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Community Management Career Profiles from The Community Manager Salary Survey

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By Shannon Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.


Two weeks ago we released our latest infographic “Community Management Career Profiles” sponsored by Jive Software. This is the first research released from the Community Manager Salary Survey 2014. Subtitled “The Career Path Of The Community Professional – Insights From The Community Roundtable’s Community Manager Salary Survey 2014” the infographic provides some great stats for community professionals, hiring managers and the community industry as a whole.

Without further ado, here are the initial findings from the Community Manager Salary Survey 2014.  You can view the full infographic here.

THE ROLE, COMPENSATION AND CAREER PATH OF THE COMMUNITY PROFESSIONAL.

For the purposes of the Community Manager Salary Survey 2014 infographic we focused on three of the most common community titles:

  • Community Manager
  • Community Strategist
  • Director of Community

View the Community Manager Salary Survey 2014 infographic here.

AVERAGE SALARY

Key finding: Research from the Community Manager Salary Survey 2014 showed that community professionals who work with internal employee facing communities earn more than their externally facing peers.

  • Community Manager
    • Internal Community Manager Average Salary:$69,887
    • External Community Manager Average Salary: $74,939
  • Community Strategist
    • Internal Community Strategist Average Salary: $85,075
    • External Community Strategist Average Salary: $90,400
  • Director of Community
    • Internal Director of Community Average Salary: $106,356
    • External Director of Community Average Salary: $113,263

YEARS OF EXPERIENCE

Key Finding: In the Community Manager Salary Survey 2014 we found that directors of community who work with external market facing communities have the most community management experience and the average level of work experience was over 10 years, countering the assumption that community managers are typically younger employees.

Percent of total work experience in community management:

  • Community Manager –
    • Internal Community Manager: 39%
    • External Community Manager: 30%
  • Community Strategist
    • Internal Community Strategist: 48%
    • External Community Strategist: 29%
  • Director of Community
    • Internal Director of Community: 45%
    • External Director of Community: 44%

Average years of community management experience:

  • Community Manager –
    • Internal Community Manager: 4.2 years
    • External Community Manager: 4.7 years
  • Community Strategist
    • Internal Community Strategist: 6.9 years
    • External Community Strategist:5 years
  • Director of Community
    • Internal Director of Community: 7.4 years
    • External Director of Community: 7.1 years

Average years of work experience:

  • Community Manager –
    • Internal Community Manager: 10.8 years
    • External Community Manager: 10.6 years
  • Community Strategist
    • Internal Community Strategist: 14.3 years
    • External Community Strategist: 14.3 years
  • Director of Community
    • Internal Director of Community: 16.4 years
    • External Director of Community: 16.2 years

TOP THREE PRIORITIES FOR COMMUNITY PROFESSIONALS

Key finding: Data in the Community Manager Salary Survey 2014 clearly showed that business and strategic skills become more important in senior community roles.

Top Three Priorities For Community Managers

  • Monitoring activity and listening
  • Communication and editorial
  • Curating and sharing content

Top Three Priorities For Community Strategists

  • Monitoring activity and listening
  • Developing the community strategy
  • Measuring and reporting community performance

Top Three Priorities For Directors of Community

  • Developing the community strategy
  • Developing community policies and guidelines
  • Advocating for the community

COMMUNITY PROFESSIONALS WORKING REMOTELY

Key finding: working remotely does not hinder career progression for community professionals

  • 24% of community managers reported working remotely most of the time
  • 24% of community strategists reported working remotely most of the time
  • 41% of directors of community reported working remotely most of the time

Key finding: directors of community are 71% more likely to work remotely than managers and strategists, suggesting individuals with those skills are scarce and can negotiate for more flexibility.

WORK ENVIRONMENTS FOR COMMUNITY PROFESSIONALS

Key finding: through the Community Manager Salary Survey 2014 we found that community strategists are three times more likely to work for agencies than community managers.

