Community Manager: or the reason I have been MIA
May 9, 2009 New
I have been away from this blog for a little while now (as you may have noticed). Apparently, I don’t adjust well to change!
Two months ago I started a new job as a Community Manager, ending my maternity leave early by nearly five months. I started initially part-time, but went to full-time this week. In reality, Community Management is NOT a part-time gig, but the opportunity for this position was a perfect fit and going back to work early was not in the plans, this was the compromise!
So, what is a “Community Manager”? It is a tough job to give you an elevator definition. But I will give it a whirl:
My job as Community Manager is to engage, build and listen to the community. It is kind of like being a hostess for a party I have to make sure everyone is getting what they want, that they aren’t ruining the party for anyone else, and that if there is a question about where the coats should go – there is someone to answer it.
Of course that is a bit silly. But, the essentials are there.
Engage the Community
Motivate members of the community to get involved, connect with other members and actively participate in activities whether that is a discussion on a Forum, an offline event, comments on a blog, or a twitter chat.
Build the Community
Extend the community beyond the existing members, market and maximize communication to community, potential members at large and internal employees.
Listen to the Community
Monitor conversations within community and other online conversations to make sure needs are being met, identify trends and new ways to activitate two-way conversations.
Tactically, I do the following:
- Write blog posts
- Listen and post on our community forum
- Monitor the web for brand and community mentions
- Find new ways to promote, engage and build the community (adding features to the community, spreading WOM, finding ways to increase SEO or link build)
- Evangelize social media
- Work with internal teams to promote community, get support or resources as well as providing trends and metrics from community to other groups who can use that information.
Connie Benson has a fantastic post on the Roles and Responsibilities of a Community Manager which I highly recommend reading.
You can visit my community here (make sure you check out the community blog as well since this is where I have been doing the blogging for the past two months!)
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May 14th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
OMG! What a perfect job for you! I would love to spend my time doing something like that – how do I get in, or at least get a blackberry?
Congrats!!!!
Visit me @ http://www.momontherun.net
Mom On The Run’s last blog post..Officially A Runner
May 15th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
about damn time!
I thought you explained it perfectly! Congratulations!
Helen’s last blog post..Bang! Bang! Let’s Play.
August 29th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
[...] But here is a quick post with the top 5 ways to build a community I have discovered in the last 6 months as a Community Manager: [...]