I was chatting with my friend and fellow community professional, Patrick O’Keefe, the other day. Patrick has been managing online niche communities since 2000. Most notably, KarateForums.com, and also is the founder of the Managing Communities blog and the Community Signal Podcast. Needless to say, when I have a question or want to get feedback on how to handle a specific type of community issue...
75+ Useful Tools For Community Managers and Content Marketers Under $100
There’s no shortage of tools out there for community managers and content marketers. With new tools being added everyday and even more existing ones being updated, it can be hard to keep track (let alone know) which one to use. I created a list by category of some of my favorite tools. All of these tools are priced under $100 per month. Many are even free or have a freemium version. Social...
Best Career Advice For Community Managers
I’m lucky enough to have a few mentors in my career that have taken me under their wings and shared some awesome pieces of advice with me. I received this best piece of advice a few years ago. I’m only just now realizing how powerful and helpful it really is. Ready for it. Your ultimate career goal should be to find a way to remove yourself from all the current tasks you are working on. On...
New To Community Management? 15 Community Pros Share Their Best Tips For Brand New Community Managers
I stumbled into community management purely by accident about 6 years ago. I didn’t go to college for community management or marketing or even public relations. (I was a journalism major if you were curious). In fact, when I was 21, I still thought I wanted to be a newspaper editor. Thankfully, I had enough foresight to realize that working 80 hours a week writing mainly obits and stories about...
Why Community Managers Should Leverage The 80:20 Principle
A fellow community manager and friend, Carrie, wrote a great post not too long about community manager self care. In this post, she includes a bunch of tips for how to fend off burnout. This list is excellent and includes several suggestions including regular exercising, taking at least 30 minutes of “me-time” every day, taking a break when you are feeling stuck, and journaling. I couldn’t help...
Why Your Company’s Instagram Account Is Not A Community (And Why That’s Okay!)
Many companies – and social media managers- are quick to call their social media accounts their community. In 99% of cases, this simply isn’t the case. Social media sites – like Instagram- are networks not communities. That’s perfectly okay. Both networks and communities serve super useful purposes. It’s when you confuse one for the other that’s where you can run into problems, as...
5 Tips For Building Strong, Branded Communities
All the right vibes. // Photo via @sarawassphoto at @cielonyc. A photo posted by DAYBREAKER (@dybrkr) on Mar 26, 2015 at 7:43am PDT Community isn’t a new phenomenon. It’s been around for centuries, well even since the caveman days. Our ancestors relied on community building to hunt, eat, and survive. I think sometimes as community managers we get so bogged down on the day to day tactics of...
3 Tips For Creating A Custom Editorial Calendar That Works For Your Business
If you are anything like me, one of the toughest parts about blogging is showing up to write when you are feeling uninspired or suffering from a severe case of writer’s block. One way to keep yourself accountable is to create an editorial calendar. I know for many of you this probably sounds scary and intimidating. But, I promise it really isn’t. Most of us think about meetings and...
What Community Managers Can Learn From Being In The Kitchen
As a community manager, it’s really easy to get stuck in a bubble of living and breathing the communities that you manage. It can be a good idea to step outside of that bubble every once in awhile to seek out other perspectives. As someone who is a voracious reader, I do this most often by reading all kinds of books and blog posts in a variety of industries with varying perspectives. I stumbled...
Is Slack Unintentionally Becoming The New Online Community Platform We Have All Been Waiting For?
On the surface, Slack is just another workplace communication channel. It directly competes with Campfire, Hipchat, and even to a lesser degree Google Hangouts and email. It’s tagline is to change the way companies communicate and make work life easier. There’s no doubt Slack is revolutionizing how many companies are communicating these days. Due to a great UX, site stickiness and an insane...