Lauren Perkins

The Community Manager's Playbook

How to Build Brand Awareness and Customer Engagement

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Savvy companies recognize the value of a strong community. Think of Nike and its community of runners, Nike+, and you ll quickly understand that creating and fostering an online community around a product or brand is a powerful way to boost marketing efforts, gain valuable insight into consumers, increase revenue, improve consumer loyalty, and enhance customer service efforts.

Companies now have the unprecedented opportunity to integrate their brand s messaging into the everyday lives of their target audiences. But while supporting the growth of online communities should be at the top of every company s priority list, all too often it falls by the wayside. That s why brand strategy expert and digital marketer Lauren Perkins wrote The Community Manager s Playbook (#CMplaybook on Twitter), a must-read guide for business and brand builders who need to strengthen their approach to online B2C community management and customer engagement.

As Perkins explains, if companies want to create thriving online communities focused on their product or brand, they must do more than simply issue a few tweets a day, create (and then abandon) a Facebook page, and blog every once in a while. Instead, organizations of all sizes must treat community management as a central component of their overall marketing strategy. When they do, they will be rewarded handsomely with greater brand awareness, increased customer use and retention, lower acquisition costs, and a tribe of consumers who can t wait to purchase their next product.

Perkins not only teaches readers how to build an engaging community strategy from the ground up, but she also provides them with the tactical community management activities they need to acquire and retain customers, create compelling content, and track their results along the way. Distinctive in its comprehensive, step-by-step approach to creating online communities that are fully consistent with a company s existing brand voice, The Community Manager s Playbook:

Explains how excellent community management provides a competitive advantage with a large impact on salesProvides an in-depth overview of brand and business alignmentTeaches readers how to identify their community's online target audience and influence their needs and wantsDetails the appropriate online channels through which content should be distributedChampions the use of an agile approach through repeated testing to maximize the return on every company investmentDiscusses the many diverse metrics that can be used to measure community scope
Today, there is no brand strategy without a community strategy. Companies that are not developing communities are losing control of their brands and missing opportunities to optimize their marketing investments. With The Community Manager s Playbook as their guide, however, marketing professionals and the companies and brands they represent will be equipped with the tools they need to manage their online marketing efforts, engage their core customers at every level, leverage community insights into the product development cycle, and ensure that their messaging is heard across all corners of the digital landscape.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Apress / Springer, Berlin
• Artikelnr. des Verlages: 86261069
• 1st ed.
• Seitenzahl: 316
• Erscheinungstermin: 25. Dezember 2014
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 229mm x 152mm x 18mm
• Gewicht: 465g
• ISBN-13: 9781430249955
• ISBN-10: 1430249951
• Artikelnr.: 37700580

Autorenporträt

Lauren Perkins is a motivational coach, digital evangelist, and brand marketer who devotes her energy to helping individuals and companies unearth and implement solutions that will make a difference in their businesses and lives. After beginning her career as a journalist at a local paper, Perkins was asked to join The Boston Globe, where she learned the necessity of asking hard-hitting questions, assessing the entire landscape, and diving deep to understand the why behind each story. That philosophical approach has endured Perkins's career shift to experiential marketing, brand management, and digital technology, topics that she consults on at Perks Consulting, which she opened in 2008 to modernize the intersection of technology and lifestyle. With the goal of providing holistic, consumer-centric strategies, Perks works closely with every client including eDiets, Laura Mercier, Cookstr, and Pfizer to align brand with business, products with platforms, and marketing with media. In addition, Perkins is a leading instructor at General Assembly, New York's largest technology and entrepreneurship campus. Currently she can be found leading classes on Community Management, User Acquisition, and Brand-centric Business Strategy.

