Community Managers are not just Social Media marketing Managers !!

Engagements on various mediums is the call of the hour. Engagement is when , like a surreal song , audience starts sing along , they start sharing it , they start referring and defending it, its when your voice becomes theirs. Promoting tonnes of content on various platforms doesn't gives you a following, it happens when there are connections, when there is communication (the two way types), it happens when there is a community.

Having said that Community Manager (Champion) or CM,  is like a member of a huge joint family under one house (the brand), who knows exactly what to say, whom to say and how to say it. He\she knows exactly to pull what string to result in a particular buzz or for that matter grievance. Its a game of People (Humans) management. When humans are evolved , stakes are on all the senses; from emotions to tones, from words to appearance. [wish we could play on taste and smell as well].

A Community Manager can do wonders to build a brand , driving content and engagements , he/she is the nervous system of a product/service on both on & offline mediums.

Here are some facts about Community Managers :-

Myths :

• Community Managers are Social Media Managers: A very common confusion around the exact profile of CMs is that they are assumed to be only social media managers. Its not 100% correct. Social Media platform is one of the prominent tool used by CMs for engagements as its defiantly a power to be exploited. 
• Community Manager is a minion's post : A very astonishing and false estimation of this role. They are no minions , in fact they are the decision makers, who can decide on various aspects of engagement types and flows and can also turn the entire marketing campaign around. 
• Community Managers are Geeks : No. CMs are not geeks , they are the most smart , most extrovert, most jovial people ever. They do have life beyond their work.
• Community Managers are masked entities: Not necessarily. On the flip side , they are the brand ambassadors drive the force to identity management.
• Community Managers are less analytical : Contrary to the belief, CMs are very analytical in-terms of  mapping the effectiveness and return of any campaign, as that's how they strategies their next step.
• Community Managers are less paid : with the amount of awareness and engagements CMs can drive for a brand, it is one of the best paying job in the market today.

Some Fun qualities of Community Manager, one should look for:

• Best Listeners and Interpreters.
• Great communication !! An extrovert.
• Highly Empathetic values.
• People person.
• Most naughty and funny characters.
• Highly charged up batteries.
• Social media and relationship enthusiasts.
• Good at Strategy Games.

Why become a Community Manager:

• Its pays to be a social person.
• Want to get paid good ?
• Location independence.
• Chance to go to lot of events.
• Social media and Pr is your passion.
• You like working on campaigns.
• You want to build a brand.
• You don't crib. 

Why Indian brands need to emphasis on Community Managers:

• 
• Its a blue ocean.
• We are a social community.
• We love to talk and get addressed.
• We like to take as many suggestions and references on any purchase or association we make.
• We are smart enough to understand a small seasonal campaign from a long term engagement campaign.
• We are busy and we don't like to do lot of research.
• We are always on a lookout for a single point of contact .
• We are going to be a huge Internet savvy population very soon.
• We are very interested in what's trending.
• We do get lost in emotions.

So if brands want to play on these realities of our community (lets face it branding is not all clean and clear, we do play with emotions) , a Community Manager can defiantly be of great help.

Chic, Ultra Modern yet Humanitarian - Marketing Trends in 2014.

Marketing as ever evolving and revolutionary it is , is now transforming into a whole new persona. As the whole world is becoming more and more mechanical and robotic in nature , marketing however has still hold on to its humanity. 2014 is going to see a perfect amalgamation if this humanitarian yet ultra modern and chic  look of marketing where 'PEST' is up for fresh innings.

[PEST : Political, Economical , Social, Technological]

Few steps to watch out for :

