The 4 Most “Evil” Types of Community Managers – That You Can Become Yourself
Happy Community Manager Apprecation Day! Now lets just hope you’re not one of those community managers who’ll do anything for a retweet or like. You’re not? Good, but lets see what would happen if you would turn to the dark, spammy side of working on social networks. Here are the 4 types of community managers you should not become:
The Self-Retweeter
How to spot them: The self-retweeters is pretty obvious. They’ll retweet everyone one of his Twitter accounts from all the other Twitter accounts they can. No, seriously. You’ll see them retweet a retweet which might sound absurd but it does happen. Thankfully for Facebook and Google+ users, the self-retweeter is limited to the fastest social network out there – Twittter.
When you will stop following their accounts: The moment you see the RT of a RT being RT-ed in a new style retweet. There might even be a chance of a clan of self-retweeters getting together and RT-ing among themselves in which case you’ll not only lose track of your timeline, but your mind as well.
The Like Hunter
How to spot them: The like hunters are indigenous to Facebook, but have also been found on Twitter asking for retweets. They prey on the naive social media users that will gladly “support” them just by being ask to like something. It might be a photo or a somewhat smart sentence, but the like hunter’s only goal is raw numbers. More likes: more chance of getting more likes.
When you’ll stop liking their content: Once again, it’s a matter of frequency. If you really like the brand or organisation they’re working for, you’ll probably want to follow every bit of news that’s published on their fan page. In time, you’ll notice that every-single-status ends with them asking you to like that status. Once. Twice. Ok, enough. Three times. I said enough. Hm, seems they really like likes, don’t they?
The Follower
How to spot them: One of the best methods to get someone to follow you on Twitter is to follow them. If they see the notification they might get interested and follow back. Simple strategy, right? Unfortunately, some community managers take it to the extreme and start following users just to get more followers themselves. Their strategy? Follow someone and after some time if they don’t follow you, follow them again. Hope dies last, especially when you’re clicking the “follow” button like a mad man.
When you’ll block them: Hopefully, you don’t have Twitter notifications turned on so dozens of emails are rushing to your inbox. If you do, you’ll notice a steady stream of notifications with the same Twitter username, following you today as if they didn’t tomorrow. You’ll probably end up just ignoring them as you would putting a sales person on hold.
The Spammy Game Organizer
How to spot them: They know they need followers and fans – so why not organize a contest to win an iPad or some other gadget? Why would you follow the rules or etiquette and make an application when you can just spam Twitter with a hashtag or make people like photos on your Facebook fan page? You’ll probably see a lot of your friends participating in their contests – like messengers of the lowest time of spammer – the one who thinks it’s all ok.
How you’ll stop seeing their stuff: You’ll end up unfollowing, unfriending or just blocking your friends. As far as Facebook goes, contests that don’t follow their promotion guidelines end up costing the brand their fan page so that’s something that fixed itself. On Twitter however, blocking or filtering is the only option.
You’ve looked into the eyes of your destiny. So don’t become an annoying community manager, there are far too many of those on the web today. Be a good community manager and take care of your fans and followers. Or else.
