The Community Marketer

Updated 7/2/09: Felt this article was incomplete and needed more information and explanation. Also...far to many generalizations.

The Groundswell phenomenon has been well documented since 2005. However, a lot of confusion still exists between the exact roles that Community Managers and Marketers should occupy within social media.

Marketers tend to be metrics focused and feel the need to broadcast their message more then engage. They've had control over the message up until now and are wary of losing control.

Community Managers operate their communities with the knowledge that they are essentially organizing general chaos. Loss of control is an assumption, not a surprise.

How can we utilize the strengths of both positions? Hire a "community marketer" or rapidly cross train both parties to be more effective in each other's discipline.

Community Marketer traits/talents to keep in mind:

1. Communities are only communities unless they are leveraged. Community marketers will be able to mobilize the community and drive them toward a specific goal or task that will have clear measurables for the product or company they are representing.

2. You can't leverage a community if you don't have one. Community marketers MUST be able to negotiate the tricky water between customer and company. In essence, you are worthless without street cred.

3. Extend your reach and manpower. Cross training opportunities abound here. Marketers can teach community managers how to effectively market and vice versa. Through this you could potentially triple or quadruple your social media team.

4. Flexibility in either direction. Sometimes you have wins for your community and other times you get a win for marketing. Understanding that you are going to win and lose from both angles is essential to formulating your solutions.

5. A perfect training tool already exists for this: Social Bookmarking. Through exploration of Digg, Reddit and Stumbleupon you can learn community with a distinct eye for marketing and break down the various demographics that inhabit the web. It's a trial by fire...but one worth taking.

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