[myNetWords.com] : Community manager

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Community manager

Updated : Tuesday 6 September 2011

A community manager (Kaesse suggested the word) is a new form of communicator who could be defined as a manager or facilitator of online social networks. He or she is the second generation (2.0) version of the webmaster. More specifically, a community manager is responsible for “managing” discussions on the Twitter account, Facebook Fanpage, blog or website of the brand he represents. Managing, in this case, means becoming involved in virtual conversations and moderating them, in other words deciding what to publish and what to censor: anything offensive or pornographic, or commercial messages posted by internet users. The aim is clear: to generate as much “talk” about the brand among the internet community, or rather communities, as possible, preferably favourable. To do this, the community manager can make things happen that create a buzz on the web. A good community manager must devote part of his or her time to monitoring the web, finding out who is talking about his brand and how, on what websites, blogs and forums, so as to be able to take part in those discussions himself. The community manager should not be confused with a webmaster, who is of longer standing in the sense that the role was around before, and whose job is to create content for the brand’s websites and blogs by filling and updating the web pages. Both are examples of digital natives, or in any event they need to be steeped in internet culture and know how to draft content, but there the resemblance ends. A webmaster might have the profile of an absolute geek, to the point of being asocial, but the essential hallmark of a community manager is his or her remarkable capacities as a communicator. As well as marketing expertise and creative gifts.

A community manager in Europe earns between 40 and 50 000 euros a year, which is not bad for someone who is, typically, young (they are mostly under 30), though it’s not exactly in the hedge fund manager league either, and as a career, it is not without risk. But with all the webmasters, curators and community managers out there, maybe the image of the internet as the destroyer of jobs will finally start to change.

Community management looks like the new Holy Grail to companies: it takes a long time to find it, but the search is worth it in the end. But before a company embarks on community management, it first has to undergo its own cultural revolution. A lot of brands have found out the hard way that “facilitating” is not the same as “controlling” (Habitat UK, Dell and Ralph Lauren, to name but a few) and that you can’t just get away with anything. Put another way, there’s no place for top-down or vertical communication on social networking sites. If all you do each day is announce what the company is doing and promote your products, you might end up creating a negative buzz or driving away all your "fans" on facebook. Here, it’s all about horizontal communication and synchronised dialogue, meaning, almost, in real time: if someone asks you a question, you need to answer fast with a personalised reply, and not just trot out the company’s “official” statement. And you have to accept the “rules” of web 2.0, by taking criticism from your “fans” and playing the game with transparency and sincerity. On the internet it all comes out in the end, so it’s best to put your cards on the table at the start than have to backtrack later. And avoid anything too wacky: one young community manager (not very well supervised, evidently) had the bright idea of driving up the number of visitors to the company’s Twitter account (they were in the furniture business) by linking its tweets to the most popular hashtag at the time. That was "Iran". In the middle of an election campaign, that provoked an angry reaction online. You don’t manipulate the internet and get away with it! So, you’ve been warned. Armed with your “good” values of sincerity and dialogue, you can launch yourself into the choppy waters of community management by cosying up to your fans and dialoguing with your critics. Managing a community involves maintaining exclusivity over the brand’s news stories, whether it’s an environmentally-friendly initiative, a product launch or a promotion. You also need to give the community its own privileges, like special offers for members of Facebook or Twitter, tips, invitations to events, photo competitions, and so on. You can invite members of the network to help in the development of products and services, or involve them in the business in some way. Ask them questions in the form of surveys, open up discussions with them (which of our branded products do you like best, which do you like least, and why?), and give them products to test. Some brands use their fans to help them design a product or an advertisement, like the Vitamin Water flavour “Connect”, designed jointly by fans of the brand in a first venture into using crowdsourcing. Community management may still be taking baby steps, but the ground it can cover is huge. Companies rightly have high expectations, but there are disappointments in store too, as the slightest false move by a company will be seized on by internet users as fiercely as they were singing its praises only the day before.