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The Community Roundtable

Empowering global community leaders with research-backed resources, training, and tools.

Community Role Profile: Community Manager

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Photo of Man Holding a Book

OVERVIEW OF ROLE
​ Community managers often oversee more processes than people and are the generalists of the community field. Although some community managers manage moderators or specialists, many work with other teams as the voice of the community. A community manager can be an entry-level role in some companies but on average they are mid-level professionals with over a decade in the workforce and six+ years in community.

​ RESPONSIBILITIES
Community managers are the face and voice of the community. To make the community successful, they work with members to help them find value while ensuring organizational sponsors also receive value.
Community managers balance tactical engagement and programming activities with more strategic responsibilities like planning and reporting. In small organizations, they are likely responsible for everything related to the community, while at larger organizations they may have direct reports, work on a larger team, or have the support of outsourced resources.

MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN THE COMMUNITY

​ A community manager’s special gift is empathy – a knack for understanding members and their motivations, their needs and goals, then connecting them with other members, content, and programs that help them achieve their goals.

Community Manager Role

To learn more about the Community Manager Role, and view Community Specialist Job Descriptions download our Community Careers and Compensation report – now available for free download.

How do you direct your own career path when one is not defined?

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One of the interesting career-based findings from the SOCM 2019, was that only 25% of community roles are approved by HR. This is a crucial number because it means that three-quarters of CM’s do not have clearly defined roles or paths to promotion to go along with them.

When we look at the profile of emerging leaders, we see a wide range of functional backgrounds, skills, and industries. Community leaders are ready to move to a new stage. Are you one of them? 

To utilize the SOCM while negotiating a title change, you can reference the section on communities with advanced strategies. Outlining how your role fits into a detailed community strategy, including ROI projections, provides a tool for execs to understand the importance of management to the success of the community.

So you get the new title, but what about compensation and influence?

Even in companies that are supportive of community, CM’s are frustrated with a lack of resources.

Obtaining resources requires organizational influence. Finding opportunities for training and collaboration is helpful in establishing new connections. Using your current network to gain access to new executives and stakeholders is one tactic to get in the door. These interactions help increase the visibility of the community and foster relationships that can propel your career forward.

If you are being asked to help design your new role, this is an excellent opportunity to build a strong foundation of tasks and responsibilities that give you access to other department leads, creates opportunities for collaboration, and facilitates training for executives.

Maybe you are exploring other options and want to design a list of what to look for in a company. Consider things like the organizational governance structure, titles, and roles within community, responsibilities of community staff, and current organizational strategy.

Does the company support a community mindset? Are you willing to help create one?

Knowing what kind of role is right for you, and then defining the duties that support it is empowering and necessary in a market that is diversifying and growing rapidly.

Members of TheCR Network are discussion role transitions, career paths, and compensation every day. Join these vital discussions to contribute your perspective on industry standards and trends. 

Although we’ve published several career development resources in the past, such as the Community Careers and Compensation Report 2015, TheCR is also working to develop more careers and compensation information and we would love your feedback. If you have questions around your career path, trends in community careers or anything career-related, drop them in the Community Careers and Development group.

Join TheCR Network today!

Building A Skill-Based Community Manager Job Ad

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Community Manager Job Ad

A quick search on LinkedIn finds more than 1,000 jobs with “Community Manager” in the title at any given moment. Subtract the ones about property management, and add in “Online Community”, “Community Specialist” and a dozen other terms and you are left with several hundred job descriptions — not two of which have the exact same requirements or expectations. As we have noted on many occasions, many current community management job descriptions are not well balanced and tend to be misaligned in one or more of the following ways:

  • Hiring organizations want more experience than they can get for the compensation they are offering.
  • They expect more specific expertise than is reasonable for the general years of experience required.
  • They ask for more advanced skills than are required for the role’s responsibilities.
  • They have too many responsibilities listed for one individual to reasonably be able to handle.
  • The traits they are seeking are misaligned with the work environment (i.e. agile in a big bureaucracy).Community Manager Job Ad

Enter The Community Skills Framework

Using the Community Skills Framework to craft job descriptions based on the skills you value, and aligning those skills with the appropriate roles and compensation can do a great deal for talent acquisitionand retention. A simple exercise can help. On the Framework, check off the skills you value and need for your team. Those skills can form the basis of a job ad.

