Blog posts

Here at The Mod Com we try to collate as many relevant, informative blog posts and white papers as we can to provide our members with links to some of the most insightful bloggers writing about community management.

As we upload more and more links, it can be a little difficult to discover them. If you find one or two authors you like, enter their name into the search function and the Mod Com will return any other articles we have by the same author.

Here I've listed just a few of our most prolific and popular blog posts from around the net.

In no particular order ...

1. Emoderation

Emoderation is an outsourced moderation and community management provider. Their team produces a regular blog including one of our own members, Tia Fisher who has uploaded a number of resources for our community. Here are just some of the blog posts we've uploaded over the past two years:

Starting Up Your Online Community A guide.

The Pitfalls of Community Management  A list of the easily-avoided pitfalls when starting up your online community.

eModeration Whitepaper: Communities of Purpose  It details best practice for the management of Communities of Purpose in order to maximise the engagement and support that these communities can offer their members.

Creating Culture Community "Six methods of doing more with your content moderation staff than just asking them to hit 'accept' or 'decline'. Given the proper training and rules of engagement, your talented moderation staff and help build fantastic culture."

You do Whaaat? A Glimpse Behind the Scenes of Technical Moderation "For anyone who believes that a moderator spends his or her time deleting rude words from forums and hitting 'reject' on naughty video submissions, read on ..."

Why Facebook Community Pages Could Be Bad for Brands "How have they been created?  Who has control over them? And - most importantly to those who manage a brand's official page on Facebook - what are the implications for brands?"

Click here for more resources from eModeration. Tia Fisher is following us on Twitter @eModeration.

2. Radian 6

Radian 6 is a listening platform that allows brands to measure, analyse, report and engage in online communities.

A Different Look at Community Management How much collaboration does it take to raise a community?

Building and Sustaining Brand Communities A comprehensive e-book about building, managing and sustaining brand communities.

3. Brass Tack Thinking

Prolific author and Director of Community at Radian 6, Amber Naslund regularly shares her insights into community manager. She has since joined us on Twitter @AmberCadabra.

7 Sensible Strides Toward a Stronger Community Thoughts on community building.

The Ultimate Community Management FAQ A must read resource - particualarly prioritising engagement and human relations.

Five Myths of Community Management Community Management is a little more than socialising online.

4. Web Strategist

Blog from Jeremiah Owyang, Partner of Customer Strategy at Altimeter Group, a strategy consulting firm. Jeremiah's blog is recognised as a top analyst blog in the industry. He also follows us on Twitter @jowyang

How to Kick Start a Community Ways to increase traffic and engagement in your online community.

Community Managers Must Deliver ROI: Commandments for Surviving a Recession Advice for community managers on what they should measure, how they should report success and how to react to the increasing pressures of the economic crisis.

What a Community Manager Does Listen, Respond and Inform

Job Hazards of a Community Manager The difficulting of separating your personal and professional lives can be hard as a community manager.

Should Start-Ups Have Community Managers It depends.

Click here for more resources from Jeremiah Owyang

5. Blaisegv.com

One of own members and a prolific Blogger/Tweet addict, Blaise Grimes-Viort is Head of Communities and Social Media at National Magazine Company. He follows us on Twitter @blaisegv

10 Tips on Finding That Community Manager Job You Want Where to look.

How To Recruit a Community Manager Via Social Media Where to look and how to go about it.

7 Tips on Achieving Work/Life Balance as a Community Manager Avoid burning out.

How to Build Trust in Your Online Community: 8 Key Points How to create and engage a viable community.

What's the Difference Between a Community Manager and a Social Media Manager Is there room enough for two? Or are the two roles too similar?

Click here for more resources from Blaise.

Some other resources we have available from blogs we regularly visit include the following:

Social Media Today

"Our company, Social Media Today LLC, is a battle-tested, nimble team of former journalists, online managers, and advertising professionals who have come together to make a new kind of media company. With our backgrounds, and passions for, business-to-business and public policy conversations, we’ve decided to focus our efforts there. For these conversations we’d like to have, we’re assembling the world’s best bloggers and we provide them with an independent “playground” to include their posts, to comment and rate posts, and to connect with each other."