  • 80% of community managers work in corporate environments.
  • 6% of community managers are freelancers.
  • 8% of community managers work at agencies.
  • 6% of community managers work in a different environment.
  • 62% of community strategists work in corporate environments.
  • 24% of community strategists work at agencies.
  • 11% of community strategists are freelancers.
  • 3% of community strategists work in a different environment.
  • 79% of directors of community work in corporate environments.
  • 5% of directors of community work at agencies.
  • 7% of directors of community are freelancers.
  • 9% of directors of community work in a different environment.

COMMUNITY PROFESSIONAL: AN EMERGENT CAREER PATH

Although Community Manager is the most common job title among professionals surveyed, other roles are emerging.

Among the survey sample of the Community Manager Salary Survey 2014:

  • 55% had the title “Community Manager”
  • 13% had the title “Community Strategist”
  • 17% had the title “Director of Community”
  • 13% had the title “Community Specialist”
  • 7% reported they had another title

Key finding: 36% of professionals surveyed in the Community Manager Salary Survey 2014 reported being promoted within community management.

LOOKING FOR A PROMOTION? WORK ON YOUR SKILLS.

In the Community Manager Salary Survey 2014 we found that advanced community professionals, including community strategists and directors of community are more likely to have these key skills:

  • Program management
  • Building a community roadmap
  • Developing executive support and coaching executives
  • Creating, purchasing or delivering training
  • Hiring and managing community team members, contractors, agencies
  • Internal consulting

LOOKING FOR A COMMUNITY JOB? GET CREATIVE ABOUT FINDING YOUR NEXT ROLE!

Through the Community Manager Salary Survey 2014 we found that the majority of community roles are not sourced through formal HR processes. In fact:

  • 39% of community professionals were approached by or introduced to the hiring manager/team
  • Only 27% of community professionals found their role through an external job posting
  • 20% of community professionals defined their own new role

View the infographic and find more community career resources at communityroundtable.com/cmss14

Brought to you by Jive Software.

Friday Roundup: Salary Data in the Desert

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By Shannon Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable

Screen shot 2014-10-21 at 8.49.33 AMIn case you missed it (and therefore the title of this post makes no sense to you- yet!) we released the first data from the Community Manager Salary Survey this week, an infographic in conjunction with Jive Software, at JiveWorld14 in Las Vegas. You can check out the announcement here, or pop on over to the CMSS 2014 research page to download the full infographic – titled Careers in Community Management – and sign up to hear when the full research report is published in November.

As for JiveWorld itself, Rachel, Jim and Hillary are still decompressing, but it was a week of catching up with friends old and new, and putting human faces together with online connections. Rachel also had the opportunity to present on community benchmarking – a Storify of her talk is here and if you’re curious to learn more, head over to our Community Benchmark Service page or just reach out!

This week we introduced our first TheCR Champion, Maddie Grant, and took a look at how you can apply what you learned at a typical middle school dance to community management. I hope you had a great week – we’ll see you back here on Monday!

Our favorite news and links from around the web:

Exploring Engagement: The Dance Floor Theory – Since last week’s #ESNchat was focused on driving engagement in enterprise social networks I thought it would be fun to share some excerpts from a popular Roundtable call inside TheCR Network. We were lucky enough to host Kevin Prentiss, the CEO of Red Rover, as he gave an overview of his Dance Floor Theory and how it related to community management.

Why You Should Always Say “Hello” In The Elevator – I recently traveled to Europe to visit a few of our offices abroad and launch a new, exciting youth employment initiative for 2015. It was a phenomenal trip with a stellar agenda. But one of my favorite and most impactful experiences from the trip was completely unplanned–a result of what has become my new motto: Always say “hello” in the elevator.

Introducing the CMSS 2014 Infographic – If you’ve been reading our blog for the last year you know we love a good infographic, which makes todays post extra exciting. We are thrilled to share the first data from our newest research platform Community Manager Salary Survey 2014 via this new CMSS 2014 infographic: Careers in Community Management.

