By no means am I an expert. In fact I’m quite the opposite. I’ve had only near to 6 months experience in my job, so I’m actually quite the amateur. I don’t want to start this blog giving the intention that I think I know it all, because quite frankly I don’t. I’ve got a whole lot to learn. Like I’ve said before, when you’re working in a small company like myself, the ‘marketing’ guy often happens to be the community/social media guy. Which is me. My job title is ‘Marketing coordinator’ but really that’s only 1/4 of it. The rest of my job is public relations and engaging with the community and making sure they’re healthy. That’s my favourite part of the job. I love it, and I really do. It’s amazing talking to people, hearing their voice and putting their ideas forward to the team. It truly is, I couldn’t have asked for a more rewarding job.
But what does it mean to be the community guy? What do you have to do? I remember when I started working off I had no idea where to start. My initial thoughts were Twitter and Facebook, but theres so much more to it than that. It opens up a whole gateway to the company you work for. It’s true when people say, the PR guy (public relations) is the face of the company, that and the logo. While I’m no expert, I’m hopefully going to give you a few tips I learnt when I was starting off. This is aimed at anyone who’s just starting a role similar to me, and should hopefully give you an insight into managing social media and getting ahead of the game.
DO RESEARCH
It’s true. Research is key. Your boss will tell you to do it, so do it. And don’t just use Google. Use Youtube. I found dozens of videos on engaging with customers, tone of speech, approaching customers and how to email. There’s loads. Each give a different perspective on how to do it. You can adapt what they recommend to your job environment. If you’re the PR guy for a company that sells leaf blowers, you can adapt a cool strategy and make it a blizzard are awesomeness.
JOIN FORUMS
Well, I work for a gaming forum so I joined up loads of forums like Gamespot, HTML5 games, Reddit. Each of these let you add a signature, so put your company logo in there and a link to your forum or website. Become a well known member of each of these forums. You’ll build a solid, strong and friendly reputation for yourself and the company. Something that can later on help. You can also advertise new products and opportunities all to do with you company. Just be careful of spam regulations in place.
MAKE THE EFFORT AND EMAIL PEOPLE
More, more, more, more more! You need to send loads of emails. If your sent email box is below 10 a day, then you suck. If you don’t have anyone to reply to or email, then get someone to email. Find someone who reviews games, EMAIL THEM, find a new website you want to get featured on EMAIL THEM, just email everyone. Get word our about your company. You’ll pick up the basics of email in no time. You need to have your account configured to make your company look snazzy though. And by this, I mean put a cool signature in it. Well, Don’t put a picture in it. Just the name of company, your name, job title, VAT, Tax number and company description. Just make it look professional. Here take a look at mine. Don’t just copy my details. That would be silly. Your company will have their own.

IF YOU’RE ON FACEBOOK, STATUS UPDATES REGULARLY
Don’t spam though. That’s bad. Even if customers love your company don’t spam them. I would say at most, 2-3 Statuses a week. But vary the days. Maybe put one out Monday, Wednesday and then Saturday. I only put out one status a week. But it’s always a meaningful one. That I know people are looking forward to hear. And also keep it relevant. Don’t blabber off. If people have opted in to liking your page it’s because they wan’t to hear news, competitions and other things relevant. Don’t go posting links to other websites or videos. It’s unprofessional and it’s not what they wanted. Also don’t forget to attach media, and a link referring back to the source (website or game) You want to put a call to action, and then action. I.e:
Check out this awesome picture of a cat, it’s sure to brighten up your day.
View Cat
(Worst status of the year award)
BECOME A TWIT AND GET ON TWITTER
Twitter is awesome because you can engage with your fans instantly and its fun to use. You can recruit so many fans through twitter its beautiful. Because Twitter is a client based on popularity, and today generation love to be popular. When you’re starting off an account with 0 followers follow these steps to getting a few 100 within a day or two.
1.
Search for something relevant to your company or business. In this example, films.
2.
Press discover to then discover.
3.

Now press who to follow, to find people to follow.
4.

There you go. A tailored audience. Now just hit follow on probably 500-1000 and you should get back about 200 followers. Great way to build a basic community. You can of course unfollow after a few days if you have a bad ratio, but you will probably loose followers doing so.
Well that’s all for now, I hope you’ll find this useful. Like I said, this is only for beginners. So please use it well, and best of luck with your quest to becoming the best community manager guy you can!