Community Managers: what they do & why they’re important

Three Community Managers sitting together in the office

Community Manager is a relatively new job position that grew out of the social media age. Brands needed someone to take on the task of managing their social media as well as content across the internet.

Because of this strong affiliation with social media, “Community Manager” is often erroneously seen as an interchangeable term with “Social Media Manager”.

Social Media Managers focus solely on social media platforms. Community Managers manage communications with a brand’s “community” (customers, audience, followers) in all the places these community members exist, on internal and external platforms.

This description from Indeed is great: “The community manager is focused on the digital community that follows a brand.”

I’ve been working in community management for four years now and I have found it to be the most rewarding job I’ve had yet. Staying connected with an engaged group of people throughout the day and meeting their needs just makes me feel good.

In my opinion, Community Managers are the future and more companies will seek to fill these positions. Or at least, they should. And current Social Media Managers should aim to become Community Managers and expand their scope beyond social platforms.

Let’s get into what exactly Community Managers do and why they can be a huge asset to organizations.

What does a Community Manager do?

🗣️ Community managers establish and maintain the brand’s voice

Anyone else get confused when they hear the term “brand voice”? At first glance, it may seem it refers to how the brand communicates in a written or verbal sense.

But it goes beyond just words. It would be more accurate to call it a “brand personality” because it also encompasses the brand’s visuals on social media or even the design of its website and app.

Just close your eyes and think about Apple or Adidas. You probably see their logos and commercials or think about the celebrities associated with them. All of the things you imagine are part of their brand voice.

Some brands already have a distinctive voice that has been consistent for decades. Community Managers wouldn’t normally “establish” these voices, but rather keep them consistent in their own work at the company.

But if you’re starting at an organization that is new or still figuring out its identity, it may fall on you to establish this voice and get everyone on board.

You might know the brand voice better than anyone – in that case, it’s on you to make sure that external communications stay true to this voice. Otherwise, it can be a jarring experience for customers and users that receive these communications.

👩‍💻 Community Managers engrain themselves in the community and pay attention

To be a successful Community Manager, you need to have a strong sense of what your brand’s “community” is thinking and what their needs are.

A community member is someone who engages with your product or service regularly. They’ve registered on your website, downloaded your app, or purchased your product/service. Basically, they’ve taken some kind of action to demonstrate they are invested in your company. They may now be following you on social media or be subscribed to your emails. You are likely going to continue communicating with them in some form.

The feedback from these community members can come in different forms – emails, social media comments, Google reviews. Community Managers should keep tabs on all major channels to stay aware of what members are most concerned with.

As an example, in my role, I manage our FAQ which often means posting a new article when we’ve received numerous questions about something. I also look at which FAQ articles are the most popular and how “helpful” these articles have been rated. This helps me understand what are the biggest questions people have and whether our FAQ adequately helps them.

Listening to feedback from your community and actually communicating back to them or addressing their concerns builds trust. It keeps them coming back.

And Community Managers can be a megaphone, bringing attention to what community members want to the rest of the company – which will then help companies provide better service.

💡 Community Managers anticipate what the community wants and delivers

Once you are connected to all the major channels your community uses and you are constantly updated on what they’re saying – you should establish a pretty good sense of who they are and what they want from your brand.

(Of course, if a company has several products/services, a community may be filled with diverse and conflicting voices. Ideally, different Community Managers would manage different products, but that isn’t always the case).

With this knowledge, you can provide what community members want before many of them even ask for it. This can come in the form of social content or a website update.

Even if it’s something you will not be in charge of executing, such as a product or tech update, you can still give suggestions to those teams based on conversations you’re having within the community.

Imagine your brand is revamping a popular service. Rather than just letting community members log in one day to see new features they won’t know how to use, alert them ahead of time with an email that these changes are coming and what’s great about them.

👯‍♀️ Community Managers seek connection with community members

What’s actually the biggest difference between social media and community management? To me, social media from brands is a lot of “look at me!” content. Brands fight to grab our attention for three seconds in the hopes we might buy something.

Or worse, it’s brand accounts trying to go viral every third business day with “quirky” humour and hopping onto trending memes. But community management is not about trying to grab your attention for the sake of grabbing your attention.

The heart of community management work is connecting on topics that may not be that exciting – but will make a difference to the experience people have with your organization.

Sometimes you’re solving small problems for a small group of people. Sometimes you’re staggered by a really big problem and try to figure out how to navigate your community through it while other teams figure out a fix.

Sometimes, you’re having happy and fun interactions. Sometimes, people are angry and they’re directing their blame at the only person who will listen – and that can be hard. But if you can find a way to turn that anger into contentment, you’re making their day and your day better.