Inhaltsangabe

Chapter 1: Community Management: A Lay of the Land Chapter 1 will establish
a definition of community management and then guide readers through the
book's purpose. It will also discuss the benefits of both developing such a
community for readers' businesses and having a solid understanding of the
various aspects of community management.
Chapter 2: Audience and LandscapeChapter 2 will discuss the research and
development that is a necessary step to successful management of a
community. It will lead readers through the "who," "what," "where," "when,"
and "why" of community management and the implications of each of these
elements to one's company. It will then illustrate the digital landscape
where existing communities burrow and already segment themselves. This
landscape is comprised of the platforms associated with the digital sphere,
including traditional media, social media, location, mobile apps, and
websites. A digital road map will then be provided that will lead readers
through the four locations of content segmentation: platforms, channels,
assets, and mediums. Lastly, this chapter will discuss targeting
communities, how to deal with uncontrollable preexisting communities, and
why delivering useful content to an audience will help a community grow and
thrive.
Chapter 3: Building Your StrategyChapter 3 will begin with a discussion of
primary and secondary objectives to cultivate the "why" that supports the
basis of a community's creation. It will continue on to provide readers
with a visual representation of audience segmentation and explain how
people can be divided based on an applicable example. It will also talk
about target customers and other key players in the relationship network
and how to differentiate audience segments and correctly prioritize them.
Chapter 3 will pull together the strategy development by helping readers
determine where to host their communities: an already existing web, mobile,
or social platform, a newly dedicated and branded page on a social
platform, or on their own website or hosted platform.
Chapter 4: Branding Within the CommunityChapter 4 will start with an
introduction to what brand means and the features it is comprised of. It
will then illustrate brand identity using applicable case studies. Readers
will dive into the needs related to brand consistency through visual assets
and messaging that elicit a response in and are relevant to the targeted
audience. Chapter 4 will also delve into how to position a brand to deliver
competitive intelligence and needs to customers. Finally, this section will
discuss how to figure out what customers expect from a community, which
defines a brand's sentiment.
Chapter 5: Content Creation for CommunitiesChapter 5 begins with an
overview of content strategy, including why it is essential to community
and what types of content can be used. This chapter will also discuss
planning content, how to decide on the right content for the community, and
whether the community should use content from other sources or original
content. It will then conclude with a discussion of the benefits that each
type of content can offer a community, as well as an overview of best
practices for responding to a community.
Chapter 6: Distributing Your Message and Content
Chapter 6 takes readers through the various ways they can distribute their
message and content. Deciding the appropriate channels is pertinent in
correctly connecting with the target audience where they spend their time,
but there are also a host of management tools and tips to be explained that
organize distribution efforts, such as one-click publishing tools and
multi-user functionalities. A map will be presented in Chapter 6 that will
give readers a more visual understanding of distribution flow process.
Lastly, readers will be urged to devise a content calendar to organize
content, its frequency, and the customizations required to appropriately
post content on each distribution channel.
Chapter 7: Defining Metrics and AnalysisChapter 7 helps readers determine
how to measure the success of the changes they have made within their
digital community. It first asks readers to take a look at their business
goals and explains how these goals tie into metrics. Both quantitative and
qualitative goals are determined, and readers are able to analyze the "big
picture" of both of these goal types. Chapter 7 also gives readers numerous
tools to measure key performance indicators. It then wraps up by discussion
community influence and giving case studies relating to "content
stickiness," or why it is important to maintain fresh and succinct content.
Chapter 8: Community Manager's Day-to-Day RoleChapter 8 looks to define two
mythical components of community managers:
1. Who are ideal community managers, and how do you find them?
2. What are the expectations and roles of community managers within an
organization?
As such, Chapter 8 will discuss the recommended functions,
responsibilities, and roles community managers play as they spend time
responding to users on social platforms. This tactical approach will
analyze how to best utilize time when creating content for these platforms.
Chapter 9: Go-to-Market: Campaign and/or Product LaunchesChapter 9 will be
focused on those who are preparing to launch new products or services in
the digital sphere. It will discuss key go-to-market insights and best
practices for orienting a community towards this effort.
Chapter 10: User Management
Chapter 10 discusses the importance of how to gain users in order to seal
in product and service usage, traction, and return interest. Engagement,
retention, and reactivation are all part of the overall customer life cycle
stages that keep businesses healthy and thriving through various periods of
the business cycle.
Chapter 11: Use CasesChapter 11 will detail the uses of community
management through the day-to-day execution perspective. Two areas in which
specific cases will be showcased are customer service and research and
development. This chapter will then talk about how to successfully
implement a customer service strategy and how to incorporate and encourage
customers to provide feedback in order to gain insights into the practices
your company is currently employing. These steps will ultimately help
readers make beneficial adjustments to their business strategy execution.
Chapter 12: ConclusionsChapter 12 will sum up the book and provide several
takeaways that will help readers implement a successful community
management strategy in their company or organization.