[Chronic Friday] : How to become a great online community manager?

Vanilla Forums has compiled some expert advice on how to structure your community management teams, test and optimize your efforts, and manage your career as a community manager.

Community Manager (CM) is “the individual responsible for the development and management of the brand or the organization presence on social networks and other community spaces or not controlled by the brand“.

Here are the main from Vanilla Forum study:

Top Community management skills

Look for people that have skills and experience that’s difficult to teach: empathy for strangers, conflict resolution, flexibility, perseverance, and the ability to learn new things quickly

 Find someone who is passionate about product or service, have a personal connection and are interested in what you are doing. Hire someone has the ability to work in all level of business

 Look for a person who truly loves people (and making them happy) and is a clear communicator, both verbally and in writing. Find someone who is curious, creative and analytic.

 Spend a lot of the first 90 days in a new community manager position working with upper management to learn about their expectations and what they view as success, and work toward creating goals that work for everyone.

 Show [management] examples of how other companies have proven the value. Connect the dots for them to show them how the community can potentially impact the customer journey, drive business objectives and result in a clear ROI.

Quality to nurture in your online community

 Read a lot (both online and offline). Meet a lot of people. Build communities in your spare time.

 The people you meet and the networks you make are invaluable. You never know the opportunities that will come from the Twitter chats, networking events and conferences you take part in. Seize these opportunities, don’t pass them up. They are the foundation on which you will build your career.

 As community manager, you should cultivate better interactions and discourse through thoughtful architecture, active moderation and management. It’s important to criticize ideas, not people

Check out the infographic below for more detail.