Once again, I’m pleased to bring you a guest post from Twitter friend and savvy social communicator, Arik Hanson. I love shining the spotlight on smart, compelling people and Arik certainly fits that bill. Do take the time to check out Arik’s blog at Communications Conversations, and be sure to connect with him on Twitter to say hello.

In high school, I took French. I know, I know, Spanish is more practical. But I took French because there was this gorgeous girl—we’ll call her Sarah, to protect the innocent—that I was just dying to talk to. French class gave me an excuse. But, turned out, learning the French language also gave me a way to connect and converse with a whole bunch of other folks across the world.

Now, in the spirit of full disclosure, I’ve never actually used my French-speaking abilities to communicate with another living soul, but the opportunity is certainly there. C’est la vie.

The point: Learning a different language gave me the chance to communicate with a different population that I previously didn’t understand.

Think about the role of a community manager or social media strategist. They not only need to be able to “speak” social media (the easy part), but they most certainly need to be able to understand basic PR, marketing and communications principles.

Wait—we’re not stopping there.

There’s definitely an IT element to social media, right? Gotta be able to talk to those folks—using their terms and jargon. What about sales? They have a stake in the game, right? OK, I’ll give you that one. It’s pretty easy to talk to a salesperson—but you still need to understand what motivates them (hint: it rhymes with “stash”). Leadership? What, you thought you were you going to start engaging customers one-on-one online and not talk with senior leadership? You most definitely need to be able to communicate effectively with the C-suite. In fact, you need a whole heck of a lot more than just “effective” communication skills to talk to this crowd. You need to be able to build an argument. Make a case. And back it up. Big time. Oh, and they’re probably going to want metrics and measurable results, too. Don’t forget that little nugget.

Community builders need to be bilingual—multi-lingual really. You need to be able to step into an IT meeting and talk about firewalls, CSS and HMTL. Then, 10 minutes later, walk into a meeting with the CEO and tell him why you think it’s a good idea that he start engaging customers on Twitter.

You need to be able to sit in a room full of world-class marketers, savvy PR pros, IT staff and Wharton-trained leaders and talk intelligently about how you’re going to integrate social media tools into the existing marketing and communications mix.

You not only need to be able to speak different languages, but you also need to understand the worlds these vastly different groups live in. What makes them tick? What are their goals? What do they really care about? And how can you take all the information, make sense out of it and tie it together and put a big bow on it and deliver results for the organization?

But, that’s your job. You’re a community builder. It’s not a 9-5 job people. It’s 24/7/365. It’s thinking on your feet. It is, as Amber has said many times, “bridge building.” But before you build the bridges, you need the foundational elements. Like understanding the languages.

Parlez vous des médias sociaux? Technologie de l’information? Ventes?

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