Why Haters Hate: Kierkegaard Explains the Psychology of Bullying and Online Trolling in 1847 – Celebrated as the first true existentialist philosopher, Danish writer and thinker Søren Kierkegaard (May 5, 1813–November 11, 1855) may have only lived a short life, but it was a deep one and its impact radiated widely outward, far across the centuries and disciplines and schools of thought.

Introducing TheCR Champions: Maddie Grant – This month we announced a new leadership program — TheCR Champions – for TheCR Network. Today I want to introduce you to one of our new Champions! Maddie Grant is a long time friend of TheCR and has facilitated Roundtable calls as a guest TheCR Expert a number of times over the past few years. We are thrilled to have her facilitating a working group and helping us to deepen our engagement, content and programming. Lucky us!

New community and social media jobs: 

  1.  Technical Community Manager –DigitalOcean – Ailey, GA
  2. Community Manager I – Carr Workplaces – Atlanta, GA
  3. Social Media Community Manager – HomeExchange.com – Los Angeles, CA
  4. Community Manager – RockYou – San Francisco, CA
  5. Community Manager – U.S. – Brainly – New York, NY
  6. Marketing Associate and Social Media Manager – AP Intego Insurance Group LLC – Sudbury, MA
  7. SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER – Sports Endeavors – North Carolina
  8. Social Media Manager – Vibram USA – Concord, MA
  9. Social Media Manager – Aqua Hotels & Resorts – O‘ahu, HI
  10. Social Media Manager – Capgemini  – Chicago, IL
  11. Manager, Content Marketing and Social Media – K12 – Herndon, VA
  12. Community Manager / Gestionnaire de communauté – Gameloft – Montréal, QC
  13. Marketing Manager – Stantec – Red Deer, AB
  14. Manager, Community Engagement – Good Shepherd Ministries – Toronto, ON
  15. Communications Manager – Communications and Education – Genome British Columbia – Vancouver, BC
  16. Social Media Coordinator – Events and Me – Burnaby, BC
  17. Director of Marketing and Sales – Waskesiu & Area Wilderness Region (WWR) – Prince Albert, SK
  18. Social Media Coordinator –Nanotips – Richmond, BC
  19. Marketing and Social Media Coordinator – Rev Publishing Inc. – Niagara Falls, ON
  20. Social Media Manager – DEEP Inc. – Toronto, ON

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Looking to further your career as a community professional? See how membership in TheCR Network gives you access to exclusive content, community experts and research to help you take the next step.

Introducing the Community Manager Salary Survey 2014 Infographic

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By Shannon Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.Jive Webinar: Deep Dive on The Community Manager Role

If you’ve been reading our blog for the last year you know we love a good infographic, which makestoday’s post extra exciting. We are thrilled to share the first data from our newest research platform, the Community Manager Salary Survey 2014, via this new CMSS 2014 infographic: Careers in Community Management.

We surveyed more than 350 internal and external community managers, strategists and directors for this first-ever survey, asking them to share information including their salary, their expertise and responsibilities, their experience, and their career path. The infographic was released Wednesday night during JiveWorld14. (Jive Software is sponsoring the infographic and upcoming publication of the survey data.)

The infographic represents the first research results from the Community Manager Salary Survey 2014. It highlights the salary range for internal and external community professionals, and illustrates the demonstrable career path for those who want to use their skills and experience in more strategic roles. Rachel shared her perspective earlier today:

“The new research highlights a number of what were unproven truths in the community space and adds new insights. It makes clear that community management as a discipline has matured to the point where not only are there great, well-paying jobs to be had, but there is also a clear career path for career professionals.”

You can head over to the official CMSS 2014 Infographic page to download the entire high-res infographic and sign up to be notified when the full Community Manager Salary Survey is released later this year.

Careers in Community Management

Careers in Community Management

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Free Jive Webinar

Join The Community Roundtable and Jive as we dig into the community manager role.

Deep Dive into the Community Manager RoleEvent Date: Tuesday, November 18thEvent Time: 10am PT/1pm ET

The Community Manager Salary Salary research aims to bring more awareness to what community managers can expect in their career and what hiring managers should know to grow effective community programs. This new research from The Community Roundtable takes a comprehensive look at community manager roles.

