8 Signs Your Community Manager Doesn’t Know Squat

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Let’s face it. We have all heard or been approached by the “digital marketing jedi” or “social media guru.” I want to think this only exists with the small sect of Internet consultants, who are delusional and convinced they can make millions by cashing in on the Facebook consulting bandwagon. Yet sadly, there’s a lot more people (than I want to believe), who are tap dancing and making things up trying to make themselves sound like they know a lot more than they do. Here’s eight signs your community manager may not know as much as they should.

1. There’s an AOL email address on their business card. 

Unless you are a 12 year old girl or a 78 year old man, there is no reason why you should have an AOL email account on your professional business card. Or, your personal email address, but hey we’ll let that slide for now. Get your own domain name and custom professional email address or if you must, use gmail.

2. They have ever used the words, “buy” and “more Twitter followers” in the same sentence and were being totally serious. 

Nothing good will ever come from buying Twitter followers or Facebook fans. Only exception being is if your target audience is Hungarian porn star bots, and in that case best of luck to you.

3.  They only talk about Twitter and Facebook. 

Yes, Twitter and Facebook are the big social media sites right now, but they are by no means the only ones. They aren’t always the right place for your biz’s target audience.

4. They can’t name 5 other social media sites besides Twitter and Facebook.

Youtube, Foursquare, Ning communities, Instagram, Flickr, Vimeo . . . the list goes on and on. All of these sites shouldn’t be cast aside until you have done your research.

 5. They think ROI stands for “Really Overrated Idea” 

Just like any marketing or communications effort, social media needs to be measured. The ROI will vary from campaign to campaign, but having some kind of data is crucial to understanding if the campaign was a success or a total flop.

6. They have never written a case study. 

Managing online and offline communities should be integrated with the rest of a company’s marketing campaign and strategy. Case studies are common practice to show how successful a campaign was. If they don’t have experience writing case studies, that’s a major red flag.

7. They don’t know how to define a successful campaign. 

There are two things every campaign needs: a strategy and metrics/data. Metrics are crucial in being able to understand what worked and didn’t work in a specific campaign.

8. Their online presence is virtually non-existent. 

Now if you are in the social media realm, it would be a fair assessment to think that you tend to your personal brand online. You probably have a Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin account at the minimum. Most also have a Foursquare, Youtube, professional website/blog, etc. If you can’t find even one of these, there’s a good chance your social media guru has no clue what they are doing.

 

 

About the author

Jessica Malnik

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