Over-Graph gives the floor to Community Managers so they can explain us their work and the social media trends they believe in. Today, it is the turn to Patrick Hellen!

Who are you and which communities do you manage?

My name is Patrick Hellen, a community manager for CloudLock, Inc – a cloud security company just outside of Boston, Massachusetts. I’m in the process of launching our first community project with this company, and I’m always looking for a good suggestions and ideas, so if any of your readers have any best practices on their own communities, toss them my way.
Most recently I was working for another network security company called Rapid7, where I managed their SecurityStreet Community for the past 3 years.
As a proud Bostonian, and an American of French descent - it’s nice to be interviewed by the country that made half of my family possible, and thanks again for that whole, Revolutionary War, thing. We still owe you one.

What is the strategy of the brands you are working with?

My own strategy for all brands I work with, is to provide my customers with a place to communicate, collaborate, and complain - in order to allow them a much more engaged relationship with the company (us), and with their peers, so that we can all improve and grow.

On which social networks are you active?

For the most part, I tend to stick to Twitter, for my own long winded and weird ramblings, and LinkedIn for professional and work ones. You can follow me - @PatrickCH - but be prepared for a long diatribe about popular culture one moment, a discussion about internet and net neutrality the next, and a follow-up around my company and security.
I will say that I’m looking for the next big thing. I’ve dabbled with Tumblr, Pinterest, etc - but none of them feel like a Twitter or Facebook replacement. If you across the sea know of a new amazing app/site - tweet me!

What is the nowadays trend from your perspective?

I see more and more of a push for companies to move back to the personal, human to human communication aspect. People are purchasing from people, and building relationships with their sales reps, and support reps - so I see a trend of a much smaller company feel, even if it’s a multi national corporation.

If you had to bet on a social network or a technology, which one would it be?

I wouldn’t bet on one to be honest. If the past is a good indication, the most popular social networks will all eventually lose steam, and either evolve or die. The average teenager is far less interested in Facebook then my generation was when we were finally allowed to join up, and even though I’m painfully addicted to Twitter - I’m sure it’s newer and hotter successor is on it’s way soon. So, for the short-term, I’d bet on Twitter to maintain the top spot for brands, over Facebook and Linkedin, but someone in Silicon Valley will have a new weird idea soon, and we’ll all be trying to figure out how to adapt our brands to fit.
 

Do you use tool to ease your management?

Right now the main tools in my kit are Salesforce’s community product, and TweetDeck to manage my social presence on Twitter. I do spend some time in Google Analytics, but as my new community is a private and customer only tool, it’s more for ongoing trend viewing, as opposed to tracking my site itself.
I also use a huge amount of Google Drive for storage, collaboration, etc.

Did you notice lacks from tool you use?

I find that reporting and metrics, are generally terrible from just about every tool. Granted, this might be a bit of my own fault, as I’m a community guy, working with people, crafting content, etc, and less of a number crunching guy - but things that I think would be excellent reporting options never seem to be an out of the box option.

Did you know Over-Graph? First impressions on it?

I did not know Over-Graph before I saw the post on Twitter that I responded to, but since investigating, it looks like a good multi-use tool. I love the fact that it’s open source because I’m always interested in products that I don’t have to go back to my management to ask for budget for.