Click here for a list of our resources from Social Media Today

Social Times

"The Social Times vision is “learning the skills and tools necessary to help businesses and individuals build social capital.” ... We update our site daily with news and videos, and serve as a hub linking our users to all types of media pertaining to building social capital. The Social Times is the single place online that builds the community within the web industry both online and offline, and we look forward to seeing you at our next event."

Click here for a list of our resources from Social Times

Conversation Agent

"Valeria built one of the first online communities associated with Fast Company magazine. A brand strategist with 20 years of real-world corporate experience, 10 of which online, she’s worked with Fortune 500 and small start up companies in 5 industries. She specializes in taking companies to what’s next in their business cycle through marketing communications, customer dialogue, and brand advocacy." Conversation Agent is ranked among the top 25 marketing blogs in the world on AdAge Power150."

Click here for a list of our resources from Conversation Agent

Feverbee

"Richard Millington is an online community consultant currently working for the United Nations. In the past 8 years Richard has worked on 9 successful online communities and contributed to success of dozens more. Richard has helped a number of known brands launch their community efforts. These include two Fortune 500 businesses (AMD and BAE Systems), several entertainment businesses (Future Publishing, Interactive Gaming UK) and worked with large tourism destinations to develop their community building efforts (British Columbia Tourism Board)."

Click here for a list of our resources from Feverbee

The Community Roundtable 

 "The Community Roundtable is a virtual table where social media and community practitioners gather to meet, discuss challenges, celebrate successes, and hear from experts. Along with providing a welcoming environment in which to gather and learn, The Community Roundtable is dedicated to furthering the discipline of community management."

Click here for a list of our resources from The Community Roundtable

Bang the Table

"Online Community Engagement is a compendium of the thoughts, feelings, opinions and learnings of the people at Bang the Table. Our hope is to create a useful resource for anyone thinking about getting in to web based community engagement."

Click here for a list of our resources from Bang the Table

In addition to the Mod Com's members' blogs above, I'd also like to mention one of our other member's blogs - Practical Conversations by Kevin Micalizzi, on how we sustain web and social media conversations. He is also following us on Twitter @kevinmic

If you have a blog you'd like to share, please leave a link below. Cheers!

Hola, Guten Tag, G'Day, Hi, Bonjour, Hello, Hej Community!

It's been a busy month of uploading Community Manager jobs from all around the world as far and wide as Kuwait to Australia to the USA, Canada, UK and across Europe - pheeww! Over 65 job links were uploaded and tweeted @themodcom.

In addition there's been some interesting resources uploaded including an astrological survey on what star signs are best suited to Community Management as researched by one of our own members as well as an insightful slideshare presentation on the role of Community Managers as Innovative Disruptors! Check below under Most Read Items this month for more details.

1. Welcome to Our New Members!

2. Events Happening in Social Media this Month

3. Our latest International Jobs

4. Top 5 Most Read Items this Month

1. Welcome to Our New Members!

On behalf of the Moderator Community team, I'd like to extend a very warm welcome to all our new members this month.

We encourage you to add your own blog articles (or those of your favorite bloggers) to our resource section and to promote your community or group in your profile. We'd also like to encourage you to upload a good-looking photo of yourself as we like to be able to put a face to the name!

Here are some new members that have joined in the last month:

Kevin Micalizzi, Community Manager at Dimdim, USA. With a background in interpersonal communication, he has devoted his career to helping companies and people strategically leverage the web. Check out Kevin's blog: Practical Conversations on how to sustain web and social media conversations.

"What a great way to be welcomed!  I saw the tweet welcoming me, then found my blog mentioned on the homepage. Such great service! Thanks!"

Herve Soursou, Internet Entrepreneur, Denmark. Hervé has 15 years of entrepreneurial and Business Development experience in large-scale SaaS platform solutions from start-up to mature global Industry leader within the Digital Media, Internet and Mobile industries across 80+ countries. Take a look at Herve's company's website: Digital-recognition

Looking for: "Sparring and sharing expertise within UGC moderation/ community management."

