don't poll consumers whether advertisements or marketing make them buy stuff. People will always say, 'No, I am not influenced... It's not an objective in…

More coverage of the non-scoop of the century ... "companies are desperate to reach consumers, and with hundreds off millions of them visiting social media sites every day, marketers feel like they simply have to be there too, so they are-to the tune of more than $5 billion last year in the U.S. alone... Evidently, they're wasting their money…

"1. Expert credibility comes from having knowledge others do not. People want experts they can understand and trust, especially when trying to understand complex or ambiguous topics like new technology, engineering, advanced science, or law... 2. Harness hierarchical credibility 3. Seek referent credibility 4. Take advantage of associative credib…

New data supporting old news: "According to Gallup ... of 18,000 consumers surveyed, 62 percent said social media had no influence on their buying decisions. Among millennials, 48 percent said social media didn't make a difference... Many social media advertisers have ... neglected the essence, and potential, of social media: people talking to …

Excellent article. Would implement it all if I wasn't so busy ;) "How many hours we work every day is barely important any more in today’s creative economy. Instead, “Manage your energy, not your time ... we have 4 different types of energies to manage every day: - physical energy – how healthy are you? - emotional energy – how happy are you? - …

"steering the storyline between a brand and its consumers must create programs that remember the code, deploy many different types of content at the correct time and inject humanity and purpose into every story..."

Good example of CMS innovations emerging from newsrooms - wish I'd added to my recent weekly LinkedIn tour: "a multi-faceted piece of newsroom infrastructure, a set of building blocks that will allow organizations to turn on or turn off various engagement features with relative ease ... a bunch of parts that you can assemble and reassemble ... …

'Innovation' threaded its way through a lot of the resources added to my TumblrHub last week: from innovation-friendly management through to innovative Content Management Systems for tomorrow's newsmedia business models and personal productivity tools.

@digitaltonto on "Cargo Cult Marketers", who - despite the complexity of modern marketing - "offer a false solution ... a simple formula that explains everything." Greg goes into the psychology of this particular breed of marketers with great insight, charting how they come up with and fall in love with their own idea and then, subconsciously, on…

"These numbers are even more striking when you consider engagement is significantly down even though brands are almost certainly spending more money to promote their posts to combat plummeting organic reach. Facebook’s ad revenue reached $2.27 billion in Q1 2014, up 82 percent from Q1 2013" - New Report Reveals Just How Drastically Brand Engageme…

"Influencers come in many forms — celebrities, connectors, thought leaders, aggregators, CEOs and journalists — and need to be identified and targeted based on your vertical market. The following tools are avenues to help you define who you should target as an influencer through 2014 and beyond." - Influencer Marketing Tools That Will Power Yo…

How's (y)our LinkedIn strategy? "Bob runs a local business and was fired by a new customer... The customer had decided to review the LinkedIn profiles of Bob and his staff. As it turns out, there were mixed messages being presented and the nature and quality of Bob’s business came into question." - A Story About How LinkedIn Can Hurt Your B…