DISQUS

Great photo choice Chris and congrats Colin!

I hope to see the entire NML crew at Mzinga in the spring for some BBQ. Perhaps a guest hosting opportunity or the long-talked about BBQ throwdown!?!?

Jim | @jstorerj

I used twitter.com (and sms from my mobile) for a long time. When they added search.twitter it just locked me in more. I tried Twhirl, but found the updates to0 distracting. I agree with Doug that Tweetdeck is an absolute must when you really want to follow Twitter (like at an event). Unlike Doug, I run Tweetdeck as my main Twitter app and just keep it minimized most of the time, checking in and out as my time allows.

One nit/challenge I have with Tweetdeck. I have not yet been able to "re-train" my eyes to scan the down to the bottom to see who is tweeting (I grew up with the left-to-right orientation of twitter.com). I find this has impacted how often I jump into conversations (less often than before). But that's an old dog/new tricks issue I just probably need to deal with on my own.

Jim | @jstorerj

@ari - good point on knowing the name of the people in my first two examples. unfortunately, twitter doesn't allow enough characters in "about" field for large organizations to list everyone Tweeting on their behalf. To date, it doesn't offend me if the anonymous people tweeting for a brand are consistent and recognize the unwritten rules of Twitter. YMMV.

...but if you don't like what you see from companies like @wholefoods on Twitter why don't you just stop following (#1 above)? Everyone has the opportunity to create their own stream on Twitter, which is a big part of the allure for most.

Personally, I see a lot more questionable behavior on Twitter by small, one-person firms promoting their services than with large companies trying to "be there" for their customers.

I couldn't agree more. At the end of the day, there are people behind brands whether they're serving you in a store, manning the phone banks in the customer support center or listening (and responding to) a conversation on Twitter. It really comes down to how they (the individuals) respect the medium. Just as it's distasteful for a sales person to be overly aggressive in a store, it's important for brands to respect the boundaries and mores established by the people that use Twitter.

What would have happened if Motrin had people associated with their brand monitoring and joining the conversation that fateful weekend last month? My guess is "Motrin Moms" wouldn't have developed into as big of an issue.

Jim | @jstorerj

I'm feeling the pressure of high volume Twitter with ~1500 followers. I'm jumping into Tweetdeck again (I tried a while back and it just didn't take). The other thing I'm doing is using Twitter search to build search strings of people I want to follow closely and then pull the RSS into Google Reader. While I'm not able be in direct conversations with them at the moment, it helps me keep up with what's happening and I connect as possible.

Jim | @jstorerj

P.S. I love the fact that your iPhone battery is "in the red" in the image above. ;-)

p.s. I'm going to unfollow @warrenss right now just to see what he does. ;-)

p.s. I'm going to unfollow @warrenss right now just to see what he does. ;-)

I've only been receiving Qwitter alerts for about a week, so take my comments with a grain of salt.

So far, I treat them with the same curiosity I have for the new follower notices. I click through to see who the person is, take a look at their stream to see what they're all about and see the size of their follower base. Call it an ongoing anthropological study... I'm not hurt or offended, just interested.

I realize the volume of my tweets may be too much for some people and the content (especially all the #redsox talk) might turn them off too. Life's too short to get hung up of why people stopped following me on Twitter. I'm amazed they were following me in the first place.

Jim | @jstorerj

I've only been receiving Qwitter alerts for about a week, so take my comments with a grain of salt.

So far, I treat them with the same curiosity I have for the new follower notices. I click through to see who the person is, take a look at their stream to see what they're all about and see the size of their follower base. Call it an ongoing anthropological study... I'm not hurt or offended, just interested.

I realize the volume of my tweets may be too much for some people and the content (especially all the #redsox talk) might turn them off too. Life's too short to get hung up of why people stopped following me on Twitter. I'm amazed they were following me in the first place.

Jim | @jstorerj

Love this idea! Thanks!

@Chris & Brooks - I think it depends on the company and what stage they are in with regard to Twitter. Some companies are really focused on listening and that may be a just fine for an intern. As they progress (or decide) to begin engaging in the conversation they'll need more oversight. Again, depending on who the company is and how they've engaged their prospects/customers in the past, the role might need to be quickly transitioned to someone with more experience.

My two cents... YMMV.

Jim | @jstorerj

Thanks for the mention Chris. For a lot of companies Twitter is an instant focus group and a great way to dip their collective toes in the social media pool. But as Frank from Comcast found out, you better be prepared to swim.

Jim | @jstorerj

Was going to mention Ning, but it looks like the crowd has already taken care of that. While I wish there was more portability with Facebook, the groups in there are ok too. As an industry we need to continue to push toward data portability so that groups don't become islands... it's serendipitous interactions that make social media special.

Jim | @jstorerj

Thanks for asking the question Chris.

Whether it's online or offline, customers (people) want to conduct a transaction and/or build a relationship with companies they do business with. Depending on the company (and their customers) the mix of these two differs. Some companies will never make the move from transaction to relationship because their customers don't demand it. With that said, most companies can weave relationship elements into their strategy to begin building a conversation with customers.

With our site (Mzinga), we have a mix of transaction and relationships (with more coming soon). Not surprising for a business social networking vendor, but we're always looking for ways to create conversations with our prospects and customers.

Jim | @jstorerj

Congrats Scott! We'll miss you around town (SMB, Mazinga BBQ, etc.), but at least we'll have a place to stay when we vacation in Dearborn!

Jim | @jstorerj

Killer post Chris. I'm with Dave one at least one of his points... I don't know how you churn out such rich, meaty posts day after day. Well done.

I'm also going to agree with several of the comments (Dave, Tyson, Troy) re: measurement. The metrics you outline sound like new breed PR vs traditional community management. Depending on an organizations goals, they might be one in the same, but this is just one approach to engaging community. If a company chooses to launch community to support customer service, a community manager's role might be almost entirely internally facing (to the extent tending to the needs of customers on the forum is considered an "internal" activity).

On the subject of where the CM reports into in the organization, it's dependent on what business process the company is supporting with community. Brand mgmt/relations will likely report into marketing. Innovation will likely report into product or engineering. Customer support will report into, well, customer support. This begs the question of who will oversee all of this community activity? IMHO, this should be a "Chief Community Officer" (insert any important sounding title). In some companies this may be the CMO or CIO, but the role requires someone who understands the nature of conversations and how a company can/should/shouldn't engage in them.

@jstorerj

This is classic first mover advantage (maybe second if include Friendster in the mix). People choose to use Facebook to find other people, so it becomes a place you need to have a shingle. I'm constantly amazed by the people who find me on Facebook (i.e. old high school friends I've lost touch with), but I don't really use it much anymore. Twitter has become the conversation I choose to take part in.

Thanks for reminding me that I need to turn off the email updates everytime someone chooses to throw a cow at me or challenge my knowledge of movie trivia.

@jstorerj