Vitrue Community Manager of the Year

Community Manager of the Year Award

Vitrue is a Community Manager UNconference sponsor and will be in Chicago Friday, but they are also behind the first ever Community Manager of the Year Award! Tim McDonald, from My Community Manager, organizer of the Community Manager UNconference, had a chance to Spreecast with Steve Barnes, Director of Social Media for Vitrue Global.

Nominations are now open for the community manager of the year and will remain open until September 14, 2012. Qualified entrants will be given a questionnaire that must be returned by October 1. 3 Finalists will be selected and flown to Las Vegas for Vitrue’s School for the Socially Gifted and featured in WOMMA Summit this November, where one community manager will become the first community manager of the year and walk away with their choice of an iPod or iPhone! Want to learn more about Vitrue and their Community Manager of the Year Award? Come visit them at the Community Manager UNconference on February 24 in Chicago or visit the official website.

What is an UNconference?

Community Manager UNconference

Many people are asking for an agenda for the Community Manager UNconference. Some are asking if I could give them an idea of the topics and speakers that will be there. While many conferences are structured this was, and UNconference is not. I did my best to explain what exactly and UNconference was.

If you can’t see this video, view it on YouTube.

While not all UNconferences are the same, you can expect some very unique and in-depth discussion about community management from several different perspectives. Building communities, measuring results, and even leadership in communities will be discussed. In the days leading up you will be hearing more about some of the people attending and companies they work for. In addition, more sponsors will have news to share.

Don’t forget to sign up for your free trading cards from Meet-Meme once you register!

And it’s never too late to submit a topic for Community Manager UNconference. Plus you can vote on the ones already submitted.

What are you looking forward to from this UNconference? Have you ever been to an UNconference? Let us know in the comments below.

#cmgrUN Trading Cards from Meet-Meme

Tim McDonald #cmgrUN Meet-Meme Trading CardConferences are not only fantastic for learning about content and ideas, they are also a way to meet new people and expand your professional network. For many the networking process can be intimidating. At the Community Manager UNconference, we recognized this fact and partnered with Meet-Meme to provide unique trading cards to all participants. How will this help everyone network?

Tim McDonald #cmgrUN Meet-Meme Trading Card Back

For starters, the cards have your contact information, much like a traditional business card, but also have your photo, social links, QR code and even a little unknown “fun” fact about you! These cards are conversation starters that will make networking easy. To make sure others have a reason to introduce themselves to you, we’re going to have some prizes to give away by incorporating a game. The offline game is where attendees will be encouraged to collect cards from fellow attendees who have pre-registered for Meet-Meme cards. Each MeetMeme card will contain a removable Facebook-style “Like” sticker that can be adhered to a game board. Game boards will be made available to all attendees, so as to not exclude any attendees from game play. After the collection of 5 stickers on a game board, each attendee will be able to “Spinto-win” on an iPad prizing system.

Our prizes include a grand prize of a one (1) year subscription to The Community Roundtable TheCR Focus ($350 value),  several books, including Online Community Management for Dummies by Deborah Ng, and more prizes are being added!

Be sure to get your custom Meet-Meme trading card for #cmgrUN by creating it for FREE now! After you create your trading card, give a shout out to @MeetMeme on Twitter and include the #cmgrUN hashtag so they know to look for your submission!

JetBlue Valentine’s Day Sale Good News for #cmgrUN

Valentine's Day Fare Sale for Community Manager UNconferenceIt’s Valentines’ Day and love is in the air. Or as JetBlue call’s it “The LOVE-A-FARE Sale” For today only you can purchase a roundtrip ticket from Long Beach, Boston or New York for as little at $170 RT!  Why are we excited about this? No JetBlue is not a sponsor. No we are not getting a commission on each ticket sold. We are happy that this makes the trip more affordable for those of you on the coasts to come visit us in Chicago on February 24 for the Community Manager UNconference!