Then ask yourself some questions:

  • What level of individual (i.e. — a moderator, manager, strategist, etc.) are these skills most applicable for? Set the right title.
  • Is there a reasonable expectation that I can attract the skills I want, with the experience I need, at the compensation I can offer?
  • Am I seeking a unicorn? (A person with such unique qualifications — such as a business model expert who can code APIs — that I’ll never find them, and would be better served with a narrower focus or two hires.)

The best job ads take into account not only the skills you value, but the experience you need and the traits you desire in your next hire. By making sure your expectations are realistic and your compensation competitive, you can find talented community professionals — and keep them.

What is a community manager?

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Community Manager is by far the most often cited and discussed role in the community space for a couple of reasons. First, in the past online communities were used primarily for tactical reasons, which often did not warrant more senior roles. Secondly, communities were often run by ‘lone wolf’ community professionals who did not directly manage a team, but were responsible for everything from strategy to moderation. Community manager seems to have been the best catchall title to give to someone without direct reports, but who had a breadth of responsibility.

The community space has come a long way, but the Community Manager role has a wide variation in responsibilities, compensation and reporting levels. Community managers are often expected to do a bit of everything, and while the role is evolving it still requires generalists who handle a diverse set of responsibilities.

Community Managers in the Organization

Our research has shown that community managers work predominantly for corporations vs. agencies or as independents — suggesting that organizations are seeing the value in investing in community management for the long haul. Community managers often work with communities scattered around the globe, giving them the opportunity to work remotely — a benefit that accrues to both internal and external community managers.

Community managers typically report to someone at the director level, with only about a third reporting to a vice president or higher. Despite the manager title, most community managers don’t manage anyone. Our research shows that only about a third have direct reports, either employees or volunteers.

Skills and Training Needs

Community managers’ top five most valued skills get to the heart of the tactical day-to-day monitoring and management of communities. Their most desired areas for training suggest an interest in digging deeper to drive engagement and understand what specific elements lead to community success. These training needs also suggest an opportunity for community professionals to develop into community specialists such as Community Architects, Community Analysts and Community Strategists.

Performance Evaluation

While community metrics are part of the evaluation of a community manager’s performance, the voice of the community is rarely part of the process. Just 5% of community managers say a review from the community is part of their performance evaluation — versus 91% who say they receive a manager assessment and 72% who submit a self-assessment.

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Interested in more about the community manager role?

Download the Community Careers and Compensation report for free. 

Community Jobs Round-up – 04/14/17

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Every week we share a list of new community management and social media jobs – usually everything from community coordinators all the way up to director level positions (depends on what we can find each week).

This week as a special bonus posting we’re featuring an open role with TheCR team – a part-time Sales and Marketing Coordinator. Working with TheCR is great (I might be biased…) as we are flexible, fun and hard-working. If you happen to love community management that is certainly a bonus! Check out the open role here.

Know of a great community opening that we’ve missed? Let us know and we’ll add it to the list!

Best practices for getting a community management job

  1. How Do I Find a Community Manager Job? – Community management is a profession of relationships – use your network to discover your next role. Most community jobs are not currently found through traditional job listings.
  2. 50 Skills of Community Management – The Community Skills Framework represents the five skill families and top 50 skills that are required to build a successful community program.
  • How To Win That Community Manager Job – As organizations begin to increasingly recognize and reward the value of good community management the market for jobs has begun to heat up. While at any given moment there are literally dozens of interesting community jobs open around the country (and truly, the world) the competition for these roles is getting stiffer. How can you set yourself apart?

Friday Community Jobs Round-Up – 02/24/17

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job boardEach Friday we compile a comprehensive list of the latest jobs across community management. Be sure to check back in each week to see the latest listings.

Know of a great community opening that we’ve missed? Let us know and we’ll add it to the list!

