Community Management by Kate Kendall

Posted on November 29, 2011 by ElliotOwl

I attended a community management workshop by the lovely Kate Kendall last night. I have worked properly in community management the last 2.5 years, and spent the three years before that dipping my toes in the water and experimenting with various projects I was working on, both on and offline. I’ve learnt all that I know while on the job, through self-initiated research and by getting in touch with some very clever people. Last night was a good way for me to get a bit of grounding on the subject, and listen to the difficulties and obstacles that other community managers have come across in their work.

I definitely got a lot out of the session. Kate and some of the other participants brought up some really interesting thoughts and ideas that helped me think about different and more interesting ways to approach some of the projects that I’m working on at the moment.

Some points that I managed to scribble down between frantic coffee guzzling, nodding and mm-hmming:

I always find myself going on about this, and I’m glad that Kate brought it up at the start of her presentation. Social is a medium. It facilitates. The reason behind using social as a medium? Building a rich, and organic community.
Understand why people should care about your brand in a cluttered market. What is their motivation?
Online vs. offline communities. Working with them as separate entities will hinder a smooth and, again, organic communication flow.
Is community management a junior role? A lot of fresh graduates are getting into the scene, but does it take more than owning an active Twitter and Facebook account to do the job well? The consensus was yes: one needs to have a solid foundation in marketing communications and branding to be able to execute effectively.
We talked a lot about content curation. In an environment where people are craving quality and rich content amidst so much clutter, it is being exceedingly important to be able to weed out the best stuff. The focus is taken away from creating great content, and from trying to outdo each other. Instead, try paying more attention to opinion leaders and existing ideas and then evaluating, analysing and sharing. Kate’s The Fetch is a fantastic example that I highly recommend.
How relevant is your 6 month, 12 month, or 5 year plan in today’s climate? Community managers, and everyone working in the tech industry need to be extremely reactive and adaptive to change.
The importance of storytelling. Create a story for your brand, stick to it, and let it grow.

It was definitely an interesting workshop that got me thinking about a couple of things. At the moment, I am managing/developing strategy for three communities: in grassroots sport, music and fashion retail. All three are extremely different in terms of content and communication structure. However, the framework is always the same.

I’m always looking to get involved in anything exciting, creative and innovative. If you think we can do something good together, email or @ me. I’ve got some ideas in the pipeline that I’d love to bring to life (thanks Kate, for inspiring me to get off my bum and get things going!), so if you’re a developer/designer looking to partner up with a strategy dude (read: me) to do something fun, also get in touch.

$0.00, the future of business

Posted on October 21, 2010 by ElliotOwl

Chris Anderson, also of Wired magazine, wrote a very interesting article about the business of “free”. He says, “Once a marketing gimmick, free has emerged as a full-fledged economy”. He attributes this to the falling costs of producing digital content.

“The Web is all about scale, finding ways to attract the most users for centralized resources, spreading those costs over larger and larger audiences as the technology gets more and more capable. It’s not about the cost of the equipment in the racks at the data centre; it’s about what that equipment can do. And every year, like some sort of magic clockwork, it does more and more for less and less, bringing the marginal costs of technology in the units that we individuals consume closer to zero.”

A fantastic example of this would be Radiohead’s album titled In Rainbows that was released in 2007. The band allowed their fans to pay any amount they liked. And yes, that also included $0.00. While official figures were never released by the band’s management, Owsinski’s book on Music 3.0 quoted market research company comScore’s findings to be: 48% of the downloads were paid for, 4% of which paid $20 (the retail cost of a CD) and 12% paid between $8 to $12. These are some pretty telling statistics, that remind us that the True Fan does exist.

In the article, he reminds us that offering a product (such as an audio file, in this case) for free does not mean that you have absolutely zero profits. Instead, he encourages us to consider the idea that providing something for free can lead to something else. Perhaps linking this to Kelly’s 1,000 True Fans Theory, Lesser Fans may be nurtured into True Fans by feeding them with free content; telling them that the artist cares about their fans by rewarding them for supporting their music.

1,000 Fans Theory

Posted on October 14, 2010 by ElliotOwl

Kevin Kelly of Wired magazine wrote about the 1,000 fans theory, where he claims that an artist only needs 1,000 “true fans” to be successful, and maintain that success. He says:

“A creator, such as [a]… musician… needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living.

A True Fan is defined as someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce. They will drive 200 miles to see you sing. They will buy te super deluxe re-issued hi-res box set of your stuff even though they have the low-res version. They have a Google Alert set for your name. They bookmark the eBay page where your out-of-print editions show up. They come to your openings. They have you sign their copies. They buy the t-shrt, and the mug, and the hat. They can’t wait till you issue your next work. They are true fans.”

He reminds us that this number is not that difficult to achieve because through social media marketing in Music 3.0, the artist has access to a global audience.

Aside from the True Fans, Kelly reminds us that there will also be a group of Lesser Fans. These people might not need or want to follow your every move, or purchase every single thing that you put out, but they are not to be neglected as Lesser Fans can always be nurtured to become True Fans. He suggests that artists do this by connecting and interacting with their fans via networks like blogs, Facebook and MySpace. Work archives may be stored on websites that can easily be referred to by any interested party.

Everything is a remix

Posted on September 18, 2010 by ElliotOwl

Here is a fantastic series by New York-based filmmaker Kirby Ferguson. The first of this four-part series gives us a really in-depth look at the chronology of the remix culture – particularly with popular music. It reminds me a lot of Lessig’s Remix book (free download here) that encourages remixing and derived work.

I will definitely be looking forward to the next three parts of this series.

Make a donation to Everything is a Remix here.

ElliotOwl

digital dude

Tag Archives: community

Community Management by Kate Kendall

$0.00, the future of business

1,000 Fans Theory

Everything is a remix