The job of Community Manager is not a job as simple as it is believed to be. Among other things, it serves as a direct intermediary between the client and the company. Concerned about the e-reputation of the company, being CM requires skills in different fields such as copywriting, graphic design or analysis. This is still true today and will be even more so tomorrow. The CM must be able to change his cap at any time in order to react and effectively engage the community.
Let’s discover together the different roles that a community manager can play in his day-to-day.
Role 1 – Communicator
The CM needs to bring content to keep his community. He must be able to start and maintain an online discussion to keep the community alive and well informed and/or entertained. He can do so by sharing various contents like articles, images, videos, … Anything related to the company’s core business can be worth sharing/discussed as long as it remains beneath the company’s guidelines. A good CM is definitely a people person.
Role 2 – Moderator
The CM needs to moderate its community, or the users’ comments. He makes sure to answer the questions of his community by simplifying as much as possible the terms used to adapt them to his audience. The CM really needs to scan any activity on its social channel and be aware of everything that is said.
It must be a point of honor not to leave any unanswered comments, whether positive or negative. A good CM will pay even more attention to negative reactions to avoid getting bad reviews or reputation as a bad buzz online can escalate quickly. He needs to know the basics of crisis management.
Role 3 – Facilitator
Communities exist primarily to allow users to exchange. One of the CM’s roles is to facilitate these links between users by connecting them. He combines this role with that of moderator to ensure healthy connections between users. A good CM knows its audience, knows what drives them and makes them comment/react. A good CM is also able to demonstrate empathy and his ability to translate the company values back into the interaction with and between the members.
Role 4 – Researcher
As we said earlier, the CM needs to be aware of what’s going on inside his community. But he also needs to look outside of it and do some research to supply its community. Research occupies a large part of the time of the CM. Indeed, he will always carry out a monitoring work and will study his community and their habits in order to provide them with adequate content.
This study will also allow him to benchmark and to follow current trends for its company and bounce back to create content that will speak even more to his target. A good CM is a good listener and stays curious.
Role 5 – Creator
A CM is responsible for the image of the brand he represents. Being on social networks also means that you are facing thousands of other brand strategies and rival companies that often share similar content. The CM has the heavy task of ensuring that the content it shares is sufficiently engaging. In this role, he must be creative in producing relevant content, which is an important factor in the success of the represented brand. A good CM, in order to captivate their online community, must offer the most fresh and original content.
Role 6 – Analyst
The CM must always be able to keep an eye on the community and its metrics to track the performance of its posts. The goal here is to be able to react as quickly and efficiently as possible when adjustments are needed. As the competition for social supremacy is fierce, it is important to know when a communication works and when it just went under the radar. If it does, the CM needs to be aware of it and know what kind of adjustments to take. A good CM has a way with numbers.
Role 7 – Developer
The CM must be able to grow and develop the community through different methods and content. This role of developer is of course supported by the combination of the 6 previous roles. As a developer, the CM also need to show tremendous organizational skills. Scheduling and conducting the small regular operational tasks and developing processes requires an organizational mindset. The amount of work can be overwhelming but remaining organized can help CMs be better developers for their community. A good CM is an organizational freak.
There you have it, the 7 roles a community manager must handle daily. As you might have guessed, it’s quite easy to be a community manager but it is pretty hard to be a good one. The job requires to renew yourself everyday if you want to stay on top. Eventually a good CM never rests.
