Moms everywhere impart nuggets of wisdom upon their children. It teaches kids how to function well in the world. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the same lessons that got you through grade school apply to marketing and communications.

Rod Brooks was inspired to share some of these lessons yesterday for Mother’s Day:

1. Be polite, friendly, and honest – These three should never be questioned. Brands who want a thriving community need to treat their members with the upmost respect. A smile accompanied with honesty is the best way to show that.
2. Keep your room clean – The space your community lives in is online and offline, in inboxes and Twitter streams. But no one will want to be there if it’s cluttered. Audit your content and determine exactly what you need to be successful.
3. Get your homework done first – Spend time learning. It’s key to understanding your target and their needs. Learn, learn, learn then act. You’ll do a lot better on the test/sales.

Read Rod’s seven other tips from mom at Seeing the Edge

Peter Friedman, CEO of Liveworld, has hired hundreds of community managers. He recently told Jeremiah Owyang, Industry Analyst for the Altimeter Group, about the balance he wants in his community managers:

“The key is to get someone with the right personality, enthusiasm and skills.  Experience counts too. Even if there were good CM certification programs around, I wouldn’t disqualify someone for not having such a certification. I’d look at the person’s other specifics … For example a person with 5 years real CM experience is likely to be much stronger than a person with 1 year of experience and a certification”.

Back in 2007, Jeremiah analyzed community manager job descriptions and found four requirements:

1. Community Advocate

2. Brand Evangelist

3. Savvy Communicator

4. Shapes Product Roadmap

Indeed, these four are all a balance between nature and nurture. For instance, communication with a community requires a natural knack plus knowledge of the media being used.

Jeremiah concluded his thoughts with this:

The Bottom Line: The emerging Community Manager education and certifications are a good thing for all professionals –yet be sure to balance them out with peer to peer learnings, and real-world experience.

The data revealed three necessities for effective integration:

1. Tangible Investments in education and technology

2. Strategic integration of social media in planning, organizational structure and goal setting

3. Social media strategy fully in line with culture and values of the organization

The report went on to further examine B2B adoption, models for integration success, and ways to measure.

Watch the slidedeck on Steven’s Slideshare page

From job postings on major online job boards, she found several key job requirements:

Strategy

“…responsible for managing our online reputation by developing social media strategies.”

Thought Leadership

“Serves as a thought leader on new social media tools and best practices for community management”

Content Creation

“…will lead the creation of content to be published through forums and social media outlets, and will oversee the design and execution of all community engagement programs.”

No small request! The rest of the Prezi presentation shows who is ideal for this role and what, beyond the job descriptions, a good community manager really does.

Worth a watch:

Read more at CMSwire

Key Takeaway: Focus on objectives, not platforms.

The focus of this treatment is not to indulge them, nor is it to ensure that they work longer hours, but rather to get the best from their people and it’s that focus that I think is absolutely determinative in the results they get.

He found these commonalities:

1. Culture – Not everyone who works at these companies are young, but there are ample youthful outlets like basketball courts, pool tables and ping pong tables.

2. Humanity – “They recognize that their employees are human beings. For example, if someone has come back from a long meeting and is jet-lagged, they encourage them to go home to get some rest so they can recover rather than lose the next week through tiredness.”

3. Engagement – Through town hall meetings and open door policies, these companies ensure their employees feel empowered and supported when making suggestions or complaints.

Read the seven other commonalities at We First, Simon’s blog

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Simon will Keynote at WOMMA Summit 2011, Nov. 16 – 18.

By Rod Brooks, WOMMA President & PEMCO Insurance CMO

Originally published on Seeing the Edge

Prevailing Winds Increase Pace and Mark Change

The Alaska Airlines pilot said we were traveling at 34,000 feet above sea level at a speed of approximately 500 miles per hour. And, he says, we will arrive at our destination ahead of schedule due to the outstanding tailwind at our back. He was, of course, talking about flight 22 from Seattle to Chicago. He could just as easily been describing WOMMA and the year that I’ve experienced as Board President. In both cases, we are in a remarkable place that is soaring to new heights and moving over the landscape at greater speeds. For my fellow passengers in the plane and I, there is little time to look back to appreciate all the ground we’ve covered. Nor is there time to focus on the places that we may have missed as they fade from view. The same is true for WOMMA.

