I cannot believe that it has been over a month since my last post, so much for keeping up with my responsibilities.
The last month has been full of everything, traveling, interviewing and landing a great opportunity. First, let me tell you about my travels over the last month……….then again, what the heck am I thinking, let me tell you about the opportunity that I landed 3 weeks ago.
Thanks to Heather Strout, I was able to get my foot into the door at AAA, working with their Mid-Atlantic division (DE, MD, PA, DC, VA, and NJ). They had launched new communities (blogs, message boards, profiles, recommendations) around Cars & Driving and Travel. Through their strategy phases with Mzinga, they realized the importance of having someone Manage the area and become the internal evangelist for their community and its members. After a couple of meetings, I was offered a Contract position with AAA Mid-Atlantic. This is a very exciting opportunity for me, as I am getting back to my roots of Social Media/Online Community management – building an online community and developing a Social Media strategy around it to increase customer satisfaction, brand awareness, membership, visibility and all of the other things that come along with a successful plan.
I have just begun my 2nd week and am already in the depths of the Metrics and Measurement side of things, so that I have a holistic view of what can/not be accomplished. Granted the “anything is possible” saying comes to mind, but I like to be a little more realistic.
As for my travels, they were all New England based, some Vermont, some NH and some MA. Nice to do a little bit of camping and hiking while the weather is nice.
As I have promised in the past, I will try to update my blog as much as possible; you may notice a slight change in the “Voice” as it may come on less of the Moderation side of things, and more of the Management side of things.
As always, thanks for reading.
Mike
5 comments
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August 20, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Suhrid Barua
Hi Mike,
I have been a regular reader of your blogs. I am a journalist based in India. I have picked up this curiosity to know about moderation in online communities. I though the vast experience you have been in managing online communities would help to throw more light on the subject. I am interested in knowing whether human moderation is a must in an online communities these days. To be more specific, I would like to know whether moderation bots (tools available in the market) are enough to run a community smoothly.
It would be great if you could enlighten me on the most popular tools used in online communities. Also, curious to know if there are specific set of words like sex, violence that a tool would reject.
I hope I am not pushing you too hard on this, as I intend to immerse into this online community management.
Would a time come when tools can run a community and human moderators would no longer be required. And how is the growth pattern of an online community moderator in terms of community manager earn as a fresher, middle-level etc etc.
I thought you could be the person to provide information on all this but if I am bothering with too many queries, I am sorry.
Have a good day!
Regards,
Suhrid
August 25, 2009 at 10:09 am
Sue John
Hi, I just wanted to say congratulations on your new position. It sounds like a great gig.
August 25, 2009 at 11:49 am
mikepascucci
Surhid,
Thanks for reading, I just made a post that outlines some of my thoughts around human interaction vs. tools.
Sue,
Thanks for commenting and the nice wishes.
Mike
September 14, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Chuck Bair
Hey Mike – congrats again on the new position. It turns out I know someone who is a AAA member in the mid-atlantic, and she’s letting me check out the site. Looks like a great opportunity, and the right kind of job for you.
May 3, 2011 at 2:48 am
Livia
Thats not just logic. Thats really snesbile.