2012 October

Every aspiring blogger wants other bloggers to write about them, and there’s nothing worse than having your pitch emails sent to the spam folder. During the Building a Blogger Outreach Program, session at BlogWorld & New Media Expo session in New York City, multiple case studies revealed best practices for finding bloggers, pitching successfully, building online relationships, and effectively tracking and reporting. Here are the highlights:

Successful community management is all about planning

Don’t underestimate the power of an editorial calendar.
Schedule time for reaching out to those with whom you want to have a mutually beneficial relationship.
Build the community first, then schedule fundraising efforts. Blogging and asking for money won’t work unless the value comes first.

There are 4 pillars of community

Brand: know what you do, and what represents you. Eat and breathe and own your online brand, and others will follow suit.
Industry: stick to what you know. Followers are going to you for industry-specific content that binds their community.
Content: the best kind of outreach is generating content that makes followers want to come back for more and see you as a thought leader for the content you create.
Internal engagement: ask your followers, what are you getting from this blog?

Pay attention to your audience

Reaching an international audience takes inviting people to share what’s going on in their part of the world
The blog, social, and mobile messaging content mix includes: curated, expert and funny content. Your audience determines % of each.

How will you reach out to your followers?

Thanks for tweeting your insights @Mogreet, @fatherroderick, @LeAuraLuciano, @anne_hogan, @griner, @BrightGirl, and @vargasl

Perspectives on decentralized organizations at South by Southwest Interactive Festival

As technology has increasingly created a number of self-organizing online or real communities, companies are also experimenting with cultural changes such as decentralization.

This trend was discussed in depth at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival, led by Amgen, Inc. Executive Director James Taylor, Burning Man Human Resources Manager Kat Steinmetz, and Second Life Founder Phillip Rosedale. These professionals discussed the burning question of “Decentralized Organizations: Do They Really Work?” Highlights …

Thought leader and author of The Future of Work Thomas Malone shared insights into why things are changing

“For the first time we can have big business economy of scale and small business human culture.”
“We’re in the early stage of change in business, similar to change we saw in democracy/government”
“Old structure for corporations are based on efficiency. Today’s is about innovation; new focus is intelligence”
“Benefits of decentralized decision-making are exactly the same as drivers for business success-innovation and flexibility”

Exploring and using non-traditional techniques to structure their organization

It’s not just about cool tech startups (example Zappos model), huge productivity boost
Burning Man has no CEO. Instead 6 execs who decide by consensus. Slows decision-making, but speeds up implementation
We need to rethink the efficiency metric, place more emphasis on collective intelligence
The point is to build community, not to be efficient

The future forecast for organizations is uncertain

In a few years maybe no one will work for technology companies. Employment is going to change so substantially.
Anonymous surveys, voting systems for both customers and internal employees, organic management, and peer-based recognition systems are becoming more commonly used

Thanks for your insight, @bombaycowgirl, @ACoulton, and @CofoMan!

Archives for October 2012

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