Introducing the Community Director

Rachel Caggiano | @rcaggianoAshley Hurst | @ashleyshurst

February 21, 2013

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The Evolution of the Community Manager

2010“Hottest Job in Marketing Might Just be the Community Manager.”

2013“Community managers are the most powerful group online”

2011“The concept of community management has become a hot topic in the last year, driven by more mainstream interest.”

2012“Community management…has become increasingly important in the rise of social media.”

2009“Looking for a Second Career? Consider Being a Community Manager.”

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Brand communities are growing in importance and having greater impact on bottom line measures.

Nearly 300 corporate brands have more than 1 million fans.

Social interaction with customers is directly impacting marketing efficiency.

74% of consumers rely on social networks to guide purchase decisions.

Sources: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/12/turn_customer_care_into_social.htmlhttp://sproutsocial.com/insights/2011/11/social-networks-influence-buying-decisions/

http://fanpagelist.com/category/corporate_brands

More than 50% of Twitter users expect brands to respond within 2 hours.

A single negative post impacts consumer decision-making as much as five positive posts.

Community Managers are on the front lines

The job of the community manager has evolved to a more senior role…one that demands a specific set of professional skills.

Introducing: the Community Director.

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Orchestra conductor of a ‘symphony of content’ 

7 Skills of a Community Director

Relationship manager

Brand voice expert

Crisis radar technician

Content & advertising targeting expert 

Fan segmentation specialist

Performance analyst

They also know how to navigate internal halls of legal and public affairs to swiftly produce timely, highly relevant, often witty responses to trending memes.

They know how to tap into content creators for rich “peak content” like videos, apps and webisodes that pull in a wide range of valuable customer interaction.

The Community Director knows how to produce live, responsive content. But rather than being the single source for content creation, they know how to inspire and mobilize across the enterprise to work with various content creators.

Orchestra Conductor of Content

Oreo’s brilliant, real-time response to the Super Bowl blackout – “you can still dunk in the dark” –caught fire and garnered more than 13K retweets…all due to a “mission control” set up to enable rapid collaboration, content creation and seamless execution.

Oreo

The Community Director understands how to move an enraged customer to a happily engaged one through direct, speedy customer service.

They know when they are having service problems. They must relate to a broad range of fans and never lose their compassion or their cool.

The Community Director manages the direct relationships with thousands, sometimes millions of customers. They know when these folks are enjoying the brand.

Relationship Manager

The renowned company culture and “customer first” mentality is infused in all social content and communities, as they leverage Pinterest for social shopping and Twitter for first-class customer service – securing the brand a spot as an industry leader.

Zappos

They understand how the brand voice informs their content marketing strategy and how their content allows that brand persona to shine through and through.

They agonize over defining it clearly so that all who manage the brand publically will stay true to how the brand talks, looks and behaves.

The Community Director is the living embodiment of the brand voice.

Brand Voice Expert

Old Spice took its playfulness to the next level by engaging creatively with other brands, like Taco Bell, and celebrities, like Alyssa Milano via tweets and video responses.

Old Spice

The Community Director must anticipate the worst, but never over react.

Brand’s Facebook pages and Twitter handles have become a magnet for issues and concerns. Which ones will become actual crises? This person not only detects all possible issues but also evaluates how they evolve over time.

While every brand ostensibly has a crisis plan in place and regularly trains its people to prevent major crises, the Community Director has their ear to the ground and can detect whispers before anyone else in the organization.

Crisis Radar Technician

Having learned a lot about communicating with the public around crisis-level issues, BP recently used its Facebook page to help coordinate Hurricane Sandy-related recovery efforts with the Salvation Army in the New Jersey and New York area.

BP

As the tools inside social networks like Facebook become more sophisticated, the Community Director serves as an expert at complex targeting of content and advertising stories.

Staying on top of the latest developments from the top platforms and API partners, the Community Director works tirelessly to play a key role in segmentation strategy and to know which types of content resonate with each set.

Content + Targeting Advertising Expert

P&G’s Tide brand took advantage of Facebook’s Premium ads to target its fans and friends of its fans to draw attention to its role in cleaning up after a NASCAR racetrack fire. The brand leveraged Facebook’s Reach Generator to ask fans to create a caption for a photo of the clean up.

Tide

The Community Director must use that data to attract the right fans, deliver the right content to important affinity segments and grow their use of social data to make a richer community experience for fan and brand.

New tools like Facebook’s CAT tool allow for a much deeper and more refined look at brands’ fan bases.

Communities form around affinities – passions and interests that bring people together. The Community Director knows which people matter to the business, and how to use the right tools to find and attract the right fans.

Fan Segmentation Specialist

British Airways knew it needed to engage US and UK in different ways, and strategically used targeted tweets and the #HomeAdvantage hashtag to encourage British residents to stay in the country for last summer’s London Games.

British Airways

They know how to distill true KPIs from the litany of data that everyone can measure and report. They are discrete and thoughtful as to what they report against. They have a strong POV about which measurements matter to the business goals.

How much conversation did we generate? Are we getting more people talking positively about our products and services? These are some of the fundamental questions the Community Director can answer. 

The Community Director listens, sets benchmarks on conversation engagement with content, sentiment, and other important metrics to measure the effectiveness of any marketing campaign.

Performance Analyst

When Ford Motor Company chose to use Facebook to reveal the 2011 Explorer, it knew that sales impact was the KPI to track in order to show that more “likes” drove more sales. The launch generated 3,500 pre-orders for the vehicle five months before it even became available.

Ford Explorer

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Rachel CaggianoSenior Vice President | Social@Ogilvy

Email: rachel.caggiano@ogilvy.comTwitter: @rcaggianoLinkedin: linkedin.com/rachelkennedycaggiano

Connect with us

Ashley HurstAccount Director | Social@Ogilvy

Email: ashley.hurst@ogilvy.comTwitter: @ashleyshurstLinkedin: linkedin.com/ashleyshurst