ESADE Alumni held a Refresher Programme session called "Building an All-Star Social Media Team", led by Franc Carreras, Academic Assistant of the ESADE Department of Marketing Management. The talk focussed on the figure of the community manager and, in particular, the conditions, characteristics and skills needed to be a true professional in the field of social media.
To start, Carreras spotlighted the increase in community managers in Spain and abroad in recent years, and underlined the importance of this professional profile, as it represents the company's external voice, whilst also being the internal voice of the community and clients. He firmly believes that the community manager is, in short, a new link between companies and clients, and the one that keeps them all in touch.
Regarding the functions the community manager should perform, Carreras pointed out that he or she should be capable of "making clients talk about our company and that they do so positively". Also vital is “to keep consumers linked to our product¿ and to think about "what our clients might be able to do for our each other".
Famed for being multi-taskers, Carreras highlighted that community managers should be able to navigate around different platforms and have in-depth knowledge of existing IT tools, as well as constantly keeping abreast of the latest innovations that appear in this extremely fast-moving environment.
As for the characteristics good community managers should have, Carreras stressed that above all they should be sociable people and have practically 100% availability. They should also know, master and use the same language as the clients and, of course, they must be creative. Team-working skills, using tools efficiently and handling company policies adeptly are other factors that all community managers should bear in mind.
Drawing to a close, Carreras describe the role that companies have adopted in the last decade with regard to dealing with clients online. At the start of the decade, companies used to avoid hiring staff to attend clients over the Internet. Gradually, they became aware of the need to dedicate more time and staff to this phenomenon, even if they weren't particularly qualified to do so. In the end, they have ended up recruiting specifically-trained experts to manage client relations online, in other words, community managers.
Programa:
ESADE Alumni cordially invites you to this Refresher Programme session titled "Building An All-Star Social Media Team", led by Franc Carreras, Academic Assistant of the Department of Marketing Management at ESADE.
To whom should you entrust the keys to your community of fans, followers and registered users? Should you trust your advertising agency, hire a community manager or develop an in-house Social Media Centre of Excellence? A look at alternative approaches, best practices and lessons learnt on the path to building a winning social media team.
Franc Carreras
He holds an undergraduate degree in Business Administration from the Universitat Ramon Llull School of Economics (IQS) and an MBA from the Columbia Business School in New York. For four years he has worked as Digital Marketing Director for Sony Music’s RCA record label in New York, in charge of marketing campaigns for artists including Santana, Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Jamie Foxx, Leona Lewis and American Idol winners. He has also been responsible for creating the largest social network on Internet to promote Sony Group artists and responsible for global campaigns on web portals such as Yahoo!, AOL and Clear Channel Communications. He has also worked for 4 years in the Marketing Planning Department in J Records and Arista Records, in the Bertelsmann Group. He is also the founder of somosdigitales.com, a company dedicated to developing solutions about community management.
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