Hugo Bugg, Musican, Canada. Worked as a Moderator, and George Moderator for Sulake – Habbo.ca 2004 to 2007. Indie Band Marketing Director – utilized cost-efficient "guerrilla marketing" techniques by researching the internet for websites that accept indie artists in order to promote bands to a global audience. Check out this Dr. Spock lookalike at Glowbotmusic,

"I am looking for a career in social media, and to learn as much as possible along the way."

Reto Mueller, Community Manager for miscellaneous online gaming communities at Game Forge, Germany. 

We'd also like to acknowledge the following member for uploading even more insightful resources:

Tia Fisher who works at eModeration which is a leading international provider of outsourced multilingual community management and user generated content moderation services for US Fortune 500 and top UK based content providers.

You do whaaat? A glimpse behind the scenes of technical moderation

eModeration publishes new white paper: Communities of Purpose

2. Events Happening in Social Media this Month

Here is our overview of monthly events in the community sector. If you think we're missing an important event, feel free to add it to our events section!

Brand Republic's Social Media Strategy Event on July 1 in London, United Kingdom.

Mobile Beat 2010 on July 12 in San Francisco, USA.

Social Media for Government on July 12 in Washington D.C., USA.

Social Convergence and Enterprise: Case Studies and Roundtables on July 21 in New York, USA.

Cross Media on July 21 in Toronto, Canada.

KM Collaboration on July 23 in Sydney, Australia.

3. Some of our most popular jobs this month

Online Community Manger for Mattel/Fisherprice in El Segundo, California, USA.

Community Manager for Home Depot in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

Online Sports Community Moderator for ICUC Moderation Services in Montreal, Canada.

Community Manager for Game Point in Hamburg, Germany.

Community Manager for GoNabit in Kuwait City, Kuwait.

Community Manager for Soap Creative in Sydney, Australia.

Online Community Manager for Lago de Linya´s Exclusive EcoLuxe in Barcelona, Spain.

Check out our job section in collaboration with Monster for more jobs in the online community and social media space! Our job section is becoming very active, so have a look if you're on the job hunt. If you have a job to offer, we encourage you to add it - it's free! Check us out on Twitter and get up-to-the-minute job vacancies especially for you!

4. Top 5 Most Read Items this month

Here are the Top 5 most read items this month!

Innovative Disruptor: Community Manager Role

Making Money on Ning's Network by Advertising

Does a Successful Niche Social Network Threaten Facebook?

Social Media Listening, Measurement and Engagement Primer

Online Community Zodiac Survey

Thanks to those members who have contacted me personally with questions and tips, and thanks also to those of you on Twitter who have been busy retweeting our jobs and resource Tweets. See you all in The Mod Com and on Twitter!

Sincerely,

Louise

(Community & Content Manager)

-------------------------

About The Moderator Community

Follow The Moderator Community on Twitter: @themodcom

Suggestions or questions about this newsletter or The Moderator Community? Don't hesitate to contact us!

Edward Norton, (yes that Edward Norton) recently spoke at the Mashable Media Summit on a new venture he and his colleagues had undertaken in order to fundamentally revolutionize the way non-profit organizations currently engage donors. And whilst his speech-giving-ability might not be as exhilarating as his movie monologues, he and his team have given non-profits the twist they needed to create an explosive clout in the realm of social media fundraising.

A 2009 survey posted on http://www.proactivereport.com/c/social-media/non-profits-lack-social-media-strategy/ highlighted the following:

 Non-profits know about social media

Most respondents are using social media as a networking tool but are not yet leveraging it as a tool to engage with donors

55% are already using social media

25% are planning to use social media

80% are unfamiliar with microblogging tools such as Twitter

Only 7% are currently using a microblogging service

More than 75% did not have a marketing plan

Fortunately in 2010 non-profits have finally begun to utilize social media and harness the reach of this phenomenon.

Norton worked with the team behind his website for the Masaai Marathon fundraising run to create an innovative DIY fundraising site: CrowdRise. The Masaai Marathon site itself raised $1.2 million in two weeks, most of which was raised by small, individual donations, and thus inspired numerous other non-profit organizations to want to do the same. Thus CrowdRise was created in order to provide a simple, easy-to-use scalable social networking site for all non-profits.

