The Making of a Good Community Manager

What makes a good community manager?  Seems like a pretty basic question and basic questions normally have basic answers; however a good community manager isn’t someone who just performs the basic tasks.

Basic tasks of a community manager is managing all social media channels by providing informative posts, creating brand awareness and engaging the audience through quick responses.

Pretty simple, right? Inform, awareness and engage – we do this on a daily basis in our personal life.  We tell people about what’s new in our lives, share our likes and dislikes and respond to their questions or suggestions.

While these factors are what are required to be a community manager, a good community manager brings in a variety of other qualities.

Personality – No one wants to feel like they are talking to a computer or some form of auto response system.  People want to talk to people.  Adding personality to posts and responses will make the audience feel more comfortable.  The more comfortable an individual feels, the more likely they are to trust you; and as we all know trust leads to long lasting loyal relationships.  So how do you add personality to your posts?  Be creative!  Talk to them as if you were speaking to a mate.  Be funny, lively and honest.  You can do this while staying professional, but the whole idea of social media is to have a more personal relationship with your audience versus professional.

Listening – A good listener is hard to come by.  We have all felt at times that while someone may nod their head up and down, they really aren’t listening.  Simply responding to someone doesn’t meant you are listening.  You want to prove to your audience that you are listening, then use what they are saying.  Take their suggestions and run with it.  Don’t just say “okay” or “that’s a great point”, ask them more about what they are saying.  Ask for examples and more details – anything that proves that you not only understand what they are saying, but that you are also interested in it.

Writing skills – Coping and pasting posts just aren’t going to cut it.  You need to create your own posts and being a good writer can help with this.  Add flare to what you say and be aware of how you say it.  You want to make sure your message conveys the correct tone.  Knowing what words to use and how to write them can go along way.

Knowledgeable – Know the company you are working for as if it was your own.  Just knowing the ends and outs of social media isn’t enough.  The better you know the company, the better you can sell it.  This will help with speedy responses to the audience’s questions or suggestions.  You may know how to write the answer better than the company, but if you have to search for the answer then you are wasting valuable time.

These are just a few qualities that will help to make a good community manager.  At the end of the day, a good community manager depends on the individual.  There is only so much a person can be taught.  Just because you know how to do something doesn’t mean you can do it well.

In general, have fun with it!  Community manager is a unique position, so treat it as one.