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“Yo, the Sun Don’t Shine Forever, But As Long As It’s Here, Then We Might As Well Shine Together”

Posted by Patrick on September 24th, 2009 in Managing the Community

This is the video for “Victory” by Diddy featuring The Notorious B.I.G. and Busta Rhymes. It’s a masterpiece and one of my favorite music videos of all times. It’s an awesomely inspiration song and quotable in so many ways.

During Diddy’s opening verse, he opens with this gem: “yo, the sun don’t shine forever, but as long as it’s here, then we might as well shine together.”

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Social Media Business Forum Panel Details

Posted by Patrick on September 22nd, 2009 in ManagingCommunities.com, Press

Social Media Business ForumOn October 23 in Durham, North Carolina, I’ll be speaking at Social Media Business Forum. I’m featured on a pair of panels during the first half of the day’s programming.

From 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM, I’ll be participating in the “Advertising and the Social Web: Can it Work?” session with Gregory Ng, the Creative Director at Brooks Bell Interactive and other panelists to be determined. With my articles relating to the Sports Legends Challenge spam marketing practices, I’ve talked about how not to penetrate the social web, as an advertiser or a marketer. So, this should be a lot of fun.

The “Building and Managing an Online Community” panel will be my next stop, from 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM. For this one, I’ll be joined by Angela Benton, the Publisher of BlackWeb20.com; Ryan Boyles, an Advisory Software Engineer for IBM and Laurie Smithwick, Founder and Creative Director of LEAP Design and Founder of Kirtsy.

Social Media Business Forum is shaping up to be quite an event with an excellent speaker lineup. If you are within 5 hours of Durham and you are involved or have an interest in business, social media, web development, marketing, online community or any related subjects, it is definitely worth checking out. You can register online. If you’re coming, please let me know!

Video: Independent Blogging Conference at Greensboro: Opening Panel: “The Blogging Revolution”

Posted by Patrick on September 18th, 2009 in Developing Your Community, How Should I Participate?, Managing the Community

Last October, I traveled to Greensboro, North Carolina for ConvergeSouth and the Independent Blogging Conference at Greensboro. I spoke at the latter, leading a solo session and participating in the day’s opening panel.

Led by Kelby Carr of Type-A Mom, the panel also featured Jared Smith of Charleston Weather, Heather Solos of Home Ec 101 and Anne Fitten-Glenn. It was titled “The Blogging Revolution” and we discussed blogging in general, the responsibility of it, where we saw the medium going and more. We had a great Q&A and discussion with the group that attended. Thank you to Kelby Carr and Dave Slusher for having me.

Unfortunately, we used up my entire camera tape before we ended, so I didn’t get the entire session. However, in the clip below, you can watch the length of the recording.

In addition to Vimeo, the video has also been uploaded to YouTube, in parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9.

Troll Hack, Global Ignore, Tachy Goes to Coventry… and When to Use Them

Posted by Patrick on September 14th, 2009 in Interacting with Members
Torley Troll Doll pet (wear)
Creative Commons License photo credit: Torley

“I just banned that guy,” you say to yourself. “For the sixth time.”

In my experience, the vast majority of banned members will stop coming back once their second account is banned, if not for their first. But, once in a while, you get the real special ones. These people are none too pleased with you banning them. Maybe they regret their errors or, perhaps more likely, they just want to wreak havoc. What can you do?

Well, you can report them to their ISP, for one. What else? This question has plagued man and woman since the dawn of online community. Some effective solutions have been offered through technical innovation.

In vBulletin, there is a  well known feature called Tachy Goes to Coventry. My friend Ted Sindzinski tells me that this marks every post a member has made as private, so that only they can see it, and the same is also true for any post they make from that point forward. So, they are able to think that they are actually posting, but no one is actually seeing their posts. Since this would only be applied to accounts created specifically to troll or to get around a ban, this type of Global Ignore function works well.

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10 (Super Fun!) Ways You Can Kill Your Online Community

Recently, on the e-mint discussion list, a member was asking for some suggestions for a list of 10 ways to kill your online community, with some humor. Taking approximately 10-15 minutes, I came up with a quick, fun, spur of the moment list and I thought I’d share it with you!

1. Don’t have any guidelines! We’re all adults – and cursing is fun! Weeeeeeeeee…

2. Since we’re all adults, it’s not like you actually need to visit your site much. A few times a month should be good.

3. Create an open group that anyone can join called “Moderators” and let anyone who wants to join in and move, edit or delete whatever they want. They’re here to help!

4. As the administrator, when you post, try to set the worst example possible. Since humans all strive to be better than one another, this will force your members to be awesome!

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I’m Attending IZEAFest 2009 in Orlando (October 1-4)

Posted by Patrick on September 8th, 2009 in ManagingCommunities.com

izeafest-logoWhat’s up with October? I don’t attend any conferences since South by Southwest Interactive in March and now, all of a sudden, I’m going to three in the month of October. I’ve already mentioned that I’ll be attending Blog World Expo (Las Vegas, October 15-17) and Social Media Business Forum (Durham, NC, October 23). Now, I’ll also be attending IZEAFest in Orlando from October 1-4.