How to become a Community Manager

Throughout this article, the term “Community Manager” was used but the same principles apply to “Community Specialists”, just a step below. However, you’re unlikely to find entry-level “Community Coordinator” positions because entering this field does require prior social media management skills at least.

The following skills will help you work in community management:
  • Social media management (posting, creating content, etc.)
  • Public relations (crafting tactful responses)
  • Customer service (communicating with consumers)
  • Crisis management (responding to crises or escalating them to appropriate departments)

It’s also super great to have an understanding of UX/UI design if your company mainly provides online services through their website and/or app. As problems can arise in somebody’s use of these services, having product design knowledge will help you deliver appropriate and feasible solutions to teams.

What do companies look for in a community manager? “Community Manager” jobs included the following:
  • “Develop content calendars and manage the day-to-day process of posting and scheduling”
  • “Represent the brand with best-in-class customer experience, helping customers with their inquiries through email, chat and social media”
  • “Capture customer insights and product experiences to report back”
  • “Stay on the pulse of new industry and venture developments…to proactively direct current and future opportunities“
  • “Compose and post engaging content such as posts and newsletters”
  • “Be the voice of our clients and escalate popular client requests to internal teams“
  • “Create, own and manage the company community groups across social media channels”

This list is a great example of how varied community management work can be, with some of the finer aspects of your responsibilities totally dependent on how that company engages with its community.

In terms of your education, it’s pretty similar to what any communications job would expect. It is preferred that you have some educational background in communications or social media – but ultimately, your work experience counts for more.

Why community management is so important

Staying connected with the community keeps a brand on track

Big or small, sometimes companies can lose touch with their consumers. They may think they know what consumers need but instead, act brashly based on their own ambitions or bottom line.

Maybe in the short term, their profits will lift and website traffic will spike. But in the long-term, alienating your community by not listening to their feedback (or even asking for it) will cause mistrust and drop-off. Everybody wants to feel heard, especially when they’re frustrated.

A lot of organizations get hyper-focused on new user acquisition. A great example is streaming services reporting new subscriber numbers every quarter. But what’s always been more interesting to me is the number of subscribers cancelling every quarter. Maybe it’s not as exciting to focus on user retention as it is to focus on new user acquisition but it can yield consistent, long-term value to an organization.

If you’ve had a broken feature on your app for months with no improvement despite many user complaints, people will eventually delete your app. And trying to get them back after that trust has been broken is so much harder than enticing somebody new to give you a chance (and they may just delete your app later too).

This is where Community Managers become so important. Because they are the ones always in contact with the community, they know what causes mistrust and alienation. It is well-known in marketing circles you’re unlikely to hear from a happy customer but almost definitely will hear from an unhappy one.

Brands are losing attention on social media more and more each year

A few years ago, social media companies figured out two things:

  1. There’s more ad money to be made if algorithms push brand posts further down on a person’s feed so brands will then begin to pay for placement on your feed since organic posts are less likely to be seen
  2. People prefer using social media to connect with friends (directly on their feed) or network (in groups)

This was bad news for brands but great news for companies like Facebook, which saw their ad revenue grow year after year – even amid many PR disasters for the company – as brands scrambled to gain a coveted spot on your social feed.

Chart of Facebook Ad Revenue

For big companies with massive ad budgets, throwing ad dollars at Facebook instead of T.V. commercials is an easy pivot. But this isn’t the case for many small businesses. If they can’t compete with the ad space being eaten up by huge companies, what can they do instead with their organic posts?

They can foster and grow their community, giving people a reason to check in on their social media posts. A reason to care and a reason to participate in a conversation.

Posts that gain a lot of engagement, especially in the form of a spirited back-and-forth in the comments, are more likely to appear in one’s feed or the “Explore” section of Instagram. And you can elicit this kind of engagement without spending a dime by just knowing your audience and getting them to connect with you – the Community Manager!

Community Managers care… and we need more of them

Community Managers can use resources at their disposal to help community members navigate their concerns – or escalate these issues to departments that can help.

Community Managers can also help mitigate problems entirely by anticipating how the community will react before a product goes out or a service is changed.

Having somebody at the company whose main role is just keeping their pulse on the feelings, needs, and values of a community can help companies maintain dedicated consumers and users – which allows them to weather even the most volatile of economic storms.

And if you have a happy community, they will be your biggest advocates, which will only keep a business growing.

Aidan Djabarov is the founder of Generation PR. In her career, she has worked in public relations, social media and marketing because she couldn't stick to just one. She loves travelling, watching films and learning languages.