Resonate hosted the 6th Australian Community Managers Roundtable in conjunction with Quiip on Monday 26 March in Sydney. The event was organised by the irrepressible Sue Cash who put together a great agenda and kept everything humming along throughout the day.
 
There were about a dozen attendees in total representing agencies, financial services and technology sectors. Here's a rundown of the highlights from each session:
 
PR/ Crisis Management

• Prepare a “Black site” that you can switch to in the event of a crisis
• Research with your colleagues to brainstorm for the worst complaints that could be imagined and prepare responses
• Think carefully about blanket apologies – you may alert new customers to the problem - respond to each individual if possible
• If the volume of complaints is too huge to manage, prioritise complaints from your top customers/about your most important products
• Do not be afraid to ban a member that is consistently causing trouble – but remind about the guidelines and give a couple of warnings beforehand

Content Marketing

• Content needs to do one of the following: share resources, solve problems or help improve customers’ lives
• Content planning is trial and error – listen / measure engagement to find out what content the community loves
• Do research with customers  – use Facebook Questions or look at Facebook “Suggested Pages” to find the other pages that are popular with your fans
• Think beyond your industry sector/brand – there are many relevant types of content related to your industry
• Plot content ideas on a 2-dimensional grid of “important to the brand” and “important to the audience” to get the balance right
• Make sure to tell the audience what you want them to do with your content e.g. like, share, comment (calls to action)
• Make sure that your content/stories are written in a way that can be “liked” e.g. for a sad story, focus on a goodwill message
• “Like baiting” can work well to increase the audience size but it needs to be backed up with long term, engaging content afterwards
• The most popular content is often content about the community – origins, size, growth, popular subjects, top contributors
• Leaderboards can be problematic due to some members gaming the system – only use if they encourage the right behaviour.  You could assist this by including a “did you find this comment useful?” question in the scoring system for the leaderboard.
• Content written in the 1st person gets more engagement – members feel they are directly helping someone
• Content that name-drops top contributors (screen names) is a valuable recognition tool

Measurement/Technology

• There is no reliable data about the adoption of Google+ in Australia but it appears to only be popular with technical early adopters at this stage
• Attitudes to privacy are very different in the younger generation – there is no concern about divulging personal information online and the consequences (parents/future employers accessing embarrassing content, identify theft). However, if society shifts slowly back towards conservatism, this could change.
• When measuring “influence” it's important to differentiate between a member’s popularity (followers) and their actual power to influence consumer behaviour. This can be achieved by starting with a list of influencers (purchased from an influencer marketing company) and manual research to verify their audience (type), their content style, their propensity to recommend products, their allegiance to your brand etc.
• Engaging influencers will not short-cut your process for building an online community – it will still take time.
• Somebody that’s influential can be divisive
• Treat an influencer like an indicator, not a medium

Trends

• The popularity of Tivo/Foxtel IQ has led to time-shifted TV viewing.  This can make it difficult for TV shows to generate real time conversations about the story lines.  Exceptions to this rule appear to be large-scale events like the Super Bowl where mass audiences are gathered to simultaneously watch content live – they actively engage in online conversations about the event and the advertisers.
• Mobile/Notepads have not replaced the laptop – check the volume and % of your members using Mobile to interact with you before rushing to develop mobile sites/apps. Provide ability to login to your mobile site/app with Facebook or Twitter.
• QR codes are not as popular in Australia as other Asian markets and may even be leap-frogged by RFID or Google Wallet
• Kaching! – Commonwealth Bank’s Near Field Communications (NFC) App – mobile p2p payments via iPhone
• Apple TV could be a game changer – integrated media experience
• Important for Social Media Managers/Community Managers in organisations to develop Knowledge Management systems in order to continually educate the wider organisation about opportunities/risks with Social Media. Constant change is the only constant.
• Pinterest is similar to Tumblr but has the added advantage of the “Pin it” icon that makes it easier to upload content/links

All in all it was a great day and gave everyone present the opportunity to swap notes, share resources and empathise with each other regarding the challenges that community managers run into on a daily basis. Can't wait for the next one!