How to deal with 24-hour uninterrupted online social groups

How to effectively manage the global brand community –nathaniel Hansen (chief executive of the Socializers) interviews Eleftherios Hatziioannou,s.oliver's social media president and former global Mercedes brand social media president.

1. How should companies deal with 7-day, 24-hour, uninterrupted online social groups?

This is indeed one of the biggest challenges that a large global enterprise has to face, and people are increasingly accustomed to endless, real-time interactions. At night in Europe, it is the dawn of Asia. 24/7 of the information and words flow, followed by, and business and brand closely related. But businesses can handle it! Like in real life, you need to adjust the pace of information and problem-handling. Once you have set up programs, responsibilities, and tools, you only need to be methodical and routine. And never forget: The key points in real life are also applicable to social networking sites. A long time, the formation of a culture, people gradually adapt to this process, such as when the immediate response, when the response will be postponed. Members of the community are very smart, they can understand this truth, even the club managers need time to rest. I suggest that you should be open and transparent to the public when participating in social interaction, which is to meet public needs and which are not. One solution is "network etiquette"-the basic code and guidance that clearly tells people what is worth looking for and when. Like the "old-fashioned" sign on the doorstep of your shop.

2. What standard metrics do you use to find technical solutions for social campaign management and internal social networking?

It depends on what you are focusing on and what kind of social media involvement you are in. This is ultimately a process of evolution. Let's take a look at "social listening." I suggest you start with a lot of manual work: read the entire comment and search and tweets associated with your company; Create a list of blogs that are interested in your business; Subscribing them. You can organize related blogs, use tools such as Google Reader, and in fact there are a lot of free tools, such as Twitter surveys, that are a good choice to use in the initial stages.

However, once your company is further developed and actively operating, it is necessary to use professional social media tools in order to effectively manage and analyze massive issues and escalate management. But I suggest a good understanding of the different tools to determine which one fits your needs, because expensive tools may not be the best fit. One of my special tools: a device that not only allows you to have a "radar" system, but also assists in transferring "your Discovery (Finding)" to an in-house collaboration space. Imagine that when you read a critical and false blog statement, you will want to share it with your PR colleagues, who will decide whether to make a formal clarification statement. So the more you want to fully display your online conversations, the more you want to get through a few clicks and easily assign tasks. Not to mention, simplicity is wisdom! Let your colleagues face "change" with ease!

3. What are the most realistic and achievable goals for the management community? How can a good community manager win?

Behind every blog, account, and profile lies a "man" with basic needs: the desire to be heard, the desire to be appreciated, the desire to become part of a group and not feel lonely. A good community manager needs to understand these needs. His behavior should be like a true friend. If you want to be a good community manager, think about how relationships and friendships can be valued in real life. He is a true and believable man, with no pretense of hypocrisy; he acts as a bridge between language and cultural transformation within and outside the company, enabling the transition and acceptance of these two directions. He is a slick communication coordinator with superior social skills. A truly recognized manager participates in community speaking, not in the community. He filtered through the relevance of the topic to the user, and he found a balance between the interests of the company and the community. Last but not least, he speaks out and dares to admit and correct his mistakes. Whether you hold the same view or not, it is easier for community members to forgive those who openly acknowledge and correct their mistakes. Indeed, who is perfect?

4. What are the differences between the social media outpost (Outpost) and the brand community in the management strategy?

The biggest difference is that the brand community is more personal, you can be more active, deeper into the use of household participation. People sign up and provide all the data you need to be safe because they really want to contact you. Overall, this is a trusted environment where you can take a deep dive and look like a bar VIP. Members have felt special, but have sought more advanced treatment. If you're not a big company like Apple or Google, it's hard to reach a huge audience because big companies can successfully build users and communities around their boutique products and services and offer special privileges to loyal users. For example, it's like testing new equipment for the first time or formally promoting the services previously used in the market. I like the concept of a brand community, especially for business-to-business areas where you will need certain levels of confidentiality and privacy.

Building and managing communities on a public and large social platform, such as Facebook, is two different things. Corporate control is weakening, if people like you, simply click "Praise" and leave your page. This is a quicker game and you want to make sure that your community doesn't "get overwhelmed" by placing too many content and tasks, including typography, hue, information, and video lengths.

