IST 486: My Experience as Community Manager for Two Weeks

As part of IST 186, which is this social media class that I’ve been taking this semester, students were assigned two weeks to assume the role of class community manager. While I do consider myself a bit savvy when it comes to social media, I wasn’t exactly all that keen on doing it, particularly since I’m not exactly much of a people person. Anyway it was finally my turn the past two weeks (October 27 through November 9) and as much as I dreaded doing it before the two weeks started, I’m glad that I’ve had the experience. The past two weeks has given me a glimpse of what to expect if I ever had to assume a similar role when I do eventually enter the business world.

Being community manager, I was tasked with initiating and controlling discussions amongst my peers and also summarizing key points from what we’ve been learning throughout that week of class. This involved tweeting things that we’ve been learning from class while also interacting with other people in class using the hashtag #EnterpriseSM, then summarizing the tweets on Storify. In addition, community managers also had to start a discussion thread on Canvas based on the topic of the week. For the two weeks that I was community manager, the reading was on Chris Holloman’s The Social MBA where he discussed the topic of returns on investment from social media. To sum things up, Holloman generally discusses the steps needed for a company organization to form a social media strategy that is capable of delivering the intended message, which will in turn generate profit. I found this topic incredibly interesting, which may be why I enjoyed my two weeks of being community manager.

Even though I do like to think that I’m fairly comfortable with social media, having to use three different platforms while being community manager did catch me a bit off guard. The biggest struggle I had was changing my approach on using social media from my personal standpoint to using social media as a community manager. That meant that I had to adjust the way I tweeted, particularly using a more formal approach to put tweets together. For example I’d come up with some idea to tweet under the #EnterpriseSM hashtag, however it’d take me forever to come up with the right words (especially with the 140 character limit). However my experience highlights what social media in the enterprise is in real life. Community managers and social media strategists working in the corporate world go through similar struggles, which is the challenge of delivering the right message using the right words.

Another struggle that I ran into was keeping up with the tweeting traffic under the #EnterpriseSM hashtag. It’s just near impossible to keep up with the tweets, especially on Tuesdays and Thursdays when IST 486 (the undergraduate session) meets. However this gave me the opportunity to get back on TweetDeck. I was first introduced to TweetDeck during freshman year of college. Even though I do go on Twitter a lot, I don’t exactly tweet a whole lot, which is why I stopped using TweetDeck a couple years ago. Struggling to keep up with the class, I decided to brush the dust off my TweetDeck account. It absolutely made a difference as I was able to track tweets that use the #EnterpriseSM hashtag a lot more efficiently, especially since TweetDeck automatically updates the column feed when a new tweet is made out. Tools such as TweetDeck are absolutely necessary for people that use social media in the corporate world. With things moving so quickly on Twitter, TweetDeck “slows things down” a bit so that we can actually read about what’s happening. Even though my time as community manager for the class is up, I’ve gotten really used to the convenience of having TweetDeck. This experience has allowed me to embrace (or should I say re-embrace) TweetDeck into my life.

Utilizing three different social media platforms over the past two weeks has also given me a better understanding on how these platforms really work. The experience gave me an up-close look on the affordances and limitations of these platforms, and how I should be making the most out of these platforms with their affordances and limitations in mind.

Amongst all three platforms that I had to use, Twitter is hands down my favorite. The great thing about Twitter is that conversations are instantaneous. As soon as I tweet out something, it’s only a matter of seconds before someone else sees it and interacts with me. However as I previously mentioned, the amount of tweets can get fairly overwhelming and it’s hard to keep track of who said what. Moreover it gets a bit annoying when you try to interact with someone but don’t get a response.

I did really enjoy using Storify as well because it helps convey a message utilizing different platforms altogether. It keeps things short and sweet while also being effective in delivering the message of the story. I’ve never actually used Storify before and there definitely was a bit of a learning curve to it. However once I got the hang of things, it was really easy to put things together. The main challenge really is finding the message that I wanted to convey as well as the tweets and other media that I needed to tell that story/message. The biggest problem with Storify is that there really isn’t a strong following. It somehow just comes across as too academic, which is why I think it doesn’t have the critical mass. While I can’t really see how Storify could be used externally in the commercial world, it would make a fairly effective internal tool for companies and organizations (think short presentations and office instructions).

Check out my Storify on SM policies! https://t.co/s77YAE3yau via @justin_lh_law #EnterpriseSM #IST686
— Justin Law (@Justin_LH_Law) November 9, 2014

As for Canvas, I can’t exactly say that I loved it but I certainly could see how such a platform could be used in the business world. Canvas generally provides a solid platform for discussion. It has a very simplistic user interface so that it is easy to navigate around. Moreover, the discussion forum also supports features like image uploads and even the ability to embed videos. I particularly like how Canvas gives users the ability to receive email notifications and updates. All in all, Canvas really is a great office management tool. I could see something like this used to service office functions such as IT helpdesks, workplace discussion forums, as well as workplace notifications. The biggest problem I believe is that it is hard to get people to react quickly to discussion interactions. Personally, I’d see something posted but I’d rather choose to wait till I’m available to answer these posts. This isn’t exactly ideal when you want a platform to foster instant interaction in a workplace.

All in all, being community manager the past two weeks was a very eye-opening experience for me. It was actually a bit fun coming up with ideas to stir up conversations and discussions. While it was hard keeping track of all the ongoing conversations that are happening on the three platforms our class uses, it did give me a good taste for what to expect when it comes to social media in the enterprise. It does highlight the fact that organizations are adopting multiple teams to support and oversee the organization’s social media activity.

I highly doubt that I’d ever get a job where I’m directly involved a organization’s social media but even so, I’m glad I’ve had a taste for what to expect. Social media has become an important aspect of the business world and the experience I’ve had of being community manager has showed me how I should always have an eye out for social media to improve both the external and internal operations of an organization.