 

  1. Employee Communications Content and Social Community Manager – Amex – NY
  2. Community Manager – Blackbaud – Charleston, SC; Austin, Texas
  3. Social Media Community Manager – Our Better World – Singapore
  4. Community Manager – Lucid Software – South Jordan, UT
  7. Digital Marketing Manager  – CoreDial, LLC – Blue Bell, PA
  8. Online Community Manager – InCrowd, Inc. – Boston, MA
  9. Social Media Community Manager – Idea Booth – Chicago, IL
  10. Social Media Community Manager – Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams – Taylorsville, NC
  11. Social Media Community Manager – CITIZENS BANK – 1,220 reviews – Dedham, MA
  12. Social Media Community Manager – JeffreyM Consulting – Chicago, IL
  13. Community Manager, Making Strides Against Breast Cancer – Fo…AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY –  Fort Lauderdale, FL
  14. Social and Content Marketing Manager, Salesforce Commerce Cl…–  Burlington, MA
  15. Community Relations Manager – Absolute Care Management Corporation – Paragould, AR
  16. Community Manager – Sense – Cambridge, MA
  17. Community Relations Manager – RainTree Senior Living – Syracuse, UT
  18. Community Manager, Clark Howard – Cox Media Group – Atlanta, GA
  19. Global Stakeholder Engagement Director Global Community – Nike – United States
  20. Director, Community Management – Health Union – Philadelphia, PA

 

Best practices for getting a community management job

  • How Do I Find a Community Manager Job? – Community management is a profession of relationships – use your network to discover your next role. Most community jobs are not currently found through traditional job listings.
  • 50 Skills of Community Management – The Community Skills Framework represents the five skill families and top 50 skills that are required to build a successful community program.
  • How To Win That Community Manager Job – As organizations begin to increasingly recognize and reward the value of good community management the market for jobs has begun to heat up. While at any given moment there are literally dozens of interesting community jobs open around the country (and truly, the world) the competition for these roles is getting stiffer. How can you set yourself apart?

CMGRs are Entry-Level? Not Anymore.

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By Shannon Abram, The Community Roundtable.

With the SOCM 2016 survey fully launched we have just one CCC fun fact left for you – and it’s probably something you’ve known for a while. CCC Fun Fact #8: Community management isn’t “entry-level” – the average community manager has more than 12 years of work experience including nearly five in community roles alone. 

I bet you’re reading this, shaking your head. Of course great community management takes experience, but so often we see community jobs advertised as “entry-level” for laughably little money. The 2014 Community Manager Salary Survey demonstrated clearly that community managers are hardly entry-level employees in their skills or their experience, and this year’s CCC research confirms that. The average community manager has more than a decade of work experience, with much of that in community management. Most of the community managers in this year’s survey aren’t in their first job — but they may be in a new one. Half of the respondents have held their current job for less than 2 years.

CCC Fun Fact #8

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you’re looking to level up your community career the Community Skills Framework is a great place to start. SOCM2016_GetStarted_BadgeYou can identify your strengths and find growth opportunities that will help you advance your career – and maybe even get a raise!

Download the Community Careers and Compensation 2015 summary report now, or take the survey and get free access to the full report! 

If you love research like the CCC we’d love your help with our current research initiative – The State of Community Management. Take the survey now and you’ll get free access to the full report in May! 

Infographic: Social Media Etiquette for Business

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By Shannon Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable

Earlier this week we shared three best practices for budgeting community and social media programs that were culled from some interesting discussions between members inside TheCR Network (missed it? check out the post & best practices here.) 2015 might feel far away (and I don’t want to wish away my favorite season of falling leaves and pumpkin spice lattes!) but it’s really never too early to think defining goals for the upcoming year, determining your community and social media priorities and beginning to assign resources to help you achieve them.

For today’s Infographic Thursday I wanted to share a fun graphic that outlines the basics of social media etiquette that is relevant for both community managers and social media managers. This is a great primer if you’re looking to start incorporating basic social media channels into your community programs. Do you already use social media platforms like facebook, twitter or pinterest as part of a larger community initiative? Which platforms best help you connect more closely with your members? We’d love to hear your social media success stories!

social media Etiquette

This infographic was created by TollFreeForwarding.com.

