On Twitter, you have what is called a verified account. In Twitter’s words, a verified account is among the solutions that they are beta testing “so users can trust that the accounts they follow are legitimate.”

Furthermore, when Twitter users visit a verified account, they “know that tweets coming from well known personalities, organizations, government agencies, and others on Twitter are the real thing!”

photo credit: Miala

Role playing time! I manage a good sized community around a particular niche. I am looking for advertisers. So, I identify some online stores that sell products to the people who comprise my community’s audience. The online store that you work for is one of those I find and I contact you.

I e-mail you, I introduce myself and share some information about my site. I think we could be a good fit for you. I offer to send you our media kit and rate card and to answer any questions that you may have. Do you:

photo credit: BuzzShift

Last year at BlogWorld & New Media Expo (this year’s iteration is October 14-16 in Las Vegas and I’ll be there), I led a panel titled “Social Media: The Bad and the Ugly” with Amber Naslund, Robert Scoble and Wayne Sutton.

On the panel, we talked about trends in social media that concerned us and that we felt could harm the growth of the medium as a whole. These are also trends that could harm your brand, scare people away and damage your reputation. We highlighted six trends in all.

In May, I spoke in Raleigh, North Carolina at WordCamp Raleigh and led a session titled “Building Community Around Your WordPress Blog.” That talk became the basis of the three part series I did here on building community around your blog.

The SitePoint Podcast, which I co-host, held it’s first ever live show at the conference. It all went really well and was a great experience. A big thank you to everyone who made it so.

If you were looking for or are interested in reading the full recap, it has now been posted over my on personal blog.

photo credit: Hôtel Concorde Berlin

I was curious about this, so I thought I’d ask: what do you think are the most important events for online community professionals?

And I want to qualify that question a bit by saying I mean those who manage structured or hosted, on site communities, as opposed to those who maintain a Twitter profile, Facebook page, use social media listening tools, etc. People who do that (myself included) are managing a community, as well, just in a different context and I want to try to focus the answers down a bit.

Why am I asking? For one, I want to know and I’m curious. For two, I’m booking speaking engagements for this fall and winter (and 2011) and want to know where I should be. Please leave any and all answers in the comments. I appreciate it.

I was a member of staff on the SitePoint Forums for many years (from July 15, 2001 through September 30, 2008, to be exact) and I now co-host the SitePoint Podcast. SitePoint is one of the largest web development communities in the world and I am proud of my affiliation with it.

SitePoint is an example I cite with some regularity as they are an interesting blueprint to follow when it comes to leveraging the power of community for bigger things and revenue opportunities beyond just the normal stuff.

photo credit: EverJean

I want to expand on something that we discussed on the August 8 episode of the SitePoint Podcast, about the cease and desist and how it negatively impacts brands when used poorly, especially against fans.

Strong fan communities are gold to the companies, individuals, products and things that they are a fan of. You just can’t buy this sort of promotion and marketing. Why is it so special?

photo credit: quinn.anya

On one of the communities that I run that offers free technical support, we had a member join and post a question in need of some assistance. In the post, they included some short hand for a vulgarity, so I removed the post, as per our normal procedure. They also had a signature violation of sorts. So, I dropped the member a note explaining both.

I noted that their post was also in bright red. This is not a violation and it’s fine if a member wants to use that color. But, it made the post harder to read. So, in the message, I thought I’d include a helpful suggestion that would allow the member to be more likely to receive help from others. I said:

I’ve known Jim Kukral since June 2008 when I was booking interviews tied to my book. I shot him a note and asked if he’d have any interest in it or in having me on his show. Even though we’d never spoken before, he did and he eventually posted the first (and so far only) video review of the book on Amazon.com. That really meant a lot to me.

We’ve stayed in touch ever since. Now, Jim has a book of his own, titled “Attention! This Book Will Make You Money” and I’m happy to be able to support him and spread the word.

What follows is a guest post from Jim, with tips for engaging influencers within your community online (your site, the subject arena of your community, your area of expertise, etc.).

photo credit: Nikolai O.

A couple of days ago, on Twitter and Facebook, I remarked that “if I wasn’t a professional, I’d start “forum users from hell” and share the messages I get from some people.” In response, I received messages from 7 people supporting the idea (as well as two additional people liking the message on Facebook).

When I said it, it wasn’t necessarily a legitimate site idea I was considering, but when people responded as they did, I began to think about it. As I did, I thought I’d share my thought process here, in order to get feedback from you – people managing communities (veterans and new people alike) and those thinking about doing so. After you’ve read it, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.