September
The importance of community management
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One of the great arguments in favour of employing social web tools is the fact that they are pretty quick, and usually cheap, to put together. However, that’s not taking into account the other costs, one of which is managing the community created by such sites.
This entails a number of things: welcoming new people, seeding some discussions, encouraging people to get involved. At the bare minimum it should consist of moderating content, getting rid of the rude, the crude and the jibberish. You simply have to allow for time to do this. Otherwise you end up with problems like those that Jamie Oliver, everyone’s favourite fat-tongued foodie, seems to be having.
Does this sort of thing actually present anyone in a good light?!
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DavePress
Dave Briggs is an independent consultant working as a digital enabler for the public sector. I can help you figure out what you want to do with the social web and then equip you with the skills and tools you need to succeed.
You’re right of course, Dave, it’s all about setting a tone — the comments on the thread were really odd in a number of ways.
I thought an awful lot of them read as the work of someone closely allied with the site trying to redress the balance.
When you’ve got a site that’s aiming especially at people who might not use the web much an encouraging and authoritative voice to help the discussion along can work wonders.
“oops! not found” - anyone archived it?
I made a mistake in my link - now fixed.
Good points. The attraction of free tools suchs as Blogging, YouTube and Twitter is their zero upfront costs. But for each new tool hours are generated maintaining content and moderating. Take YouTube if you are in an organisation its easy to take your eye of the ball a few days later you have to wade through comments, invites. Anyways its all work but worth it in the end.
Thanks for the tips at TeaCamp much appreciated.
No problems, Shane - it was good to meet you!