 As Norton so simply put - social media is our own personal narrative. Social media collates our collective ideas and beliefs, and thus it perfectly complements our desire to genuinely make a difference and connect with others who are equally inspired to pay-it-forward.

This is essentially the heart behind CrowdRise. It brings together individuals and communities from around the globe to share, engage, inspire, celebrate and take pleasure in fundraising for all kinds of non-profits from all walks of life: individuals and organizations both big and small; and most notably grassroots organizations.

Visit the site and you’re welcomed to add your own campaign or donate to others as well as visit user profiles to see what fundraising campaigns they’re involved in and how much money they’ve raised. It offers a points reward system as well as a multitude of competitions to help raise money for the non-profit of your choice. You can organize sponsorship the same way you did when you ran your school marathon. You can also upload photos, videos and post comments.

What sets it apart is not only its vibrant online community space, but its use of social media language. It’s witty, sarcastic, young, unapologetic and tongue-in-cheek. It reads like the best of Edward Norton’s eccentric characters. It is a fantastic new venture that really takes non-profit into the social media stratosphere which is not only simple to set-up (no more than 15 minutes), but leaves old-school, dull non-profit fundraising campaigns for dust.

See below for Edward Norton's presentation - backstage and on stage at the Mashable Media Summit. Click here to view his website: CrowdRise.

Another example is Kaboom! – one of our own member’s communities in fact. The excerpt below is taken from http://www.bethkanter.org/kaboom-case-study-monito/:

 “Instead of taking a traditional non-profit approach to scale, KaBOOM! has used the Internet to disseminate its model, empowering local communities to self-organize and build their own playgrounds using free resources on its website. While the idea of giving away a non-profit model itself isn’t new, KaBOOM! is one of the first non-profit organizations to take this approach online.

And the results have been impressive. Through a suite of online tools—including a social networking site, online training, do-it-yourself content, and a Google-map mashup—KaBOOM! has empowered more than 6,000 communities to build local playgrounds in the past few years (far more than the 1,700 it has built directly in 15 years). In so doing, it has had more impact for less cost. In 2009, a dollar spent by the organization on online tools helped to improve 10 times as many neighborhoods as a dollar spent on playground equipment.

With assistance from KaBOOM! and several social-media experts—including Beth Kanter—we identified seven key lessons for nonprofits that want to use the Internet to evangelize their program model and increase their offline impact.”

For a full report click here: http://www.monitorinstitute.com/documents/Monitor_Institute_KaBOOM_Study_SM.pdf

ChildFund international is another non-profit using social media to leverage awareness. David Hylton is currently the public relations specialist for ChildFund International. Hylton says:

“Social media has played a role in our rebranding by providing a means for letting people know about the work we do for children while also increasing our global visibility. When we launched our new name, ChildFund International, we launched new Facebook and Twitter pages, as well as a new blog. We’ve been more active in these places and focused on spreading the word about what we do and how ChildFund is helping kids around the world.

We’ve made sure to highlight our presence on these social media websites by linking out from our main web site to our Twitter page, Facebook page and blog frequently. We also built a central area called “Stay Connected” on our site. This allows our supports or new visitors to easily connect with us where ever we’re at.”

For more information see http://www.netwitsthinktank.com

Other non profits on Twitter include this list from Mashable: http://mashable.com/2009/03/19/twitter-nonprofits/

These are just some of the ways non profits have begun to utlize social media - do you have a non-profit you'd like to share?

Ever wondered which star signs make for dynamic community managers? A survey conducted by one of our own members, Blaise (Head of Communities & Social Media for The National Magazine Company) found the following:

"The statistical chart suggest that a couple of zodiac signs are more likely to be drawn into a career in
Community Management, and the top two are signs traditionally associated with diplomacy, a desire to take
care of others, and display signs of fairness and justice. The other extreme of the chart suggests competitiveness,
self-sufficiency, personal ambition and adversity to criticism."

The top three were as follows:

Virgo

"Based on their astrological sign description, it isn’t a surprise to find Virgos top of the pile. They are naturally drawn to service industries, which can include welfare work, teaching, medical careers, customer service and of course community management. Their most pronounced trait is the ability to rise above cynicism in the face of adversity, displayed in their kind-heartedness and willingness to support others to grow and take centre-stage. They are givers and understand human frailties as they generally have deep and self-reflective personalities."

