Essential Skills of a Community Manager
Community manager is a role that more companies will adopt in the coming years. Jeremiah Owyang provide a huge list of companies who have such a champion already, and more recently gave businesses a scorecard for whether startups should have a community manager.
Here, I’ve talked about managing a community and what it takes. I’ve discussed what I want in a social media expert. I’ve even written about how we might do community management wrong. Here are some pieces of the puzzle that I think are vital to the role, and to its adoption for most businesses. Tell me what you think.
The Essential Skills of a Community Manager
The best community managers are like a good party host mixed with a fine restaurant host. I make a distinction because a party is more personal and a restaurant requires their host to think with a business mind. Community managers need both skillsets in equal space. A party host will connect people together, praise incoming guests appropriately, maintain conversations throughout the event, and see everyone safely off with a smile and a wave. A restaurant host must be certain the ambiance is just right, know that the kitchen is functioning appropriately, and help the rest of the staff pull off a flawless dining experience. The blend of the two mindsets suit a company’s community manager well.
Community managers must be experienced communicators. One thing a communicator needs to do well is LISTEN. Part of that involves building sites and community spaces such that people have a place to engage you directly, and part of that means using listening tools to understand what’s being said about you elsewhere. Upon hearing and understanding, a community manager should engage with their own authentic voice, not with a marketing message.
Community managers are ambassadors and advocates in one. This is complex, but a community manager’s first responsibility is to her employer, and yet, she must convey the voice of the people (customers and other stakeholders) such that the company fully understands the mood of the marketplace, the needs of the people, and the customer’s intentions. Further, the community manager must clearly understand the community’s position in the marketplace and communicate that in such a way that customers don’t feel they are being fed a line.
Community managers are bodyguards and protectors. Some communities find a bad apple in their midst. A solid community manager will understand the difference between a vocal critic and a curmudgeonly troll. Knowing when to remove someone politely and quickly from the party is an important matter. The rest of your guests will appreciate this. Just be sure that you know the difference.
Community managers must build actionable reports. It’s not good enough to send emails to your leadership saying, “We had 54 comments on that last blog post.” Metrics and reports appropriate to your organization are necessary to weigh the value of these efforts. Understanding the goals of your organization’s use of social media, and especially the relationship marketing expressed within having a community manager position in the first place are the key to understanding what to measure (I have several measurements I’ve communicated to companies over the last few months, each reasonably different).
Community managers cultivate internal teams for further support. As community managers are the face of the organization (or “a” face) to your online customers, being sure to promote internal champions, leaders, and other teammates becomes important. One reason is that you want your customers and stakeholders to realize the humanity within the company. Another reason is more for the company’s benefit: should the community manager leave the organization, some level of continuity might be salvaged.
Your Take
I’ve given you my ideas on what I find essential to a community manager role. I’m curious how you’d apply this to your needs, and/or if you can see what I might have missed. Your thoughts are valued.
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The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com] for more posts in the series, and if you have topic ideas, feel free to share them, as this is a group project, and your opinion matters.
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Photo credit, foxtongue
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Will Companies Value Your Personal Network
Your job resume tells people what you’ve done in the past and where you’ve done it. Is that the sum of your capabilities? What about your resourcefulness? What’s the value of the people you can reach in your various networks, online or otherwise? And how should companies value this facet of your professional experience? Do companies need to consider how this might impact their departments?
With Sales, it’s a No-Brainer
Sales is a relationships game. The more folks you know, the deeper your Rolodex, the better your chances of finding the right hinge to close the sale. Building networks of value, where you can be helpful is made far simpler with these tools. They don’t do the work for you, but they give you new ways to reach out and establish connections, and stay just a little more in touch with other people’s environments. A salesperson who’s not exploring tools like LinkedIn, Facebook, and yes, even Twitter, is missing some potential opportunities.
How does your organization stack up in this regard?
For Other Departments, It’s Still Pretty Good
Imagine the difference of employing seven software engineers versus having access to thousands of engineers. How powerful is your internal marketing team when they are aligned with social networking tools and the ability to listen to your customers via these tools? What does your HR team miss by not having their listening powers tuned into the robust stream of human capital that roams Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn?
Customer Service is Trickier
In this time of economic downturn, customer service is often viewed as a cost center. Reducing average handling time, and reducing representative headcount are the realities, and no matter what the mission statement says, except for the amazing companies, you’ll find that customer service is more of a “must have” requirement than an empowering strategy. And yet, there’s gold in these hills. It’s just harder to do. For thoughts on how to advance customer service, see Lionel Menchaca and Frank from Comcast for a few simple examples. My take? There can be MUCH more going on here.
And YOUR Personal Network?
When I look at the networks people have built around them, there’s value there. Tangible value. Consider someone like Liz Strauss. She reaches out deeply into her community to build events like her popular and successful SOBCon. She gives and gives, and then when she needs something back, Liz has a strong network of multi-layered contacts to reach into for her needs.
It’s amazing, really. Liz alone is a powerhouse to hire, but if you really did give credit for her extended network, which reaches into the largest companies in the US, UK, and for all I know, the rest of the world.
How do you place a value on that? What does it mean when you can reach deeply into your network for nonprofit fundraisers, or job placement, or contact to land business deals? If you are an employer, or someone involved in the hiring of talent, how much is this influencing your thoughts?
I think this is something that goes into the consideration and metrics of hiring practices in the next handful of years (at least for some sectors). What do you think?
Photo credit, Jurvetson