Learn more >>

 Register Now

Friday Roundup – Last Chance to Contribute

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By Shannon Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.

I might sound like a broken record – but this is my last Friday to remind you that our Community Manager Salary Survey closes next week. The response from the community has been fantastic – but as always, the more responses we receive the more complete and comprehensive the final research report will be. If you haven’t contributed your insights please take ten minutes now to do so. If you have had a chance to contribute – Thank you! Please consider sending the survey to one or two friends or colleagues that can also contribute their input. Remember – the raw data is confidential so you can share with confidence!

Take the Survey

3 Tips for Building Your Community and Social Media Team – This is a guest post from Sarah Price, Community and Social Media Programs Lead for Google Glass and member of TheCR Network. Managing a community team or hoping to someday? Your community managers, forum reps and social support agents will be the face and voice of your brand. Here are a few tips for building a strong team you can trust.

Working out loud at Deutsche Bank – Deutsche Bank , the German global investment bank, employs nearly 100,000 staff across more than 70 countries. Through its Jive-based platform staff are learning a new habit: ‘working out loud’.

How our new CEO leads before he has even started – I’m pretty excited about our new CEO Mads Nipper! It could seem like a paradox, since I haven’t met the man, and he will not even start until August 1.st. But I actually feel I know him enough to be not only excited – but also confident – in him, and that he can make a positive difference for Grundfos.

The Best Community Managers Have These 5 Traits – Do you have an unfaltering attention to detail? Stellar sense of humour? Penchant for puns? In the newest entry in our mini-series on community management, we tackle the traits a community manager needs to have in order to get a handle on the brand, the community, the product and the newest trends.

Nerd Note: How Zombies Make Your Writing Active – I’ve written here before about the importance of writing in active voice. Simply, active voice makes your writing strong and more concise. This typically means writing in subject, verb, object format. I loved this little quip, originally introduced to me by a former editor-in-chief. If you can add “by zombies” to the end of a sentence, you are writing in passive voice.

Tips & Tricks for Building a Community Management Reporting Dashboard – Creating dashboards that your management team will actually review is a tricky task. I spent the last year of my community management career heavily focusing on reporting and community objectives, and thought I’d share what I learned with the broader community tribe.

Brand Anonymity is Dead: Meet Community Manager 2.0 – A few years ago, I wrote a piece about the future of marketing. Within the post, I made a few predictions: 1. We would see people begin to reach a point of marketing max saturation; leading consumers to become more selective about which brands they engage with.

The Evolution of Community Management: Preliminary Data from the CMSS 2014 – Online community management is far from new – it’s been around since the beginning of the Internet, and in more formal capacities at media companies since the 90s. Our aggregate understanding of the role, however, is still evolving. What we know from our work over the last five years with clients is that the role varies pretty dramatically based on the strategic importance of the community, experience and responsibility level of the community manager, community use case and the maturity of the community program

New Community Manager and Social Media Jobs

  1. Full Time Marketing Manager – Digital Brand Expressions – Plainsboro, NJ
  2. Community Manager (Contract) – DocuSign – Seattle, WA
  3. Brazilian Community Manager (Remote Possible) – Red 5 Studios – Orange County, CA
  4. Content Marketing Manager – Guidepoint Global – New York, NY
  5. Community Manager – FirstService Residential – Lyndhurst, NJ
  6. Community Manager – Transformers Universe – Jagex Games Studio – California
  7. Social Media Community Manager – TechnologyAdvice – Brentwood, TN
  8. Community Manager – MassMutual Financial Group – Boston, MA
  9. Customer Community Manager – Agilent – San Jose, CA
  10. Community Manager – TimeWarner Corporate – Burbank, CA
  11. Community Manager – Turner Broadcasting 108 reviews – Burbank, CA
  12. Community Manager – University of Minnesota – Minneapolis-Saint Paul, MN
  13. Community Manager: Mobile – Electronic Arts – Austin, TX
  14. Community Manager – HBO – Burbank, CA
  15. Community Manager – K. Hovnanian Companies – Milpitas, CA
  16. Community Manager – Warner Bros. Entertainment Group – Burbank, CA
  17. Community Manager – The CW Network – Burbank, CA
  18. Part-Time Digital & Social Media Specialist – Francis Tuttle Technology Center – Oklahoma City, OK
  19. STEPS Marketing and Communications Coordinator – University of Kentucky – Lexington, KY
  20. SEC Marketing Coordinator – ESPN – Charlotte, NC
  21. Social Media Coordinator – Velcro USA Inc. – Boston, MA