Libra

"Capable of immense charm and the ability to take part in complex role-playing, Librans are creative and express a multi-faceted personality which allows them to mold themselves to fit most types of interactions and situations. They are natural peace-makers which allows them to diplomatically navigate through difficult arguments and find compromise where most would give up. They are capable of complete commitment to a cause, remaining steady on the surface despite any inner turmoil or doubt."

Scorpio

"As the “most powerful” sign in the zodiac, Scorpios generally pursue intense and dramatic personal relationships. They often know all the answers and can come across as older and wiser than the average. They display passion, power and desire, and are deeply emotional and sensitive. Once they find their true calling they can be the most dedicated of all signs. They strive for success, capable of rising above adversity and displaying a strong entrepreneurial streak."

For the full report check out Blaise's blog at http://blaisegv.com/

So do you agree? Here at the Mod Com team we have Virgos and Taurus - both Earth signs. So do you think astrology plays a part in Community Managment?!! What star sign are you and what kind of community do you manage?

#WebCom 2.0 recently took place in Montreal, Canada. As part of their programme they chose to interview their speakers online and upload their interviews to YouTube. Below I have included the video interview with Connie Benson in addition to her own slideshow presentation to a roundtable group in Geneva, Switzerland on the role of Community Management.

Connie Benson is a leading authority on cultivating communities. Forbes.com listed her blog as one of the top 20 marketing and social media blogs by women in 2009. It is also recognized for providing best practices for this emerging role. Connie is the Director of Community Strategy at Alterian.

Connie's presentation at the #WebCom conference was about the Community Manager role and how it supports innovation as well as the disruption necessary to drive the culture shift in an organization required to successfully engage in social media. To learn more about Connie check out her website at Community Strategist.

Dear Community,

Some of you have already noticed us busily tweeting jobs and links to events and resources. So if you would like to keep ahead of the social media pack please join us on Twitter @themodcom to receive daily tweets about new jobs we've uploaded especially for our members!

1. Welcome to Our New Members!

2. Events Happening in Social Media this Month

3. Our latest International Jobs

4. Top 5 Most Read Items this Month

5. Feedback from the Nonick Conference in Bilbao

1. Welcome to Our New Members!

On behalf of the Moderator Community team, I'd like to extend a very warm welcome to all our new members this month. I'd also like to thank all those members - new and old :) - who have uploaded new jobs and resources - you're all stars! 

We encourage you to add your own blog articles (or those of your favorite bloggers) to our resource section and to promote your community or group in your profile.

If you've been a member for a long time, we encourage you to take a look at the community again! Is your profile up to date? Have you introduced yourself to the community yet? Add your blog articles to our resource section so even more people will find their way to your blog!

Here are some new members that have joined in the last month:

Bliss H from the United States who has been very busy uploading heaps of jobs for everybody! Thanks Bliss!

Stefanie Kleebauer, Project Manager in Germany for http://www.community-summit.de/

I'm interested in "all topics about Social Media, Community Management and Marketing 2.0, I am organising events in Germany."

Thomas Miller, Community Manager in the United Kingdom for Digital Spy, Elle and Sugarscape.

"I’m keen to try as much as I can and would love to get involved with some live chat or virtual world projects. I am customer service oriented and have a good grasp of user safety issues." Find out more about Thomas at http://teeohem.co.uk/

Christian R, Head of Community Management for a large mobile network in the United States.

Christian is looking for: "Shared insights in CM, team management, branding, communications. Also here to potentially recruit new aspiring CMs and contribute to establishing industry standards in privacy, user-defined controls, anomaly detection and scalable responses to emergence."

Monica Gimenez, works in Marketing and Communication in Spain. Check out her blog on Technology and Digital Entertainment at http://misstechin.com

Monica is interested in helping young tech companies to launch their products.

2. Events Happening in Social Media this Month

Here are just some of our overview of monthly events in the community sector. If you think we're missing an important event, feel free to add it to our events section!

