Cerebra

Lately I’ve been involved in some pretty intense arguments about what exactly social media can offer. My generic response regarding the benefits of two-way engagement and making the effort to meet your customers on an open playing field is becoming less and less effective. So what now?

The problem is that we’re no longer the new kid on the block. People are becoming more social-savvy and as a result we’ve got to step up our game. As social business matures, our outlook has to change as well. We should forget about the ePeen-measuring contest of who has more fans, the wider reach, or even greater engagement. I think it’s time we shift our focus to how effective social channels are at driving change within businesses as a result of the online community’s conversation.

It's better to have had community love and let go, then to never have had community love at all.

As a community manager, you know you’re doing something right when your community starts to grow organically and regulate itself - Its bliss; the sought after life where community managers only need to create gripping, informative and engaging content.

So what’s the hardest part of being a content and community manager? Letting go! Letting go of a community that you’ve spent an incredible amount of time cultivating and getting to know. A community that will either move to another agency or be taken in-house, as that’s seems to be the route social is going.

Social networks have been making the news lately, unfortunately though, it has been for all the wrong reasons. Both in my job and personal life, I am a massive advocate of social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, although after the news in recent weeks, I’ve been finding it increasingly difficult to justify this support.

Two stories stand out for me. The first being the news of the so-called ‘Facebook rapist’ who lured two young models into his trap using the popular social network, and the second being and ’s ridiculous antics on Twitter, sending South Africa into a nationwide racism row.