Cerebra

The majority of all the sessions I attended had one key point - explaining how humans behave on the web, and how we can take "advantage" of that behavior.

Sounds easy, but it seems most of us, as much as we use the web, take little notice of the finer human nuances to how people share, gather, read and talk. In a talk about cyber bullying with the creators of itgetsbetter.org, they highlighted the fact that in certain communities people enjoy being anonymous. This simple human truth - that we all have secrets and don't necessarily share everything with everyone - is why many LGBT forums exist, allowing people to come together in a closed community and talk about their challenges or fears. Community, even in anonymity, is strong.

It's sometimes tricky to keep up with the sizing conventions on the different social networks. How big is a profile pic vs an avatar? How much of my content will actually be seen? How should I design a Twitter background etc etc.

Never fear! In the interests of reducing stress levels and making all community managers smile, the Cerebra team have produced a social media cheat sheet for Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

It has all the pic, avatar and background sizes as well as associated text limitations. Print it, stick it on your wall and smile :)

You're welcome.

Download the full pdf here

Last week, Twitter wished me a happy 4th birthday. 4! That’s like 100 in social media year’s right? It was this 140-character message that made me realise that in social media years, I am getting old. If I’m already four in Twitter years, then surely my Facebook profile must be reaching its retirement age?

As the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But being a typical generation Y gal, I thrive on all things new, fresh and exciting and therefore decided it was time to scope out a batch of new social media platforms to play around on. I’m not saying goodbye to the original Big 5 (according to socialbaker.com Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Linkedin, Pinterest are the most popular social networking sites) I’m just suggesting we see what else is out there.

There is a difference between being influenced by content and stealing content. T.S. Eliot summed this up when he wrote, “The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn.”

As a content manager, I relish the creative process behind developing unique ideas for content. I don’t steal content, but this does not mean I am not influenced by other content that I see. Here are three quick tips to help you steal content and keep your dignity.

1) Forget Originality
Once you realise that nothing is original, you alleviate the pressure of having to come up with something completely new.

“Why do Content and Community Managers have their own appreciation day? All they ever do is write status updates and tweets and respond to queries.”

Well, you see, that’s where you are wrong already. Community managers need a repertoire of skills beyond an impressive vocabulary. Let’s take a quick look at the clubs a Community Manager needs to have in the bag, if they are going to successfully finish level par or better.

Linguists: