was lucky to be in the right place at the right time at Microsoft Advertising on the community team. About a year ago, I remember reaching a crossroads for myself around what career path I wanted to align myself with. had built up close to 12+ years of experience around digital marketing, but was really gravitating towards social media marketing. MA has established themselves as a leader in brands using social, and I was lucky enough to be a part of that team in the early stages as social media tools like Facebook and Twitter began to take off. And they have. Don’t believe me? MORE >>

We urgently need to rethink how we hire community managers. At the moment too many organizations, with little idea of what makes a great community manager, are hiring people who are either great at technology, have irrelevant community or social media experience, or have far too much free time.    This is a tragedy that's sabotaging their community efforts.   How are community managers being hired? Knowledge and experience might be more tangible to assess, but they have little impact upon the community being a success. Attitude. MORE >>

Whether you’re anxious to get started marketing on Facebook, already there but looking for better results, or not sure if Facebook is right for your company (despite the eye-popping audience numbers), you’ll find guidance here in some of the best posts on Facebook marketing so far in 2010: tips, tactics and best practices for building Facebook pages, growing your fan (or “like&# ) base, advertising, optimizing for search, using Facebook apps and tools, and more, from experts like Mari Smith, Lisa Barone, Ching Ya, John Haydon, Brian Carter, Marty Weintraub and Shel Holtz. MORE >>

Two of those words are “audience&# and “community.&# The maestro directs, he coaxes, he makes the orchestra the best it can be, that’s what a good community manager’s job as well. Why should you care if you have community vs. audiences? Communities are the people who stand up for you when there is flamer on your Facebook page (Compare Dell Hell with the Community’s response to Dell’s Flaming Notebook ). Communities don’t care don’t care if you made a mistake, so long as you admit it. Guess what? Read on. MORE >>

They see other brands with large numbers of community members. Words like ‘community’, ‘dialogue’, and ‘engagement’ quickly become meaningless buzzwords when they’re bandied about by marketing pros (guilty as charged!), Brands like Zappos , Starbucks and Ford have large communities because they talk tirelessly to their fans or followers. At Zappos, CEO Tony Hsieh is constantly in conversation with its community. great example of effective community building is the Gates Foundation. Brands do this for several reasons. MORE >>