Just wanted to share this short brilliant talk about leadership and community management by Dere Sivers. A few lessons to learn for the community managers:

• You have to make it easy for people to follow you
• You have to become “equal”  with people who follow you and know how to transfer the sentiment.
• You have to remember that followers attract more followers – not the leader.

I hope you enjoyed this video and have a great Easter everyone!

Nick Baggott is the Founder of Navigate Consulting, world class CRM, data & digital marketing consultancy. Previously, Nick was the Group Client Service Director at Chemistry, where he led the team that won the Microsoft, Diageo and Transport for London pitches and worked with clients of the calibre of Kodak, Toshiba, Unilever, Nestle, Yell and Manchester United. Nick is also the Course Director at CIM and a Fellow of IDM. You can follow Nick on Linkedin or his blog.

G: How and why did you get into social media business?

N: I have always been fascinated by how brands can engage more effectively with their customers. I started my own CRM focused agency with 3 colleagues back in 1993 and the agency evolved as the marketing environment changed. By the time I left Chemistry and set up my own training and consulting business (Navigate Consulting) in 2007, social media was being used but not really understood by marketers. It was natural therefore, for me to focus my new venture on enabling brands to build engaging relationships with their customers using digital channels. I was appointed by Microsoft to run training programmes for their marketing teams in EMEA and LatAm, covering CRM and digital, and that was the springboard I needed. It was also natural for me to use social media to promote my business and built my reputation though thought leadership on my blog and Twitter.

G: What is it like to be a real Social Media Citizen?

N: You need to be alert and inquisitive. I am always switched on to the social media channels that I use (blog, Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, Linked In). I reply quickly, try to stimulate thoughts and debates and share best practice from the many experts I meet in my day to day work. I work with so many great global brands and they all have experiences and challenges that I can learn from and share.

Read the full story

Social media is maturing. As many companies have successfully integrated social media in their communication/business strategies and as many more are planning to do so in very near future, it is no longer perceived as the risky investment but more as a necessity in order to keep a competitive edge in the market and maintain the dialogue with consumers. It actually seems that social media adoption is becoming a quality standard of a transparent, customer centric and accessible company. Actually, just like adoption of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategies has been representing very similar values for over 30 years now. It is quite interesting to compare these two trends and possibly build on the existing knowledge of CSR management when planning social media strategies as they ultimately both are driven by very similar ideas of building competitive advantage through transparency, advocacy, stakeholder’s engagement, adding value to the communities and the empowerment of communities.

A lot of large corporations have been enjoying the benefits of CSR strategy, but that’s the problem of CSR as it is often perceived as concept suitable only for larger organizations, because of the extra costs attached to these activities. Social media is changing this situation. It has reduced the cost of communication and provided an opportunity to every company to manage/address its stakeholders more efficiently. Read the full story