Managing the Social Web Community

Due to my own personal work experience I understand the value and need for a community manager within any organization’s social strategy. After being enlightened this week by going further in depth as to their specific roles and how the role is seen within the organization, I even more see this as a much needed area.

In the article Twelve Best Practices for Online Customer Communities , the author says  that active community management is essential. Going further, he notes, “Communities are indeed self-organizing, but like community of any kind they require active administration, management, and moderation or the community will devolve into a least common denominator environment where abuse, spam, neglect, inactivity, and poor behavior of a few go unaddressed and drive away productive participants.”

Boy Neil wrote a post Wanted: More Community Managers . In it he discusses the necessity for community managers and also how they should follow the four principles of dialogue:
Based on many other readings, I gather that for social communities to thrive, users need to want to be a part of them. There has to be something driving them, a relationship, something reciprocal that they will receive in return. The community manager needs to be there to facilitate discussion, while also understanding when to let conversations happen organically and just view from afar (I believe this would be the suspending and respecting principles).  In other instances there are cases where the community manager will need to intervene to ensure conversation topics remain in line with the communities’ policies.

“Social media are about interaction and relationship: A social media focused program cannot therefore fundamentally be about the creation of social ‘objects’. It has to have at its center a commitment to reciprocal exchange, which starts from the four principles of dialogue  introduced in William Isaacs’ book Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together, they are listening, suspending, respecting…then voicing.”

Delving deeper into this discussion, I’ve looked at two Canadian companies which exemplify effective community management.

Shoppers Drug Mart

Shoppers Drug Mart uses social media in a very effective manner. Looking at their Facebook  page, Shoppers has 241,462 fans across Canada and 7,122 Twitter followers. Facebook is used as a great way to interact with Shoppers consumers, allowing for open lines of discussion. From the Facebook wall you can see that customers use the platform to ask questions and interact with other Shoppers fans across Canada. Fans are also able to interact with the Shoppers Drug Mart website with new links being posted, as well as access to new product launches, information and upcoming promotions. While the conversation does flow organically it is evident that the community manager does a great job at facilitating discussion when necessary and is also quick to reply, which are both essential components of effective community management.   

WestJet

Another Canadian company that does a great job at managing social communities is WestJet. A few years ago I had the chance to listen to a discussion panel about social media (I suppose this was during the time when it was still considered to be “emerging”) and there was a representative there from WestJet discussing their online social communities. I researched more into their communities and they are managed in a very interesting way. WestJet has 194,478 fans on Facebook and 126,100 followers on Twitter who they interact with a lot, in some instances generating the conversation, but in many instances responding back to fans. One of the components I think is great, and helps facilitate the relationship building aspect of social communities, is that no matter who responds to a customer they sign off with their name. I think this is a nice touch and makes the company seem more real and tangible, as opposed to strongly corporate.

WestJet also hosts a fun initiative each Wednesday for their fans called “Winglet Wednesdays” where users (Facebook and Twitter as well, which has 126,100 followers) can interact with the Facebook and Twitter pages to post pictures of the WestJet wings from the flights they are on.  It is basically just a fun way for fans to interact with the company in the social space.

Another reason I think WestJet is a great example of effective online community management is because you can see how much their flyers/followers/fans rely on them in the social space. I recall a comment the WestJet representative made about their loyal customer following, and how they come to them directly, on their social platforms, when they have an issue with a flight, such as a delay, to get all of the information needed. This demonstrates that they have built a strong rapport and trust within their community and I think it is very impressive they have maintained it.

What do you think of these companies? Do you find you interact with brands more on Facebook or Twitter? I’m interested to know…