Blogs with Balls, Chicago, Illinois, USA, 4-6th June

Small Business Social Media Summit, Hutchinson, Kansas, USA, 5-6th June

Online Community Unconference, Mountain View, California, USA, 9th June

The Corporate Social Media Summit, New York, New York, USA, 15th June

Social Media Strategy Event, London, UK, 1st July

3. Our latest International Jobs

Community Manager at Disney Music Group in Burbank, California, USA.

Community Manager at Everything Mom, Online in Canada.

Branding Manager and Community Builder at TED in New York, New York, USA.

Social Media Community Manager in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

German Moderator with experience in Children's Moderation. Online.  

Check out our job section in collaboration with Monster for more jobs in the online community and social media space! Our job section is becoming very active, so have a look if you're on the job hunt. If you have a job to offer, we encourage you to add it - it's free! Check us out on Twitter and get up-to-the-minute job vacancies especially for you!

4. Top 5 Most Read Items this month

Here are the Top 5 most read items this month!

21 Rules for Social Media Engagement

Creating a Content-driven Community

NYU Students Raise More than $100 000 to Build Facebook Alternative

5 Things That Don't Work On Facebook (and 5 That Do)

Why No Single Type of Agency Will Own Social Media

5. Feedback from Nonick Conference in Bilbao

First of all thanks to those members who provided feedback from the Nonick Conference including our competition winners: Maria Sylvia Llamozaz and Ricardo Varma as well as Blaise Grimes-Viort (Head of Commnities and Social Media for The National Magazine Company).   who not only presented at Nonick, but who has been busy retweeting our tweets - thanks Blaise!

Both Blaise and Ricardo were impressed with Andie Grace, Communications Manager for Burning Man as well as Petur Johannes Oskarsson, Communications Manager for Eve Online.

For more information on the conference check out their website at Nonick. There's also a summary on YouTube (in Spanish). Click here to see the video.

We're looking forward to continuing discovering the world of online communities with you!

Louise

(Community & Content Manager)

-------------------------

About The Moderator Community

Follow The Moderator Community on Twitter: @themodcom

Suggestions or questions about this newsletter or The Moderator Community? Don't hesitate to contact us!

Dear Community

Welcome to our newsletter for April. First of all congratulations to our competition winners! See below for details.

1. Welcome to Our New Members!

2. Events Happening in the Community Sector this Month

3. Competiton Winners!

4. The 5 Most Recent Jobs

5. Top 5 Most Read Items Last Month

1. Welcome to Our New Members!

As intern for the Moderator Community Team, I'd like to extend a very warm welcome to all new members this month!

Please feel free to tap into the community with your questions and post them in one of our groups. Also, we encourage you to add your own blog articles (or those of your favorite bloggers) to our resource section and to promote your community or group in your profile.

If you've been a member for a long time, we encourage you to take a look at the community again! Is your profile up to date? Have you introduced yourself to the community yet? Take a look at the discussions that have been taking place, or add your blog articles to our resource section so even more people will find their way to your blog!

Here are some new members that have joined in the last month:

Ricardo Varma, Community Manager for municipality of Zoetermeer in the Netherlands. Find out more about Ricardo at http://nl.linkedin.com/in/ricardovarma:

"I really feel that your personal stories can teach me something about the grander picture of being a community manager."

Victoria Graham, German Community Manager in America. Find out more about her at http://wiki.answers.com/Q/User:V:

"I'd like to learn about the quirks and tendencies that German Community Managers have learned or noticed."

Tavi Calvete, Social Media Strategist & Online Marketing Strategist Consultant in Spain. He is the Community Manager for XING Murcia on XING Murcia and XING Comunidad Valenciana on XING. Check out his website at http://www.tavicalvete.tel/

Jason Cooper, Community Manager at KaBOOM in America:

"As the Online Community Coordinator for KaBOOM!, my job is to help members of the KaBOOM! community use the website, meet other people, participate in conversations, advocate for play, and build new places to play."

Lena Wargo, Community Manager in America:

"I am currently an Art Community Manager in training for Symbaloo.com and also a Volunteer Message Network Admin for deviantART.com. Symbaloo communities will be launching in the near future, so we are all very excited!"