Sample fares: JetBlue

Boston – Chicago $170

New York (JFK) – Chicago $180

Long Beach – Chicago $220

Best rates are on Wednesday, which means you also get to attend Social Media Club Chicago‘s “The Future of Community Management” panel on February 23!

To show our love this February 14, we’re offering a $99 ticket price for today only when you register with the code: valentine

Buy your tickets and let us know you’re coming in the comments below or tweet it out using #cmgrUN! We’ll roll out a warm Chicago welcome for you.

The Community Roundtable – Bronze Sponsor #cmgrUN

The Community Roundtable

The Community Roundtable is not only sponsoring the Community Manager UNconference, they are offering all registered attendees a 20% discount off of the TheCR Focus and  TheCR Network annual costs. It’s with great excitement that we have The Community Roundtable as a partner in this unconference, as they share our goal of furthering the discipline of community management.

Partnering with WOMMA and ComBlu, The Community Roundtable created a community management certificate program. This program sets industry standards a establishes best practices in the emerging field of community management, community strategist and community specialist.

For everyone in attendance at the Community Manager UNconference, The Community Roundtable has a special prize for us to give away! One lucky person will receive a one year subscription to TheCR Focus (a $350 value). Stay tuned for more details and be sure to register today.

There are plenty of great prizes for attendees of #cmgrUN. Google is giving away a Galaxy Tablet too!

Google Chicago’s Galaxy Tab Giveaway

Not only is Google opening up their offices for the Community Manager UNconference, they are also giving away a Samsung Galaxy Tablet! That’s right, to celebrate all the community managers coming to Chicago on February 23 and 24 for the Community Manager UNconference and Social Media Club Chicago’s “Community Management” panel, Google will make it easier for one lucky person to stay connected on the go!

Samsung Galaxy Tablet Giveaway from Google

The rules are pretty simple, just head over to the Google Places site with all the details. To sum it up:

1) Fill out this form:
* Required

2. Write at least one quality, honest review on Google Places
Google Places

You’ve got until 5pm on Friday, February 24th, 2012 to submit as many reviews you can!  Each review counts as one entry. Each new review counts as a new entry, so the more reviews you write the better chances you have to win!

So don’t wait until our happy hour at 5pm to write your review, start now!

Share the news and be sure to thank Google when you’re at the UNconfernce!

 

Unpredictable! Community Manager UNconference

Community Manager UNconference Chicago

One of the most rewarding things about being a Community Manager is that no two days are ever the same. Sure, we all have our routines, but new days mean new conversations, challenges, and discoveries.

My Community Manager provides new and existing CMs with a place to learn what it means to be responsible for a community and to share insights (and sometimes fears) related to the industry.

For many of us, that means working from home, or gluing ourselves to our screens while the rest of the office works around us. This is why I’m looking forward to taking the conversation offline at the very first Community Manager UNconference.

Nothing about managing a community is predictable, so why should a conference covering the topic be any different?

This is a chance for community managers to step away from keyboards and Twitter feeds to talk with each other. By now you should know how important it is to cultivate community both on and offline.

Community Manager hasn’t been my title for a few months now, but I still have a hand in many developing online communities. Having just moved back from Los Angeles, I’m excited to reconnect with the Chicago social media scene and I can think of no better way to do that than by spending a few days with brilliant professionals.

If you haven’t already, there’s still time to secure your spot: http://cmgrunconf.com 

Hope to see you there!

Written by:

Jennifer Beese
Community Builder | Freelance Writer

My profiles: Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Google Plus

Latest Post: Learning How to Bend

Community Manager UNconference – Chicago

Community Manager unConference

It is with great excitement that we announce the first Community Manager UNconference to be held in Chicago on February 24, 2012! This has been a goal of My Community Manager since it began just a few months ago. In that time we have made great strides in sharing information about what it takes to become a community manager and built a great community of existing community managers. While all this has been done through the blogTwitter, and Facebook, there is nothing like spending time in person with other community managers. Many conferences allow us to get together with varied social media professionals, but none with the sole focus on community management. Continue reading…