Key focus of this weeks Fave Five posts are online communities and Facebook with a sprinkle of Google+. At the core of any social network or community are users or more respectfully put “people”. The keys to success for any community or social network is never losing sight of the fact that people want to be treated fairly, openly and with respect. Facebook continues to screw up and appear dishonest.
If you want to chat with me on any of these topics connect with me and I’d be happy to have a conversation with you.
Our Favourite Posts for Week of June 4, 2012
1. 6 Key Customer Engagement Metrics for Improving Online Community ROI | Business2Community This post introduces some KPIs you can try to measure community growth and activiity. Bear in mind that there is a good chance that a majority of your members will be passively involved. In other words they will read posts, comments and consume content but will not react to it. This could be for a number of reasons ranging from they prefer to spectate than participate or they weren’t aware of a new or active post that could be of interest. These are KPIs to try but don’t lose site of the fact that the community needs to be managed by a person(s) and not the software.
2. Are Brands Seeing More Engagement on Google+? | eMarketer
Always important to keep an eye on what Google is doing. Google+ is their third social media/network attempt (remember “buzz” and “wave”?). There’s mixed reviews on the success of Google+. This post outlines which industries are tracking better, consumer brand adoption of Google + pages, how often they post and how often they are being circled by Google + users.
3. What Is Facebook Worth? | Business Insider
There is no shortage of news coverages and posts about Facebook’s dismal IPO performance. Henry Blodget, Editor and Chief of Business Insider provides this informative post as to why the IPO was underwhelming.
4. Why Facebook is Killing Silicon Valley | Steve Blank
An interesting read by Steve Blank, author of “The Four Steps to Epiphany” and “The Startup Owner’s Manual”. Are short term wins the order of the day for public companies and investors? It would seem so with a few exceptions identified by Steve in this post. What boggles my mind is Facebook pays $1B for Instagram. What would happen if that money would have been used to help cure cancer? Stop starvation or human trafficking? Weird huh?
5. 10 Jobs in 1: The Life of an Internal Community Manager | Business2Community
This post by Deirdre Walsh provides sound advice on the things you should think about and do as a community manager. There are few B2B community managers that have left a lasting impression on me. Deirdre is one, and James Cahill from Emerson Controls is another one.
