The Seedy Underbelly of Community Management
Ad Age called the Community Manager position the
hottest job in marketing in 2010. There are thousands of people in the various Linked in groups, a vibrant Community Builders group on FB, and I run a successful twitter chat of an average of 100 participants every
Wednesday at 2pm EST with
Kelly Lux. Social media gigs are popping up left and right at warp speed and there is no lack of people clamoring for those jobs. (Note if you're a hiring manager reading this, rip up a resume of ANYONE calling themselves a "guru," "expert," "maven," or worse.. "rockstar." You've been warned).
Community Management is So Hot Right now.
This gig is perfect for anyone who thrives on challenge, loves to be an early adopter, can't get enough of people, event planning, and being the face of a brand. In a way, it's like getting 15 minutes of fame if you're good at it. In a lot of ways, it has moments of being game like. Needing higher numbers, converting more customers, more more more, and you "win" when you get hot press and more people know about you. It's a never ending veritable Super Mario World of Community.
It hasn't reached it's max yet either. There are a few amazing resources out there that even though they've been around, they're just getting started. Like The Community Roundtable. Or the upcoming Community Manager website that most haven't heard about yet, but will soon. 2011 should be an even better year for the profession.
It's Not All Rainbows and Puppies.
Once the glamorous facade wears off, there's real work to be done. Yes you manage a blog, but do you know how long it takes to write a blog post, and a good one that will get talked about and spread around? Or how much time it will take to edit multiple blog posts of your staff of writers? You tweet, but do you know how hard it is to find the right articles to tweet out? What are the perfect words to say that won't get you in Kenneth Cole deep water? Which journalist can you talk to at a conference to get them to write about your product? What is the next thing you can do to bring your community together? There's always something!
Not to mention, Community Management is as much an inward facing job as it is outward facing. You must educate your coworkers, and create a community where you work for it to be transparent that people want to buy into what you're doing. There's a psychological aspect to it and knowing how to read the temperature of a room or team is paramount to getting the job done well.
And last but not least, there's the always fun crossing of lines. Community managers have all of these fantastic social media tools at their disposal (which takes time to learn). They're spending a significant amount of their time keeping up with the trends and platforms that change as much as... well, something that changes an awful lot. There's always a new app, a new monitoring tool, a new program to learn to use and then teach out to others. And then there's convincing the necessary departments that they could indeed use this. Community Management should in all likelihood live in a Marketing department, but it crosses the boundaries into Public Relations, Customer Service, Communications, and even IT. So if you're dipping your toe into each pool, you're most likely going to sit in on a lot of meetings.
Time is not the friend of a community manager. Expectations aren't either, because they're usually set abnormally high. Change is good, and inevitable too.
It's an amazing job, and one of the most fun things I've ever attached my wagon to, but it is not really a job. It's a lifestyle, and there's only a small amount of people crazy enough to A) do it and B) be good at it.
Community Management is So Hot Right now.
This gig is perfect for anyone who thrives on challenge, loves to be an early adopter, can't get enough of people, event planning, and being the face of a brand. In a way, it's like getting 15 minutes of fame if you're good at it. In a lot of ways, it has moments of being game like. Needing higher numbers, converting more customers, more more more, and you "win" when you get hot press and more people know about you. It's a never ending veritable Super Mario World of Community.
It hasn't reached it's max yet either. There are a few amazing resources out there that even though they've been around, they're just getting started. Like The Community Roundtable. Or the upcoming Community Manager website that most haven't heard about yet, but will soon. 2011 should be an even better year for the profession.
It's Not All Rainbows and Puppies.
Once the glamorous facade wears off, there's real work to be done. Yes you manage a blog, but do you know how long it takes to write a blog post, and a good one that will get talked about and spread around? Or how much time it will take to edit multiple blog posts of your staff of writers? You tweet, but do you know how hard it is to find the right articles to tweet out? What are the perfect words to say that won't get you in Kenneth Cole deep water? Which journalist can you talk to at a conference to get them to write about your product? What is the next thing you can do to bring your community together? There's always something!
Not to mention, Community Management is as much an inward facing job as it is outward facing. You must educate your coworkers, and create a community where you work for it to be transparent that people want to buy into what you're doing. There's a psychological aspect to it and knowing how to read the temperature of a room or team is paramount to getting the job done well.
And last but not least, there's the always fun crossing of lines. Community managers have all of these fantastic social media tools at their disposal (which takes time to learn). They're spending a significant amount of their time keeping up with the trends and platforms that change as much as... well, something that changes an awful lot. There's always a new app, a new monitoring tool, a new program to learn to use and then teach out to others. And then there's convincing the necessary departments that they could indeed use this. Community Management should in all likelihood live in a Marketing department, but it crosses the boundaries into Public Relations, Customer Service, Communications, and even IT. So if you're dipping your toe into each pool, you're most likely going to sit in on a lot of meetings.
Time is not the friend of a community manager. Expectations aren't either, because they're usually set abnormally high. Change is good, and inevitable too.
It's an amazing job, and one of the most fun things I've ever attached my wagon to, but it is not really a job. It's a lifestyle, and there's only a small amount of people crazy enough to A) do it and B) be good at it.