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Looking to take your career in community management to the next level? 92% of members agree that TheCR Network supports and advances their personal and professional goals. Learn how our research, access to peers and experts, targeted content and exclusive concierge service can help you achieve your goals.

The Evolution of Community Management: Preliminary Data from the CMSS 2014

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By Rachel Happe, Co-Founder and Principal at The Community Roundtable.

CMSS Data 2014

Online community management is far from new – it’s been around since the beginning of the Internet, and in more formal capacities at media companies since the 90s. Our aggregate understanding of the role, however, is still evolving. What we know from our work over the last five years with clients is that the role varies pretty dramatically based on the strategic importance of the community, experience and responsibility level of the community manager, community use case and the maturity of the community program.

The Community Roundtable, has invested in a new research platform – our Community Manager Salary Survey – to look at community manager profiles across these variables in order to develop a skill, responsibility and compensation matrix. This data will help both community professionals and hiring community managers evaluate and assess the worth of different roles within community management.

Some preliminary findings that were interesting to me:

  • Of those respondents with ‘community’ in their title, 69% were Community Managers, 18% were Community Strategists and 13% were Directors of Community. We had no VPs of Community complete the survey (if you are one,please consider participating in the research).
  • Data on how community professionals are hired suggests HR is still absent in recruiting. 22% of community professionals defined their own role before moving into it and 27% were found by hiring managers directly.
  • External (customer and market-facing) community professionals still dominate. 63% of responses were from external community managers, 24% was from internal community managers and 13% worked in other types of community managers.
  • Almost half of all community professionals in the survey have been in their role for one year or less.
  • 37% of community professionals have been promoted – encouraging confirmation that there is a career path within the field of community management.
  • 52% are evaluated by their ability to deliver business outcomes suggesting that organizations are figuring out how to value communities and community management.

While this preliminary data is great, we want to make sure we are capturing the entire range of community management roles and experiences. We are still looking for participation, particularly if you fit into any of the following categories:

  • You own or manage an employee facing community
  • You manage a community but it’s not your sole responsibility or title (i.e. you are a Director of Marketing that owns a community)
  • You are a senior or experienced community professional
  • You work in a traditional industry like manufacturing, energy, financial services, health care and professional services

We are closing the survey soon – please consider contributing today. It takes approximately 10-15 minutes.

By participating, you will help us develop the most robust and accurate information we can so you have the data you need to prove your worth or align your hiring and job descriptions with industry realities.

We take your privacy very seriously and the only individuals who have access to raw data are two members of TheCR team. We do not share any raw (individual) data points with the rest of TheCR team, partners or clients.

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Looking to take your career in community management to the next level? 92% of members agree that TheCR Network supports and advances their personal and professional goals. Learn how our research, access to peers and experts, targeted content and exclusive concierge service can help you achieve your goals. 

 

Friday Roundup: Calling All Community Professionals!

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

vermont

The first week in August is already over! Are you plotting all your last minute summer fun? Or maybe you’ve already hit the back-to-school rush? Full disclosure – I’m posting this from a mini vacation. As you read this I’m on the road to beautiful, green Vermont!

We are still looking for community professionals to take part in our Community Manager Salary Survey. If you haven’t had a chance to complete the survey, please do! It’s for more than just community managers (although we’re looking for those too, especially internal community managers!) and every response helps us better document the reality of the community manager role today.