5. What kind of insights are most valuable to you in the Business intelligence collection analyzed by social networking sites? How can such insights be used to promote cultural change within the company?

All insights are valuable, and the more information you know, the more you can master the rules of the game. At least, in the current process of social media evolution. Interestingly, initially you will measure the growth of the company in terms of quantity, for example, "Last week we added 1000 fans to Facebook," "we added 500 followers to Twitter this month," and we served millions of impressions on social media campaign activities. These numbers can definitely help raise awareness and build momentum in the early stages, because we used these factors as a sign of success (such as CRM). However, I think it is even more important to measure the analysis from a qualitative point of view, and we are not mature in this respect, although the use of KPIs (key performance indicators) can compare your behavior, but has not been widely spread. But everything is possible: Why not measure service standards without contacting the number of complaints on Facebook? Why not compare Twitter's positive and negative comments last month to get a sense of customer satisfaction? I think what I'm going to express is very clear. Social media coverage means far more than the growth of fans. Social media is all about real conversations, where valuable data abound. Consider customer feedback or advice about your product or service. The question is how to cope with these stretches of data flow, how to learn from the useful things?

6. What kind of online communication platform do you like best?

My favorite social networking site is Facebook. In the 2006, after work, I helped my friends to build a social learning website for students in school, and then created their own Facebook page. At that time, Facebook was still primarily a platform for students to serve. We think it's a good platform to start the promotion.

I looked back at Facebook today and was amazed at how much they have worked in the past few years. The speed of action, the degree of continuous innovation. Of course, there are users and use of the tremendous growth, they also attracted a lot of elite talent to join! I like Facebook¸ because I can make intimate connections with my family and friends no matter which side of the world, although they are far away, but I still feel close at hand, I can know their status, and I can choose how to show myself openly on Facebook. But other social-networking pages offer far more than Facebook. Think about how microblogs and how they are democratized are publicly published. Look at Twitter and how to get the most out of the world's immediate dynamics. And there are those who build users on YouTube, and it's amazing how technology can make people thrive.

7. You mentioned the internal cultural transformation before. Often for a while, the "cleanup organization" is better prepared for the social engagement of the enterprise. Can you talk about the challenges of doing these jobs, and the obstacles the country may face?

Change is never easy. You have to make sure that people understand this. This means that first you have to understand where they are and what their values are. For a nearly 60-year-old human Resources colleague who does not have a Facebook account, the position is quite different than a 30-year-old blogger who works in the marketing department and often reads about the market. I think the effective approach to internal change can be a "storytelling" approach. Create a related story that links corporate values and challenges from your opponents while spending some time focusing on and interpreting social networking sites. Ask your CEO to google himself, or do a live demo of the web about your company and product, which will have an irresistible effect-believe me!

Finally, it really takes some time! Change is formed overnight. Spread the virus and tell all your friends as best you can. The word will do! You can't preach change without yourself getting into the role. So spend a little time sharing information about social media, creating work clubs and informing people about the latest employee information and news. In short, say and move on!

8. Looking to the future, what kind of technological development do you think is best suited to the way the community moves forward?

It's a very interesting question! What we are now experiencing is a complete transformation of communication and information that we are going through, based on available technologies and the price of infrastructure (networks, devices, data plans). If you look at the young generation (digital generation), you will find it not surprising to use the media at the same time. They are accustomed to instant messaging, easy sharing of information, working with friends, and all the other technologies driven forward. This is a very natural thing for them. Now, imagine what tomorrow's "employees" mean? Do you think they'll work for a company that's still in the past? Working in old software and hardware? You can't expect your employees to come to the company to forget the alluring digital gadgets they use in their spare time.

So in addition to cultural change, we need to answer the following questions: What should the workplace be like in the future, in terms of online dialogue and the drive to accept social media as an excellent business and strong customer relationship? How do you learn to collaborate better from social media? How can we turn the workplace into a more creative and creative sport? How do we motivate our employees to stand out in the team?

Nathaniel Hansen

This article translates from: Managing GLOBAL SOCIAL Communities for Enterprise-level Brands:an interview with Eleftherios Hatziioannou. The author of this article: Nathaniel Hansen is a chief executive of the "Social Family" (the socializers); Marketing Therapy, vice president of international development, JWT FDI 2010, the world's top 18 thinkers for social business. (Top social-business thought leaders by JWT FDI 2010.)