It seems nearly impossible that almost twelve months ago I addressed attendees of the 2010 WOMMA Talkable Brands Summit and shared my vision for the coming year. I encouraged everyone present to focus on what they could learn, what they could teach, and what they could do in order to make themselves, their brands, and their clients more effective as word of mouth marketers - both online and offline.

We remain a young association that is gaining in confidence and spirit. More importantly, our measures of success are going the right direction. I am incredibly proud of Executive Director, Kristen Smith and her enthusiastic, “can do” staff. Kristen, has successfully led the transition from an association with grand aspirations to one of noteworthy accomplishments and results.

As we approach the 2011 WOMMA Summit that will be held in Las Vegas, from November 16-18, Kristen will be completing her third full year at the helm. She has served under the guidance of three Board Presidents, 30 different board members, 10 committee chairs, and has interacted with members and potential members in numbers too numerous to count. And through it all, Kristen’s focus, determination, and consistency have not wavered. Key accomplishments over the past three years include the following:

Membership has grown to 350 member companies and is at a healthy balance between brands (33%), agencies (37%), and consultants, researchers and technology providers (30%).

WOMMA has developed successful partnerships with key industry groups including the Marketing Research Association, Media Ratings Council, Advertising Research Foundation and the Association of National Advertisers, positioning WOMMA as a key leader and stakeholder in the effective measurement of word of mouth marketing.

WOMMA has expanded its research offerings and special reports available to members to include: A Guidebook of Best Practices for the Customer Care Center; Online and Offline WOM Bibliography Curation; Listening and Monitoring Platforms Guidebook; and the Return On Investment Guidebook. We look to continue the outstanding work of our Research and Measurement volunteers and member experts in 2012 as well.

We have increased the number of WOMMA events and points of engagement resulting in new and expanded opportunities to reach current and potential members.

· WOMMA Summit - 2011 attendance expected to exceed 500

· School of WOM - Over 300 attendees

· Wine Wednesday’s Networking Events - 7 locations - More than 450 attendees

· Regional Talkable Brand Exchanges - 3 locations - Over 200 attendee

· WOM COMM Graduates - Over 500

· WOMMA Webinar Attendees - Over 500

Read the full post at Seeing the Edge

Forrester released a whitepaper that will aid you greatly. They identified two distinct problems in finding a social agency:

1. It’s unclear who the real experts are.

2. No firm can do it all.

Even classifying your needs and who can execute effective solutions is difficult. Among other guiding tips, the report outlined who does what – a great place to start your search:

1. Consultants help with strategy.

2. Tactical service providers help with ongoing tasks.

3. Technology vendors offer services to support their platforms.

4. Agencies try to do everything, but usually have a few key specialties.

Among the companies listed, we’re proud to report many of them were WOMMA members. These include: Ant’s Eye View, Lithium, Spredfast, Radian6, Banyan Branch, Dachis Group, Razorfish, Edelman and Ogilvy PR.

Download the full report at  Banyan Branch

Where are people talking about my brand? (9.8%)

How should I change my messaging? (8.5%)

How much buzz do I have vs. competition/trend? (6.5%)

The questions fit into the below categories:

These broad questions draw a lot of data, which is hard to translate into a simple solution. Social platforms do a good job at summarizing data into aesthetically pleasing graphs, but they rarely walk the user to truly answer their questions. David had a great suggestion for future social software development:

“Great social software should be like great photo developing software.  It should already understand the steps you need to take and then lead you by the hand through the process to get the best end result.”

Read more about social research at MotiveQuest

MotiveQuest is a WOMMA member.

Defining the role of community managers has been a hurdle for many brands. Are they part of the PR department? Marketing? Customer service? What skills do they need?

These are great questions. One answer, coming from The Community Roundtable, is that community managers are a lot like executives. Let’s compare:

1. Both maintain critical relationships with people and companies that are essential for growth.

2. Both need to know about, or know who to talk to, about any aspect of their company.

3. Both have overflowing email inboxes, always.

4. Both need to be diplomatic, understanding and helpful.

The two roles can learn a lot from each other. No matter what department your community manager resides, their role requires executive skill. Who knows? We may see the C-Suite filled with former community managers in the coming years.

Read more about executive and community managers at The Community Roundtable

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Jim Storer, Principal and Founder of The Community Roundtable, will speak about WOMMA’s upcoming Community Management Certificate Program at Summit 2011, Nov. 16-18.

Image credit: Nestle