I have to admit, Facebook is doing something I can really get behind.
They want to lower the number of people who die each year waiting for an organ donation.
What? Facebook, the social network? Yes, indeedy.
More than 114,000 people in the United States, and millions more around the globe, are waiting for a donated organ that will save their lives.
Many of those people – an average of 18 people per day – will die waiting, because there simply aren’t enough organ donors to meet the need. Continue Reading »
Today’s guest post is written by Shonali Burke.
When Gini and Lisa asked me to write about Twitter chats for Spin Sucks (ok, “tweetchats,” if you must, I’m going to stick with the former, I’m old-school, whatevs), I scratched my mane.
I’ve written so much about TCs in the past, I was worried about what I could share with you that wouldn’t be same old, same old.
But then, a friend who currently runs a popular Twitter chat DM’d me to tell me he might be shutting it down. The reason? Life has taken over, and he’s finding it tough to keep it going with the same level of verve and vigor as he did in the past.
My response? “Don’t do that. Ask <person who is well known for focusing on the discipline> if they can do it. It’s a good chat. It teaches people.” (Or words to that effect.) Continue Reading »
Today’s guest post is written by Jelena Woehr.
Are all bloggers also community managers?
Jayme Soulati , in suggesting this topic, wondered if ignorance regarding community management might explain some blog failures.
Because this post began as a comments-section Q&A, we’ll continue it in the same vein:
What Is Community Management?
Community management is the art of creating something by allowing it to create itself, then nurturing it by creating an environment in which it nurtures itself. Community managers conduct an orchestra of hundreds or thousands as a community forms or sustains itself, but the credit for a successfully developed online community belongs primarily to its members. Continue Reading »
Everyone always wants to know what is the secret sauce to building a community. Well, I’ll tell you. It’s simple, really.
Stroke people’s egos.
Seriously. That’s it.
You’ve heard this from me before; it’s not a new concept. But it truly is the secret sauce. Continue Reading »
Today’s guest post is written by Jelena Woehr.
Part cat-herder, part social butterfly, part psychotherapist, and part janitor, the online community manager has a unique and rapidly evolving job.
How can a person navigate the choppy, uncharted waters of online community management without losing her cool?
Moderator Maria Niles, along with panelists Eden Kennedy, Elisa Batista, Julia Roberts, and Marie “Riese” Lyn Bernard, explored this question at BlogHer 2011, as part of a panel on “Sustaining an Online Community Without Losing Your Own Sanity.”
The panel’s open forum format invited attendees to expound upon the panelists’ conversation.
That’s what I’d like to do here, by sharing three of the most important lessons the panelists made, along with my own additions and questions for discussion. Continue Reading »
Something interesting is happening with Google+. We’re all freaking out because we can’t import our Facebook and Twitter friends (you can export Facebook friends into Gmail now, if you’re patient and have a tiny bit of tech savvy).
Here we’ve spent years (in most cases) building communities on something we don’t own and guess what? Our friends and fans aren’t moving to the newest platform with us. Or they are but we don’t know it because not only do we not have their email addresses, we don’t have their Gmail addresses.
This is why it’s so important to build community on a platform that you own. Sure, you need all the social tools and the content curation and the fun apps that make your stuff look cool, but they all should drive people back to something you own.
In this case: A database.
Following are 10 things to consider as you add the newest social network to your toolbox. Continue Reading »
We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you a request (i.e. no Facebook question of the week).
As you know, an F5 tornado hit the city of Joplin, Mo., injuring more than 400 people and killing more than 120.
The weather seems really crazy to me this year. I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting older or if it really is crazy, but the South, Oklahoma City, Minneapolis, and now Joplin have been crushed this year.
The tornado completely wiped out the entire town and rivals the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The people in Joplin have nothing.
I mean, literally, nothing. Continue Reading »
Someone recently told me they are the admin for their company’s Facebook page but didn’t know what to post about in order to help grow their community.
When I wrinkled my nose thinking, “Jeez, what a silly question,” I realize it’s not a silly question at all.
In fact, after looking through a variety of other Facebook company pages, it seems this is something that should be open for discussion.
We get this question all the time, “How can I grow my Facebook community?” The answer? Post engaging stuff.
Need more explanation than that? Check out my five tips on company Facebook posting. Continue Reading »
We clearly have a pretty active and vocal community here at Spin Sucks. But I look at our analytics every day and see it’s a very small percentage of visitors who are doing the majority of commenting.
That’s natural, and I have no problem with that. It doesn’t mean, however, that I haven’t always been curious about the rest of you.
There has been much discussion on blog commenting in the past few weeks.
Check out these other resources if you haven’t already:
That’s when I decided the time was right to blog about first-time commenters.
Then Monday John Falchetto must have gotten access to my hard drive and taken a draft of the post because I echo his thoughts completely. So lets talk about HOW to Lose Your Commenting Virginity. Continue Reading »
As you know, our webinar next week helps you understand what to do next with social media through building an online community.
You’ve spent time building a blog, you have a Facebook page, you’re on LinkedIn and Twitter, but so what? You did what you were supposed to do, right? You got your business online.
The main reason these social media tactics have not resulted in anything is because there is not a clear day-to-day strategy pulling them all together and that’s because we all have too much to do on our to do lists and not enough time to do it!
My guess is that building these tools and maintaining them took up the amount of time you allotted to spend on social media. I’m not here to tell you that social media results take time and should be paid attention to just as much as anything else, because you already know that. Continue Reading »
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I have to admit, Facebook is doing something I can really get behind.