1. Politically and Socially correct : last year has seen lot of agitation on politically and socially sensitive matters which were used, published or merely shared on any media. social media for sure is going to be very agile when it comes to such matters and hunts to feed on it. Marketers need to be more wise while using any sensitive matter.
2. Content is Crucial : Content is the key word. Content placement and creation is very crucial when it comes to branding. Content is the fuel for any search engine. Good and crisp content provided better navigation. Attention span of consumer is becoming shorter and shorter , challenge is to grab it even in the 'blink of an eye'. 
3. Customised Targeting: Its no more just about targeting, it about tapping the core needed of customers as specifically as possible. connect with customer at grass root level and receive a long haul relationship. customer wants 'more' , one should be read to supply much 'more'. 
4. Focus on Brands : Brand building has taken a vigorous shape last year, its going to continue in 2014 as well. Marketers have to be care full in attaching right sentiments with their brands in order to stimulate the reception and purchase and post purchase behaviors among the audience.
5. Branding is also services : like any other services branding is now all about retaining customers. All the 'services escapes' are equally applicable i.e. from color, to text, to size, to aesthetics of content, to layout etc.
6. The inverse tree: The direct marketing of association from one customer to many has also been used in inverse manner. Now to woo some important customers , many customers testifies and validates the brand value. Testimonials , referrals , feedback and endorsements are the branches that validates a brand. 
7. Small Videos says it all : Gone are the times of 4 to 5 minutes of videos, crisp, attractive focused videos are taking over ads and long scripted messages. 
8. Info-graphics the new language: long texts and boring passages are being replaced by creative info graphics. Add some color and systematic shapes to your presentations, white papers, e-mailers resumes and even blogs.
9. Due diligence with digital: It doesn't matter if you are present at a particular digital media, it is assumed your there. Its not about one's outreach or the number of followers you have. Its going to be about the kind of buzz you create, the kind of sentiments being raised. It going to be a content war. 
10. Mobile - get moving: forget winning if you are not mobile. Mobile marketing is another powerful tool not yet been used efficiently. With the reach of more number of people to smart phones, Mobile marketing is a blue ocean for marketers to engage audience. Don't just bank on mobile sms , its a war of apps.
11. Geography : GPS enabled devices have erased all the boundaries, now we are targeting to a global audience. Using this technology is another pick for 2014. from real estate to automobiles , from network provides to tourism, GPS and other location based services are going to see a new market.
12. Disintegrate to Integrate: To integrate more life into your efforts , its required to disintegrate that one big effort. Disintegrate a big message to many smaller ones, small ads then big boring ones, many teasers are better then one monotonous ad.
13. The Emotional Quotient : blog are flooded with new mother experiences to a house wife turned chef. Emotion sharing has been a back bone of social media. Marketers are going to intrude more of our personal and closeted emotions to peruse , audience experiencing similar moments. your "secret single behaviour" is not going to be secret any more.
14. I'm Engaged : Like a proposal is followed by an engagement (OK , lets assume for a while!!), similarly consumer engagement with the brand is an outcome of prolonged association , trust , affinity and attraction that a brand creates with its customer. There will be some tears, some smiles and dissatisfaction, but when a brand overcomes all these hurdles and still manages to keep the customer intact, you have a long life association. Harley Davidson has many engaged customers is an example. And they live happily here after.
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Influencer marketing: are you influenced yet??

Great influencers have been influencing us and many of the leaders for a long time, Krishna’s influence in shaping the epic of Mahabharata, Gandhi’s influence on Mandela or Martin Luther king’s influential speech.

Business world uses influencers in a tad different way. Here influencers play a great role in building a brand, to thrive it through thick and thins, or to kill it all together. Influencers are very critically acclaimed entities for any brand whose words and thoughts are more trusted over anyone. An influencer can be a celebrity or an endorser, a customer or a consumer, a marketer or to a publisher, a fan or a follower and the list go on and on. Basically anyone who has an opinion and has a voice that gets heard can become an influencer.

Influencer marketing is the process of getting an idea backed by professional and user feedback and recommendations. To put in more apt words of our well known encyclopedia i.e. Wikipedia – “Influencer marketing, (also Influence Marketing) is a form of marketing that has emerged from a variety of recent practices and studies, in which focus is placed on specific key individuals (or types of individual) rather than the target market as a whole. It identifies the individuals that have influence over potential buyers, and orients marketing activities around these influencers.”  

It’s the marketing of new era of social media. Influencer marketing swept in very swiftly while the world is still getting mesmerized with the whole social media wonder. It has already started. Brands and their influencers are using powerful tools of social media giants like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr, Wordpress, Instagram , just to name few. 2014 is going to see a massive war of influencer marketing to cut the chase of adaptive life cycle of brands.

Today it’s not just about creating a brand or a service offering but also to build long term association of people. To take it from the 7Ps of marketing it’s a marriage between ‘Product, People, and Promotion’. Our products or services need approvals and associations of certain dignitaries from the society and also from the business circle to be considered as commercially and socially viable.  Hence this theory can be resonated with the 4Ms of influencer marketing – Make, Manage, Monitor, Measure, as coined by Author Danny Brown in his book ‘Influence Marketing’.

The Process:

·         Make or set the influencer position i.e. at which stage the influencer is needed. Match the influencer with the product life cycle and pre/post purchase stages.

·         Manage the influencer voice by making it more viable for the stage of PLC you are targeting.

Words, emotions, language, tone, vigor etc. can be altered and put forward to create mix of any kind connect with the market, be it positive for us or negating anyone else.

·         Monitoring the influencer marketing campaign is the most important and the most interesting part. This is where you can touch a niche, this where you create loyalty or for that matter distress. Monitoring which focused group which is actively responsive to your influencer can give you a lead to create secondary and tertiary level influencers. These groups can be motivated from time to time by certain recognition so as to be compelling enough for them to start influencing other and taking ownership/belongingness for the idea. This is where we cover a greater media.

·         Lastly Measure, measuring a campaign is always very challenging. Thanks to our beloved online marketing possibilities things are little bit easier. Measuring Influencer marketing is very crucial in terms of answering few questions: how effective was the whole campaign? How effective was the reach of our influencer? Overall response for the product or services? Over visits to your online pages, blogs and handles? Overall effect brand equity? Competitor responsiveness etc.

Influencer marketing is the new ‘Indirect marketing’ revolution , where we have come a long way through touch and feel and physical evidences for our purchase decisions, we are now being compelled to Think More, to Analyze More , to Compare more, to Follow more…

It’s definitely a boom for marketers but for a consumer the question lies – are we Smart yet?? are we Influenced yet??