Mashable - The Social Media Guide - Latest Comments in 5 Essential Traits for Community Managers

Re: 5 Essential Traits for Community Managers

alisonjuli23 — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 09:41:36 -0000

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Re: 5 Essential Traits for Community Managers

Jehnee — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:47:06 -0000

Excellent!

Re: 5 Essential Traits for Community Managers

web tasarımı — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 07:44:41 -0000

very good

Re: 5 Essential Traits for Community Managers

Kelly Rusk — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 09:26:55 -0000

Great list! Another I would add is a strong sense of curiosity--it helps a community manager get to know community members personally, because you can't fake genuine interest. Also if someone has a questions that you're generally curious about to, you'll definitely be prompt getting them an answer.

Re: 5 Essential Traits for Community Managers

Brett Kopf — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 23:02:04 -0000

Bravo! This post was really helpful. "You need to really thrive on connecting with people" Thanks for sharing the great insight on a new 21st century position!

http://twitter.com/brettkopf

Re: 5 Essential Traits for Community Managers

Lou Sagar — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 21:55:18 -0000

I am very active advising clients on the organizational roles and responsibilities for a social media team. In addition to the ones outlined above, an essential skill for "community management" demand good writing skills, and the ability to create a "voice" that is consistent.

Re: 5 Essential Traits for Community Managers

Scott Moore — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 19:33:10 -0000

I would add knowing how to build trusting relationships between community members. It's touched on in #2, but promoting others is only a part of building trust and then mostly building trust with your brand/company/org. The real magic of community is exposing value, building relationships and fostering trust *between* the community members. When hiring, I look for a background in managing volunteers (where you must persuade, but cannot dictate), conflict management, negotiations especially in a group or crowd situation (because often you cannot avoid having an audience).

I agree with J. Ray Sparks about not taking it personally and want to add that knowing how to recover and learn from mistakes is important for long-term community work. Failing to acknowledge, apologize, recover and learn from mistakes will erode hard-earned trust.

A year ago, Tish Grier posted an article, Seven Traits of Highly Effective Community Managers, http://www.poynter.org/colu... and I recommend it to those who are interested in the work and those who are hiring community manager positions.

Re: 5 Essential Traits for Community Managers

Kris — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:25:54 -0000

You also have to have time to work on the boards, too. Right now this is a side part of my job and I feel like I can't give it as much attention as I'd like. I go in and look at my section, but unfortunately, it's not a huge part of my job and don't spend much time there.

Also, you can't be power hungry. I'm on a board where there are new mods after many years of the originator of the site and their friends were mods and now that it's part of a media network, it's much more stringent in it's rules. It's still better than other boards, but some of the mods need to lighten up, especially if someone creates a duplicate thread. It's a huge board the the search is not that great. I understand the need to maintain it, but a warn or note??? That seems a bit excessive!

Re: 5 Essential Traits for Community Managers

Mary Maher — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 16:10:58 -0000

Thanks for the thoughtful post--a rare treatise not about technology, but instead about advancing the organization's mission, providing good content and service, building community, empowerment. That's where the responsibility lies.

Re: 5 Essential Traits for Community Managers

Christian Jacobsen — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 15:33:18 -0000

I realized about ten years ago that I was a "Community manager", although at the time the term "Evangelist" was more common, and falling out of vogue. So I assumed the title of "Community Energizer", and have been serving in the capacity for a number of companies in the US and Europe ever since then.

In response to the "How much does a Community Manager make?" question, there is a lot of clarification needed. As Stuart says in Point #1 of his article, you have to love your job to be good at this job. People who love their job are not so focused on the money side of the equation. I have taken a large pay cut to have the opportunity to serve the community I currently work with. (And yes, it is worth it. Without question.)

Stuart's Points #3 and #5 both require that you have been with the company for a while. This is not the information and connections that your learn from the first-day-on-the-job training videos. You must be in the organization for a while, earned trust, and you know how things work at all levels. Only then can you be an effective Community Manager.

So in the end, expect to pull in $30-$50k, depending entirely on the profitability of the company.

