What is a Community Manager?
06.04.2011 Richard von Kaufmann // Concepting Director // co-founder
What is a Community Manager?A Community Manager guides communities towards smooth and effective collaboration.
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Linking the communities togetherCommunity Managers are often recruited to manage the interactions between organizations, partners and customers.
However, the same needs apply to closed-communities involving different departments and organizations.
Partners
Business / organization
Customers
Community Manager lives here
RULES
GUIDANCE
SUPPORT
Key Roles of the Community Manager• Evangelist — motivates users to participate
• Guide — sets the usage guidelines and guides participation
• Moderator — makes sure users behave appropriately
• Councilor — listens to user concerns
• Mobilizer — initiates and schedules content creation
• Content Manager — organizes content to be useful and relevant
Community Rules• Setting the right usage rules for
collaboration tools is crucial
• New users learn the rules through observing how the community is already using the space.
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The usage rules are set by the initial “champion users”.
Driving the Community Forward
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• Observe: be aware of issues being addressed
• Check: keep an active eye on activity
• Steer: show people the way forward
• Accelerate: be enthusiastic and promote activity
• Brake: moderate behavior
The Evangelist• Comfortable using social media
• Enthusiastic about collaborative ways of working online
• Works with early “champion users” to set usage rules
The Guide• Observes behaviour and endeavours to
provide help before it is requested
• Makes suggestions on how to use the tools better
• Seeks help from higher-level support when necessary
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The Moderator
• Keeps discussion active and productive — like a chairperson would in a normal real-life meeting
• Makes sure users are behaving appropriately
• Give positive feedback in public and negative in private
The Content Manager• Initiates and coordinates the collecting
of information
• Schedules content creation
• Manages content to make it useful to users
• Note: In a large organization this work would be done by a dedicated “Content Manager”
Appointing a Community Manager • It is normal and often good practice to give the role of Community Manager to
someone in the Communications Department
• The Community Manager’s role, however, is not necessarily suitable to people who are used to, or prefer, orderly approval processes
• Therefore the role of Community Manager should be considered on case-by-case basis and not automatically be given a Communications Manager
• Most importantly the Community Manager should be comfortable with using social me and enthusiastic about its potential
• Personal usage of social media is an added bonus but not essential
• Larger organizations should consider having a Chief Community Manager
Social Media GuidelinesEducate users on basic participation guidelines:
• representing self
• seeking permissions
• avoiding offence
• giving credit
• asking questions
• use a smiley when you mean it
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Thanks!Richard von KaufmannConcepting Director, co-founder+358 45 11 222 [email protected]