Month: January 2013

Happy Community Manager Appreciation Day!

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This past Monday was Community Manager Appreciation Day, which is celebrated on the fourth Monday of every January. Founded in 2010 by Jeremiah Owyang (@jowyang, Partner at the Altimeter Group), #CMAD is a time to appreciate and celebrate the hard work of community managers not only nation-wide but also around the world.

Let’s take a step back. This job didn’t exist ten years ago, and barely existed 5 years ago. In case you don’t know what a Community Manager is or what they do, I’ll tell you.

Community Managers are the people who spend their day managing online communities. They’re the bridge between the brand and everyone else in social media. They create and schedule content, monitor social networks and generally serve as the voice of the brand. Community Manager’s often wear many hats, at times being the PR, sales, customer service, marketing and voice – sometimes all at the same time.

Have you ever tweeted or wrote on a brand’s Facebook wall? The Community Manager was the Oz-like being who saw your post and replied to it. They see it all.

Working in social media isn’t like a normal 9-5 job. People will send tweets and Facebook messages at all hours of the day. A Community Manager would never say, “Oh, it’s 8:30pm on a Saturday? That can wait until Monday.” They will start working on a solution as soon as they see a problem.

So hopefully you gave thanks to someone who’s a Community Manager. Maybe it’s a favorite brand you follow. Or maybe it’s a colleague or friend who works in the industry. Send them a tweet or Facebook post.

It doesn’t matter what time you send it. They’ll still see it.

Media Auction Success!

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This year’s Media Auction was a huge success! For those of you who don’t know what the media auction is, it’s a fundraiser for our club, but also a way for us to give back to the community. We work as a club to solicit donated media space (print ads, billboards, radio spots) and business services (printing, web or design services) and auction them off at 10-20% of retail value to local small business and non-profits. We like to think of this as a win-win-win. Non-profits and small businesses have access to discounted items, donors get access to new customers and Ad 2 is able to keep profits from the auction.
The live portion of the Media Auction was held at The Other Bar on Wall Street in Downtown Orlando, and was followed by an online auction, open to the general public. At the event, members who are media experts were on hand to offer advice and answer questions on any of the available items, which was a really great way for us to make sure that the businesses know what they are buying and how to use it.
The auction raised over $8,000 for the club, a portion of which will be used toward our Public Service Campaign for Informed Families, which is set to launch in March. What’s more important, however, is that we were able to auction over thirty very beneficial goods and services to local business and non-profits, all while supporting our industry.
Many thanks to all of the media outlets, vendors and members who donated, volunteered and helped promote the media auction to make it such a huge success.