2. Events Happening in the Community Sector this Month

Here is our monthly overview of events in the community sector. If you think we're missing an important event, feel free to add it to our events section!

Community 2.0, New York, USA, May 3.

Social Media and Community 2.0 Strategies, Boston, USA, May 3.

Social Media Success Summit 2010, Online, May 4.

Lift Conference, Geneva, Switzerland, May 5-7.

Next Conference, Hamburg, Germany, May 11.

Nonick Conference, Bilbao, Spain, May 14-15.

School of WOM, Chicago, Illinois, May 24.

3. Competition Winners for Nonick Conference in Bilbao, Spain.

In our last newsletter, we announced that we were giving away five free tickets for the Nonick Conference (http://nonickconference.com/) Thanks to everyone who participated! We have found our winners - we look forward to seeing you all in Bilbao!

There will be quite a large group of Moderator Community members at the conference - in addition to our five winners, we also have several members who will be speaking at the event. See in our blog who will be there! And if you will be there as well, please let us know, we'd love to meet you!

Here are the five members who won a ticket to the conference:

Ricardo Varma 

Victoria Graham

Marco Ripanti

Maria Infante

Maria Sylvia Llamozas

4. The 5 Most Recent Jobs. Check out our job section in collaboration with Monster for more jobs in the online community and social media space! Our job section is becoming very active, so have a look if you're on the job hunt. If you have a job to offer, we encourage you to add it - it's free!

Social Media Marketing Manager at Dress-For-Less in Frankfurt, Germany.

Online Community Manager at Walgreens in Chicago, America.

Social Media Community Manager for major FMCG brand in Middlesex, England.

Social Media Community Manager for Bluechip Company's involvement with 2012 Olympic Games in the United Kingdom.

Social Media/Community Manager. Contact Recruitment Agency Hydrogen Group in Sydney, Australia.

5. Top 5 Most Read Items last month

Here are the Top 5 most read items of the last month!

Why You Should Never Force Someone To Register To See Your Online Community's Forums by Richard Millington.

3 Ways Live Events Improve Online Communities by Katie Morse.

5 Steps to Remedy A Failing Community by Vanessa DiMauro.

Brand Managers: Think You're in Control? Think Again by Amitha Amarasinghe.

Five rules for building a successful online community by Robert Miller.

We're looking forward to continually discovering the world of online communities with you!

On behalf of The Moderator Community Team,

Louise Dancer

(Moderator Community Intern)</

Our own Maria Sipka (CEO and founder of Linqia.com) recently held a workshop at the Lift10 Conference in Geneva. Lift10 drew 1000 participants to explore the most overlooked aspect of innovation: people. As people (or users) ultimately define the success of all technological and entrepreneurial projects, Lift10 gave speakers and workshop hosts the stage to share their unique insight into creating a successful and innovative social media presence.

Maria's own workshop, The heart of the conversation: challenges brands face to edge their way into this sacred space; gave participants the opportunity to dissect the very nature of social networks and the motivation behind them. She revealed that brands must begin to understand the reciprocal relationship they need to engage in within these social networks in order to connect with the influential consumers they have at their fingertips.

Here I have included an insert from Maria's own blog at http://blog.linqia.com

27.8% of time spent online is in online communities. Virgin territory for brands?

From the 1.7 billion people online, 4.4% of time is spent searching and 27.8% is spent in online communities. What's astonishing about these figures, is that where people spend time online, with the exception of online communities, is decreasing rapidly. And yet, the billions of advertising dollars are injected into search.

Mark Zuckerberg put his finger on it. He recently said "Communities already exist. Instead, think about how you can help that community do what it wants to do."

So what exactly does a community want to do? Simple. Every community wants to maximise the quality of experience of as many members as possible. This could be achieved through vibrant, active discussions, compelling and engaging content, sponsorships and partnerships with access to exclusive offerings, opportunities to get to know other members. The list goes on.

Recently at the Lift2010 conference in Geneva, 37 curious people gained insights into how brands can successfully participate in multiple online communities that may not necessarily be their own. This is virgin territory and whilst brands are sold on the concept, they lack the 'how'.