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Need to increase executive engagement in your community, but not sure where to start? The Social Executive Toolkit is designed to help social and community teams understand executive adoption so that they can effectively coach executives. This Toolkit provides case studies, templates, worksheets and actionable insights to help you increase executive engagement! Get started today!

Infographic Thursday: Seven Criteria for Hiring Community Managers

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By Shannon DiGregorio Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.

We’ve already talked about the traits to look for when hiring a community manager this week – so you can imagine our delight when we saw this awesome infographic from our friends at DNN titled “Seven Criteria for Hiring Online Community Managers.” In addition to the top seven traits they suggest you look for when hiring for a community manager the accompanying post includes a great list of potential interview questions for community roles . Their top interview questions for community managers include:

Q1: Describe your most stressful moment as a community manager, along with your solution for reducing the stress.

Q2: How do you know what’s happening in your community and what do you do with that information?

Q3: Do you interact with some community members differently than others – and if so, how?

There are four more great interview questions in the original post over on the DNN blog. Check it out and let us know what your favorite interview question is for community manager roles – we might even feature it in a new post!

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Have you taken the Community Manager Salary Survey 2014 yet? Your insights into your role are invaluable as we document and define community manager best practices across industries. The survey is short (15 minutes) and we’d love to hear from you. Take the survey now.

 

What is the most important trait when hiring a community manager?

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By Shannon DiGregorio Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.

To celebrate the launch of our first ever community manager salary survey we’re going to spend July and August focused on community management as a career. Whether you are just getting starting in the community management field or have been actively practicing community management for years we have something for you.

CMGR Job Roles - SOCM 2014

Recently we’ve been thinking more about what it takes to be a great community manager. Certainly you have to love people – but what else makes or breaks a successful community professional? In the SOCM 2014 we highlighted the many (MANY) roles and responsibilities that a typical community manger is tasked with.  With everything from creating content and monitoring community activity to managing and recommending technology there is a wide array of skills that a community manager needs to have, but is there one special trait that a hiring manager looks for when filling a community role?

I threw the question out to TheCR team, TheCR Network and to our Twitter friends and wanted to share their responses with you.

First I asked the other members of TheCR team to weigh in. We’re a small but diverse group, some are currently community managers, or were in a past life. Other have participated in the hiring of community professionals. Here’s what they had to say:

Jillian Bejtlich: The ability to communicate in a variety of scenarios and tones. The same person needs to have the ability to be awesome, humorous, authoritative, potentially harsh, and empathetic.

Maggie Tunning: I have a few in mind but going to go with empathy – to be able to understand, respond to, delight, etc members. Not sure if  it always plays out this way, but empathy may also help them be adaptable/flexible.

Rachel Happe: Diplomacy (and the even temper that goes with it). If you over-react, under-react or get into fights it’s just going to be a disaster.

Next, I opened up the question to TheCR Network. Two long-term community professionals weighed in with different, but excellent responses. The first shared this list of skills – it’s hard to narrow it down to just one!

  • Teaching , especially online
  • Writing or general communication
  • Business strategist — big picture
  • Event organization
  • Collaborative
  • Creative
  • Inclusive
  • People-oriented
  • Ability to manage up and down the organization

And the second provided this great insight:

“As I am developing various skills the one I find hardest to share with others as the roles grow and expand is finding the voice we want to present to our community. So finding that ability in someone to be the voice or continue as the voice would be an asset.”

Finally, I asked our Twitter friends and received many awesome responses. Here are some of my favorites:

Hiring Advice #1Screen shot 2014-06-27 at 10.25.36 AM

Screen shot 2014-06-30 at 1.58.14 PM Screen shot 2014-06-30 at 1.58.45 PM Screen shot 2014-06-30 at 1.58.59 PM Hiring Advice #5 Hiring Advice #2 Hiring Advice #3 Hiring Advice #4

Do you hire community managers? Is there a special skill or trait that we missed? Are you a community manager and want to weigh in? We’d love to hear from you!

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