If you know any community professionals please share the survey with them: https://www.tinyurl.com/CMSS2014

Six Principles to Win Friends and Influence People on Social Media – Dale Carnegie’s international best-selling book, “How To Win Friends and Influence People” was first published in 1937. I first read this treasure about 25 years ago and to this very day I still refer to it often.

Community Manager Salary Survey Sneak Preview – Part One – We’re collecting Community Manager Salary Survey responses until the end of the month, and we’re excited about the results we’ve already received. We can’t help but start looking into the data and wanted to share some early findings with you here:

5 Ways To Get Management Behind Social Business – Despite what you may think about it, social media has become one the most influential, fastest growing and most ubiquitous forms of communications in decades. It can create and diminish world leaders in 150 characters, unite people around the world to humanitarian causes with just a few clicks, and it can help companies accomplish large-scale business objectives.

Tapping Into Employee Advocacy – Including employees in your social strategy improves your reach and gives you an edge.

Interview: Learn the Secrets of Online Community Management from Moz’s Erica McGillivray – Today I’m happy to share an interview I did over email with Erica McGillivray. Erica is a die-hard geek who spends a ridiculous amount of time being nerdy (her words, not mine!), both professionally and personally. At Moz, she’s the senior community manager and helps wrangle a community of over 400,000 members, co-runs the annual MozCon conference, and works on whatever else is thrown her way.

Infographic: Social Business Driving Positive Outcomes – The findings from our July 2014 global study on social business indicated that “social business maturity” is related to the level of results that companies achieve. A new infographic illustrates how social business creates value, and outlines the primary drivers for companies seeking to advance toward social business maturity.

6 Huge Benefits of Listening to Your Community – It often takes an outsider’s perspective to learn about new opportunities, whether they take the form of flaws, bugs, or unique use cases. The most valuable opportunities often come from customers themselves — the people who are hands on with your product every day.

How this one simple chart made me happier in 6 weeks – I’d been actively trying to be happier for the better part of a decade – researching, experimenting, wanting. Yet it’s only recently that I found something that worked, something that’s simple, effective, and free. Now I want to tell everyone about it. Here’s the story of my personal Happiness Project.

New Community Manager and Social Media Jobs:

  1. Sr Social Media Strategist/Community Manager – Creative Circle – Detroit, MI
  2. Lead Community Manager (Engagement Manager) -Starpoint Solutions – New York, NY
  3. Social Community Manager – PULP – Ferndale, MI
  4. Community and Social Media Manager – cLink- Toronto, ON
  5. Community Manager – Bridj – Boston, MA
  6. Community Manager – NoshList – San Francisco, CA
  7. THINK Community Manager – IBM – United States
  8. Communications Manager (Digital & Social Media) – Aga Khan Museum – Canada
  9. Community Manager – Nexon America – El Segundo, CA
  10. Community Manager – Draftfcb – Chicago, IL
  11. Community Manager – SIR Corp – Greater Toronto Area, ON
  12. External Communications and Media Relations Specialist – Union Gas Limited – Chatham-Kent, ON
  13. Social Media/Community Manager – IGG – Fremont, CA
  14. Community Manager – Ivy – San Francisco, CA
  15. Junior Social Media Manager (Internship) (Montreal, Quebec) – Groupe Hashtag Média – Montréal, QC
  16. Junior Community Manager – Fashion Industry Opportunity – ICED Media – New York, NY
  17. Social & Community Manager – Conductor, Inc – New York, NY
  18. Digital Community Manager – Petrol Advertising – Burbank, CA
  19. Community Manager– go2gether – Vancouver, BC
  20. Community& Social Media Manager– PumpUp Inc. – Toronto, ON
  21. Community Manager – Boost Agents Inc. – Toronto, ON
  22. Community Manager – Geocaching – Seattle, WA 98103 (Green Lake – Wallingford area)
  23. Community Manager – E-Line Media – Seattle, WA
  24. Community Manager – heartYN (Love Your Neighbor) – Malibu, CA
  25. Socia Media Manager– OX Agency- Toronto, ON
  26. Community Manager – NCsoft Corporation – Orange County, CA
  27. Community Manager – IPG Mediabrands – Birmingham, MI
  28. Marketing & CommunityManager– Invoke Labs- Vancouver, BC

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Looking to take your career in community management to the next level? 92% of members agree that TheCR Network supports and advances their personal and professional goals. Learn how our research, access to peers and experts, targeted content and exclusive concierge service can help you achieve your goals.