The presentation and video explore:
• Evolution of online communities
• Approaches brands have taken to engage with online communities
• Opportunities and challenges brands face when engaging with online communities

LIFT10 - Brands and Online Communities from netinfluenceChannel on Vimeo.

South Park’s recent episode “You Have 0 Friends” provided a hilarious take on the phenomenon that captured our collective imagination: Facebook.

Cartman’s podcast on the economics of social networking is not only witty, it’s also accurate. Friends on Facebook are like stocks that rise and fall, or merge as entire friend lists are exchanged to generate a virtual powerhouse list of who’s who among the Facebook elite.

Ever astute, Cartman observes: “we all know chick friends are worth almost triple what dude friends are.” Absolutely businesses have come to recognize Facebook as a stock asset, particularly the key female demographic many businesses sought after.

Yet only a handful of brands have successfully utilized Facebook to engage with fans and ultimately increase brand awareness. Beyond an uninformed “build it and they will come” stab at putting up a Facebook fan page, too many brands miscomprehend what building a successful Facebook presence entails.

Note to brands on Facebook. You’re not Rock Stars. Facebook doesn’t give you instantaneous, automated street cred. So don’t roll out your Facebook fan page like it’s a stage because there isn’t a girl in the front row sobbing hysterically at just how incredibly hot and truly brilliant you are.

Facebook did more than capture our imagination. It entrenched itself into our everyday lingo. It evolved from a newborn noun into a vibrant verb I now teach English language learners to use, i.e. “I’ll facebook you.

Brands too should recognize Facebook has become a verb. It’s a “doing” word. An action they can take to galvanize people into doing something – whether it’s providing input or creating content; participating online or forwarding links and comments -  it literally comes down to having conversations.

It’s where fans converge together in a more intimate setting. It’s the opportunity to share and connect with each other to admire, dismantle, parody, transform, dispute and relate   not only to the centrality that brought them together but to one another too.

In Callan Green’s post: “Killer Facebook Fan Pages: 5 Inspiring Case Studies” (http://mashable.com/2009/06/16/killer-facebook-fan-pages), she identifies how five major brands actively engage with their fan base.: Green reveals: “These pages have creative content, two-way communication, active discussion boards, videos and images, and a fun and casual tone to match the medium.

Green reveals: “Pringles … have used their fan page to catalyze the spread of a set of videos that certainly have the potential for virality … By distributing the videos on their fan page, they’ve given users the chance to spread the Pringles brand to their friends … which is exactly what thousands of people have done by “liking” the videos, an action … which can potentially attract new people to the Pringles fan page.

Brands don’t have to be a major powerhouse to produce videos. More often than not it’s the inexpensive, amateur videos that resonate with users. She goes onto say that Adidas use their fan page to run contests: “Running a contest on Facebook brings variety to a page’s content, engages fans, and has the ability to directly increase the company’s revenue by introducing new customers to the brand.

But what about new brands without an existing customer base or small brands or services that don’t have the capital to provide incredible prizes or regular, quality resources for content? How can they leverage Facebook?

Scott Meldrum (http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/26223.asp) shares a number of ways to grow your Facebook audience on the cheap:

Merchandise the connection to your Facebook page everywhere a customer might interact with your brand online

Include a compelling call-to-action and even an incentive for your customers to join your community Facebook

If you want more fans, you should be leveraging the fans you already have to get them.

Another article, “How To Market Your Business With Facebook,¨ by Kermit Paterson (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/business/smallbusiness/12guide.html) highlights several small businesses using Facebook to leverage more business opportunities.

For example, Sprinkles, a cupcake bakery uses social media in lieu of traditional advertising. The small company considers Facebook marketing essential: “Sprinkles uses Facebook to give customers a whiff of what’s cooking. Every day it posts a password on Facebook that can be redeemed for a free cupcake. Since April, its fan base has risen tenfold to 70,000.

Ultimately then, fans are the rock stars. Without them a brand is only ever almost famous. It’s the fans that champion a brand’s reputation. But brands must recognize it takes more than the admiration of a reverent guy holding up a metaphoric lighter to illuminate just how evocative the brand is.