I must admit, before this year's LiNC Local event, I never visited London. And this was my very first LiNC ever! So, I was a newbie in many ways and you can imagine my surprise at how hot it was when my plane landed in Gatwick. Wasn´t London supposed to be foggy, and wet, and cold?
Well, maybe on so many other days in the year, but not for the first LiNC Local London. The city welcomed the LiNC attendees in the best possible way with warmth and sunshine- a great start!
We launched our TeamViewer Community only a few months ago in November 2016, and I am happy to call myself the Community Manager. But to keep it short and simple, we are still new to community management and the Lithium Engagement Platform.
I had the opportunity to get trained at Community Management (CM) II on the Monday right before LiNC Local London commenced, and I gained a lot of knowledge – together with a dozen community managers, community consultants and other Lithium customers. And believe me when I tell you, they all made this course not only very useful for myself and our community, but the training happened to be one of my highlights of the event.
Why? Let me tell you: When you ask me about our community and my job, I get all bright-eyed and can go on and on about the community, our plans, and our experiences. During the course, I met so many people with the same passion as myself. And guess what? On the next day, at LiNC Local itself, there were even more of those passionate people, who really live and breathe the community and social media spirit. Brilliant!
So here are my top 5 takeaways:
1. PASSION. LiNC Local is a place where you can see, hear and feel the passion for Community and Social Media Management. Trust me; this is so positive, the time simply swiftly passes by, without you getting the chance to talk to everybody. I could spend another day listening to the stories and visions of the other attendees.
2. SUPPORT. Did I feel any bit of negative competition, envy or mistrust in the course of the entire conference? Not one bit! All of the attendees I spoke with were friendly, supportive and happy to share their experience and best practices with me. And they were glad to hear my own share of successes.
Did I tell you that I was invited to speak as a panelist in one of the breakout sessions? I was so excited and nervous before the panel started, but thanks to the kind words from @UlrikaH and @Wendy_S, I found myself enjoying the panel session! Afterwards I’m able to say, it was really fun!
3. FUN: I had so much fun and we shared so many funny moments. I found myself really enjoying every single moment filled with great tweets, brilliant ideas and funny t-shirts from the make-your-own-shirt-machine. At the end of the day, my voice was even hoarse.
4. LEARN: It is always good to step away from your own work and have a look what others are doing. A conference like LiNC is the perfect opportunity to see that there are no limits in community management. Providing a support community is of course one use-case for a community, but I was really amazed to see that there are so many different communities out there: retail sector, security sector, finance sector, NGOs… That is why this was the perfect environment to learn. Look around and expand your horizon: Different industries, different businesses and different use cases are far from boring. Listen and learn; this will make you a better Community Manager!
5. STAY IN TOUCH. No large intro needed. Don´t let LiNC Local be a one day event. Take the LiNC Local aura home, keep the spirit alive and stay in contact with the fantastic bunch you met there. Keep the passion, the support and the fun burning and share your knowledge; learn from each other also outside the event. Thanks to social media and online communities, it is so easy to stay in touch with each other!
One last thought from my side: Whatever you do in the next year: Make sure, you are joining LiNC Local! It is worth it!
Interested in joining LiNC Local Sydney on July 20, 2017? Register here.
ABOUT ESTHER HEIDE:
Esther is the Community Manager at TeamViewer. Here is her professional background:
- 2011: Magistra Artium degree from the Christian-Albrechts University in Kiel, Germany (Scandinavian Studies, German Studies, pedagogy)
- 2011 - 2012: Freelancer and Content Creator at sh:z, Germany
- 2012: Sales Representative at TeamViewer
- 2015: Senior Sales Representative at TeamViewer Since 2016: Community Manager at TeamViewer
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