Community Manager, Tech Support, etc: you simply cannot do a cost/benefit analysis on these kinds of roles that deal in "intangibles". And placing measurable limits on these roles will diminish their effectiveness. So I could see this range as being wildly divergent, depending on many factors.

But looking forward to coming to work every day? Loving your customers rather than loathing them? How can you place a value on that?!?

My name is Christian and I am the Community Energizer. And I love it! :-)

Re: 5 Essential Traits for Community Managers

Stuart Foster — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 10:50:17 -0000

Score...was looking for the disqus guy :). Think you could get my uberVU working?

Re: 5 Essential Traits for Community Managers

Stuart Foster — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 10:49:44 -0000

Glad to do so Amber :)

Re: 5 Essential Traits for Community Managers

Stuart Foster — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 10:47:52 -0000

Ranges considerably, based on experience and personality. (Size of brand is really important here too)

Re: 5 Essential Traits for Community Managers

Stuart Foster — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 10:47:11 -0000

Walk that line. You have to be the voice of reason in both communities. Share the company's position with the community and the community's position with the company. I've found you can do both (and benefit both parties) if you do this effectively.

Re: 5 Essential Traits for Community Managers

Melinda Moses — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 09:07:41 -0000

Great post Stu. I absolutely agree that it takes a very special, passionate, transparent person to manage the community.

I'm curious what people think about the role of the community manager to create new value-oriented programs that drive RESULTS through the community ... kind of as an outgrowth of product management/marketing ... or focused more on keeping the community involved in what's already there?? Where do you draw the line??

Re: 5 Essential Traits for Community Managers

tvamy — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 08:32:25 -0000

I wind up a community manager as the interactive anchor in local TV and love it. I am turning into the "first" point of contact in the social media world - and agreee the passion and desire to connect with the community is so critical. I've been in the market 20 years and never closer to the viewers than in this last year and a half using social media and building up TheRibbit.com

Re: 5 Essential Traits for Community Managers

Guillaume — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 06:07:49 -0000

Vision is very important as you need to find the perfect balance between what you can say and what you need to keep within the company. It is diplomacy I guess.

Re: 5 Essential Traits for Community Managers

Jacques — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 00:12:45 -0000

Very good post. The main nugget of wisdom still is your No.1 essential trait. Loving your community and service will help you breeze through the 4 other steps

Re: 5 Essential Traits for Community Managers

Facebook User — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 22:47:31 -0000

cool article

Re: 5 Essential Traits for Community Managers

Nathan Ketsdever — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 22:36:00 -0000

Great post. Its arguable that it also helps to know the product....maybe even more important than knowing the company. Being an "insider" in the sense of being an active user of the product can go a long way to making your advice being both useful and authentic.

Re: 5 Essential Traits for Community Managers

HowMuch — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 22:20:17 -0000

How much does a community manager make?

Re: 5 Essential Traits for Community Managers

Vinyl Banners — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 21:49:53 -0000

Really great post!
I totally agree! loving your job is a good way to start! =)

Re: 5 Essential Traits for Community Managers

Jennifer H. — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 20:29:26 -0000

Great article, overall. Good food for thought, esp. those of us who aspire to community manage ourselves.

Now is it just me, or does the quote attributed to Sonny Gill in trait #3 not make any sense? I've read -- and re-read -- it, and the first four or five lines do not make sense, Is there a missing section by any chance?

Re: 5 Essential Traits for Community Managers

J. Ray Sparks — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 20:11:01 -0000

3b) Ability to not take assaultive personal insults personally -- I manage communities for two top rated "fake news" shows. And through this experience I have learned that simply having that "power" will cause some fans to hate your f***ing guts, no matter how nice and empowering you are. That's OK. When someone says you're stupid and you have a big nose and they hate you, just keep reminding yourself that not as many people think you're a douche-bag as they do Glenn Beck.

Re: 5 Essential Traits for Community Managers

Brett Borders — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 20:00:58 -0000

Enjoyable read. Some great insights from some of the most knowledgable people in the industry.