Friday Roundup – News for Community Managers

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

Welcome to August! This summer is flying by and we are hard at work on some exciting community management programs for the Fall – most notably the first Community Manager Salary Report, slated for a Fall 2014 release! The research is currently open and we’d love to here from you. The survey is short (about 15 minutes) and we are looking for community professionals representing all community job titles and types of communities.

There were so many great articles this week – enjoy this news roundup:

9 Problems Keeping Your Online Community from Being Great – I’m not one for lengthy introductions, the title of the post brought you here, so let’s dive in. Below are the aforementioned 5 problems, and I’ve attempted to provide a solution to help you remedy the problems. Would love to hear more from you in the comments or on Twitter.

The New Visionaries: Richard Martin on the Peloton – Richard Martin wrote a series of posts in which he characterized people working together productively as being like the bicycle racing phenomenon of the peloton: the main group of riders that conserve energy by riding close together. The final in his series — Peloton formations distilled — has links to the other, earlier posts.

It’s complicated: Why we need a new etiquette for handling what’s private and what’s public – It’s tempting to see private vs. public as something binary or black and white, but there is a whole universe of human behavior expressed through services like Twitter and Facebook that falls somewhere between those two extremes, and we need to figure out how to handle it properly.

Sharing isn’t caring: stop being fooled by collaborative consumption – Labeling companies such as AirBnB, Uber and TaskRabbit as “the sharing economy” is one of the finest and most deceptive bits of branding of the past few years.

TheCR Network Sneak Peek: July 2014 Wrap Up – Summer is just flying by inside TheCR Network. I exercised some work-life balance and took a fully unplugged vacation this month thanks to my supportive team who held down the fort while I was out of the office. And while we decrease the number of virtual live events we host due to vacation season the network has been quite busy in the forums. Here are a few samples of discussions, collaboration, and knowledge sharing that occurred inside TheCR Network this month.

The Innovation Turbo-Charge: How To Train The Brain To Be More Creative – The data is overwhelming: creativity is far and away the most important skill needed to “thrive” (and this word is being used in opposition to “survive” here) in today’s world.

5 Ways That Systems of Engagement Bring Out Our Full Social Selves – Technology has a way of sucking the humanity right out of us. Consider how we describe, design and deploy ‘enterprise 2.0′ and work system technologies in our organizations: When we talk about technology systems, we talk about machines, platforms, inputs and outputs. We forget about values, emotion, flourishing, meaning and purpose.

A Day In The Life Of A B2B Community Manager – Somewhere, in the stillness of the night, an online community manager rolls over in bed, reaches for his iPad, and checks to see if anyone in his online community needs help, if there are messages that need attention and to make sure the site is running fine.

Bringing Community Management to the Boardroom – Community management has been around for at least 20 years – ever since the first AOL chat rooms and newspaper forum message boards made their debut in the 1990s. Fan sites and gaming rooms were also early incarnations of online communities. Back then the community manager moderated posts by the thousands on a daily basis.

 New Community and Social Media Jobs: 

