We’re going to take a break from our weekly series of facts from the Community Careers and Compensation report to review the 50 essential community manager skills from the Community Skills Framework™.
We updated the Community Skills Framework™ as a means to explore the value of 50 essential skills of community management. This is the second iteration of the framework, which was launched in 2014 as a set of 37 skills in 4 skill families. Reviewing the data from 2014 with members of TheCR Network, we recognized that we hadn’t tapped into the full family of business and strategic skills — which we separated into two families, and added a number of other skills that we noted were absent from the first edition of the framework.
In the Community Careers and Compensation Survey — we asked community management professionals to rank the skills that are most valuable to their role and surface those skills which carry the greatest value across all community roles, as well as those that are most critical within individual community roles and use cases.
We also see an opportunity to use the framework as:
• A structure for strategic planning
• A tool for online community manager training and professional development
The Community Skills Framework™ gives community leaders a way to better identify and understand skill gaps and opportunities for creating stronger teams
The 50 Essential Community Manager Skills
—ENGAGEMENT COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT SKILLS—
- Listening & Analyzing
- Response & Escalation
- Moderation & Conflict Facilitation
- Promoting Productive Behaviors
- Empathy & Member Support
- Facilitating Connections
- New Member Recruitment
- New Member Welcoming
- Member Advocacy
- Behavior Change & Gamification
—STRATEGIC COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT SKILLS—
- Community Strategy Development
- Roadmap Development
- Policy & Guideline Development
- Needs & Competitive Analysis
- Measurement, Benchmarking & Reporting
- Trendspotting & Synthesizing
- Consulting
- Executive Coaching
- Content Strategy Development
- Evaluating Engagement Techniques
—BUSINESS COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT SKILLS—
- Program Management
- Business Model Development
- Budget & Financial Management
- Team Hiring & Management
- Contractor Hiring & Management
- Selling, Influencing & Evangelizing
- Community Advocacy & Promotion
- Training Development & Delivery
- Vendor Management
- Governance Management
—CONTENT COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT SKILLS—
- Communication Planning
- Writing
- Graphics & Design
- Multimedia Production
- Narrative Development
- Editing
- Curation
- Program & Event Planning
- Taxonomy & Tagging Management
- SEO &/or Internal Search Optimization
—TECHNICAL COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT SKILLS—
- Systems Administration & Configuration
- Data Collection & Analysis
- Tool Evaluation & Recommendation
- Technical Support
- Member Database Management
- Platform Architecture & Integration
- Technology Issue Resolution
- Software & Application Programming
- UX & Design
- Algorithm Design & Data Manipulation
How do your community skills stack up against the list of essential community manager skills? Any areas you’d like to focus on for your personal growth as a community manager? What is your list of essential community manager skills?
Want to dig deeper into the essential community manager skills?
Check out our free Community 101: Models and Frameworks course to walk through the Community Skills Framework™. Use the worksheet included with the free course to document where you are and how you can level up your essential community manager skills.
