Many businesses hire community managers because they hear one might be necessary, but once hired have no clue what to do with him. Is he a customer service person? Does he hang out with the marketing team or is he on board to help close sales?
What should you do with your community manager?
Customer Service: The obvious place for a CM is with customer service. Many business use the CM to talk with users via blogs and online networks. Therefore it’s a customer service experience, right? For sure the community manager should work with service or support so they know what the people who use their products or services are saying about them. They should know the areas in which they’re doing the best, and also the areas that need a little work. The community manager is an integral part of the customer service team..but that’s not all.
Marketing: The community manager should be part of the marketing team as well. Who else to better plan promotional strategies than the person who speaks to the people taking part? The community manger has his finger on the pulse of the people and will help plan the programs that best fit the community. Every good community manager also knows other community managers and could offer ideas and suggestions for cross promotions that would enable communities to mingle.
Public Relations & Editorial: See marketing. Also the community manager could assist with announcements and letters to the community as well as the company blog and newsletter. Most community managers moonlight as bloggers anyway.
Sales: Community managers aren’t there to close sales, but with their heavy social media presence they might be able to suggest potential advertising and business clients.
Social Media: A no brainer. Many community managers are social media savvy and are the best people in the company to handle social media campaigns. No doubt they’re majorly into blogging and have a heavy online presence. Take advantage of this, trust me.
All of the Above: The most successful community managers aren’t departmentalized. They answer to the community, first and foremost, and also play parts in the success of several different departments.
If you’re not sure where to put your community manager, ask him. The answers may surprise – and enlighten you.
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This conversation’s been around the blogosphere a good bit lately. The mistake many are making is assuming that community management is in any way new. It’s not. It’s just a new title thrown onto a very traditional public relations activity. In fact, managing a company’s interaction with their community and various audiences is the backbone of public relations. The problem is that most people have no idea as to what public relations is – they assume it’s just about media relations, pitching / spin, and publicity.
“They answer to the community, first and foremost, and also play parts in the success of several different departments.” – That’s precisely what PR professionals do – answer to the community and provide communications work that supports a variety of management, sales, and marketing functions.
Open source community managers need very close ties to the development team and marketing. They need to know what the project is doing and they need the developers help but most of what they end up doing is marketing.
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