It’s a single track conference with a solid lineup of speakers including Chris Brogan, Wendy Piersall and others. The last day of the conference is a day at SeaWorld, as well. Coupled with the friends in attendance, it should be a fun experience. I managed to win a pass from Elizabeth Edwards of Table for Five, so a big thank you to her.

If you’re planning to attend and would like to meet up, please let me know. I’ll see you there!

Take Charge of How Your Community Members Perceive You

Posted by Patrick on September 4th, 2009 in Interacting with Members

I had a conversation with a member on one of my communities the other day. I had sent him a notification to let him know he had violated the guidelines and his reply was fine, he was apologetic, but he said that he didn’t like being “told off.” And that just didn’t sit real well with me. I felt like he may have been looking at me like this little guy to the right.

OK, so, what’s the big deal? Well, maybe it means something, maybe it doesn’t. But, my contact templates – my messages are members – are written in a way where we don’t want them to be looked at as being “told off,” nor is that our intention, at any point. We are aiming to inform and to help, generally speaking, with these notifications. We tell people what was removed, why and, as such, how to avoid it in the future. I never want anyone to think of these messages as them being “told off.”

I could have let it go, but I seized on it and told the member that I wasn’t telling him off and not to take it that way – simply put, we’re all friendly here and we are mainly trying to help and if he has any further questions, to please let me know.

Will it have any impact? Who knows. But, on a scale of noting the language that members use and kindly correcting any negative and improper perceptions, I believe it does have an impact, I believe it demonstrates that you care and that there is  a human connection.

So, the next time that a member mischaracterizes something that you’ve done, step up and let them know what the actual intention was. You never know, you might make a connection with that person.

Were You a Forum Spammer? Looking to Redeem Yourself and Get Back on the Right Side? Start Here

Posted by Patrick on August 31st, 2009 in How Should I Participate?
BREAKING NEWS: They made Spam better.
Creative Commons License photo credit: brownpau

In July, I discussed the Sports Legends Challenge saga a bit and I posted an investigative piece on my personal blog outlining the unethical tactics they used. Suffice to say, it’s spam, spam and more spam. Not just spam, but devious, misleading spam. And tons of it.

But, I got to thinking… let’s say that someone who did this turned to me or even to you and said “please help us clean this up.” What would you do? Where would you start?

I pulled together a panel of friends to help me analyze the situation. They are Brandon Eley, Interactive Director at Kelsey Advertising  & Design, founder of online shoe retailer 2BigFeet.com and co-author of “Online Marketing Inside Out”; Jeremy Wright, CEO at digital strategy agency netmobs, co-founder of b5media and author of “Blog Marketing”; Jason Falls, principal at Social Media Explorer and Martin Reed of community management blog Community Spark and the administrator of the JustChat.co.uk, Female Forum and Soap Forum communities.

The result is an article on my personal site that I hope lays out a strong blueprint that would allow such a company or individual to make an attempt at restoring their brand.

I’d like to know your thoughts, too. What else can or should they do? What would you do different? Please let me know in the comments.

I’m Speaking at Social Media Business Forum in Durham, North Carolina on October 23

Posted by Patrick on August 28th, 2009 in ManagingCommunities.com, Press

Social Media Business ForumShortly after I get back from Blog World Expo 2009, I’ll be heading to Durham, North Carolina for the Social Media Business Forum at the North Carolina Central University School of Education. It’s being organized by Kipp Bodnar of Howard, Merrell & Partners, Wayne Sutton of OurHashtag, Ryan Boyles of IBM and Jeff Cohen of OurHashtag.

My specific presentation(s) are not yet set, but the speaking lineup looks really cool and includes people like Jason Falls of Social Media Explorer, Wayne, Kipp, Jason Keath of Social Fresh, Angela Benton of BlackWeb20.com, Laurie Smithwick of kirtsy and others.

If you’re interested in attending, the early bird registration of $125 runs through September 18. After that, it’ll be $250. I look forward to seeing you there.

Does Your Community Receive a Lot of Traffic From Social Bookmarking, Networking or Sharing Sites? Install WP Greet Box

Posted by Patrick on August 24th, 2009 in Promoting Your Community

wp-greet-boxDoes your online community receive a lot of traffic from sites that are big on link sharing? For example:

  • Social bookmarking sites like delicious and StumbleUpon.
  • Social news sites like Digg.
  • Social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace.
  • Microblogging services like Twitter.
  • Social aggregators like FriendFeed.
  • Or any site that allows and encourages people to easily share links – perhaps sites with a focus on the niche that your community is based on.

If you do, you should consider installing a WordPress plugin. “But, Patrick,” you say. “My site doesn’t run WordPress.” I thought you might say that!

The plugin I am talking about is called WP Greet Box. In short, it recognizes visitors who are coming from these social sites and shows them a custom message that you set, inviting them to subscribe to your site or share content with the site they came from.

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