  1. Social Media Manager for 3 month contract job! – The Creative Group 2,120 reviews – Norcross, GA 30092
  2. Business Systems Lead – Community Manager – Firmenich – Princeton, NJ
  3. Communications Specialist – Federal Aviation Administration – Washington, DC
  4. Community Manager – SIR Corp – Greater Toronto Area, ON
  5. Stakeholder & Community Relations Advisor – Progress Energy – Calgary, AB
  6. Senior Social Collaboration Analyst – Aon – Chicago, IL
  7. Knowledge Manager – KCM Solutions – San Bruno, CA
  8. Junior Social Media Manager (Internship) (Montreal, Quebec) – Groupe Hashtag Média – Montréal, QC
  9. Selections Editor & Community Manager / New York – Bookspan – New York, NY
  10. Community Manager – go2gether – Vancouver, BC
  11. Customer Care Online Community Manager – Aquent Staffing – San Francisco, CA
  12. Customer Support & Community Manager – DODOcase – San Francisco, CA
  13. Community Manager – Online – 125th Street Business Improvement District – New York, NY
  14. Senior Manager, Organized Play Promotions – Wizards Of The Coast – Renton, WA
  15. Senior Manager, Organized Play Promotions Job – Hasbro – Renton, WA
  16. Community & Social Media Manager – PumpUp Inc. – Toronto, ON

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Community Managers – Declare Your Value!

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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Friday Roundup: Survey’s Open!

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

This week we were excited to launch our newest research initiative – the Community Manager Salary Survey! The name is a wee bit specific – we are looking to report on the (many) various community manager roles that exist – and define and categorize based on responsibilities and compensation by experience level, size of company, functional goals of the community, geography and more. This annual research will:

  • Justify investment in community management staff
  • Document the responsibilities of community mangers, by seniority and context (functional use case, company size, geography, experience)
  • Create a skill framework that can be used to hire, assess, demonstrate or grow skill sets
  • Understand what community managers are worth financially, by context, and how compensation is structured

If you or someone you know performs community management activities – regardless of their title – please take a minute to share your insights. This might include VPs of Community, Marketing Managers, Social Business Strategists, Directors of Social media – or many titles we haven’t even heard yet!

Of course, we didn’t forget the links and the new community jobs this week!

SOCM 2014 Community Fact #04 – Do I Need a Community Strategy? – You’ve heard that practice makes perfect, but what about planning? In our State of Community Management 2014 research we found that the foundation of a successful community really is the presence of a well-defined strategy- one that integrates social tools and methods with business goals and processes. A good community strategy also aligns an organization’s goals with member needs setting you up to succeed in both keep engagement high and provide ROI.

Online Community Onboarding – Onboarding has typically been used to describe the process of helping new employees at a company to pick up the skills and information they need to become solid contributors to an organization. Even though members aren’t your employees – far from it – the Wikipedia page for onboarding is a really interesting place to start.

SHOULD YOU QUIT YOUR COMMUNITY JOB? – We often talk about how employers can determine if a community needs to be built or how to evaluate CMs, but it’s not so often that we talk about community managers evaluating our employers.

Transforming engagement with customers and partners – a customer success webinar

Social Media Requires Being Human – While on a trip to California to speak at an event last month, I took the opportunity to see how hospitality and travel companies respond (or don’t respond) using Twitter. I hope you enjoy the lessons I learned from my interaction with the various companies. If you have not already figured it out, Twitter is another channel your clients and partners can use to communicate with you.

When online communities go to work – While the debate continues on about whether consumer social networking is an effective model for how we should run our organizations in the future, one under-appreciated online phenomenon is quietly and steadily remaking the very notion of business itself.The world of online communities has evolved with social computing to become one of the most powerful new models for getting work done. Read my exploration of “When online communities go to work.”

New social media and community jobs:

  1. Community Manager – Rapid7 – Boston, MA
  2. eHealth Community Manager – MetroWest, Southcoast, Cape Commonwealth of Massachusetts – Boston, MA
  3. Senior Manager, Community and Knowledge Base Architect -Blackbaud – Austin, TX
  4. Community Support Manager (CSM) -Kuester Management Group – Fort Mill, SC
  5. Social Community Manager – Doner – Southfield, MI
  6. Community Manager – Ascent Consulting – Lexington, MA 02420
  7. Community Manager – American Student Assistance – Boston, MA
  8. Community Manager – Wargaming America – Emeryville, CA
  9. HUD/Tax Credit Assistant Community Manager – Eureka Multifamily Group – San Antonio, TX
  10. Community Manager – Canary – New York, NY

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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.