Like most types of jobs, only a small portion of Online Community Manager positions are posted online in popular places where the right people will find the job. I found my Community Management position on the Problogger Job Board, and while they wanted someone with blogging and new media experience, the board wasn’t specifically for Community Managers.
If you really want to become a Community Manager, I suggest thinking about the products, services or companies that you really enjoy and sending your resume to them. Find ways to get in contact with them to pitch them at either creating the position, or giving you the job. Many companies might have marketing managers and product managers, but they completely neglect the online community at this point, not seeing it as a smart use of their time and resources, and as Dell and other companies have proven time and time again, these companies would be wrong.
While at Blog World Expo, I was fortunate enough to talk to the various people working on building out the online marketing and communities for various well known brands and companies. These people came mostly from a marketing background, with little understanding of the web. One even mentioned that his previous experiences barely scratched the surface with regards to the depth of the web community and its tools, services, and different ways of connecting.
If you already have that knowledge, sell that ability to your favourite company, and get yourself a Community Manager position. What have you got to loose? The worst the company can say is “no”.
To address the question in the title of this post, how can you tell if the company needs a Community Manager?
Well, if they are doing business and are looking to expand that business to a nation wide or international audience, then they’ll want a Community Manager, but they may not realize it yet. Having a full time Online Community Manager might be too much of an expense for them at this point, but if you learn to market yourself well, you should be able to come to some sort of agreement.
Nearly all companies should be looking at hiring an Online Community Manager to help with the various things they need to do online: from blogging, to responding to e-mails. Community Managers can truly separate the companies worth noticing thanks to their dedication to engagement from the companies worth forgetting about due to their lack of consideration. I consider companies hiring a Community Manager as a sign that they value their community. Don’t you?
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There is something special about seeing someone write a blog or forum post about a company, and seeing a representative of that company proactively respond. It’s almost criminal that so many companies are failing to take advantage of the opportunity online community managers can provide.
One point I would like to make, ‘If you really want to become a Community Manager, I suggest thinking about the products, services or companies that you really enjoy and sending your resume to them.’ How about you demonstrate your abilities and the advantage online communities offer by setting up a community based around their product or service yourself?
- Martin
Martin – Good point about offering to set up a community yourself, but if it is an unpaid thing that you are doing because you are a fan, they may undervalue the time and effort you put into it. Also, if you do it without their express permission, it could create issues later on.
As I am sure you can imagine, if a company can get something for free, they’ll probably do it, and may never take the next step to hire on the community founder into their company. Shameful, I know, but don’t say it couldn’t happen. I’d be hesitant to tell people to set up communities without considering the potential hazards, complications, and possible lack of positive attention from the product, service or company you’ve created the community around.
@Martin – I think the best communities to manage are the ones one is already a part of. Heavy into the gaming scene? Check out the different gaming communities. Big into music? Look at the Industry or different online music communities.
Right now the possibilities are wide open and aspiring CM’s should get in while the getting is good.
Hi David
I am not talking about offering to set up a community for another company for free. I am talking about just doing it. Set up a passionate community based around a company’s product or service – show them the value community can bring. You’ll certainly get their attention, and prove your value all in one go.
What company wouldn’t want to see a community of people rallying behind their product or service?
- Martin
I get you Martin, and I think it is great if you want to do that, but I am saying that people shouldn’t be surprised if they don’t ever get hired by the company, even later on in the process, and that your hard work can be leveraged by the company once they hire their own Community Manager.
For Example: Say you’ve built up a community around Coca Cola and their products. You gather like-minded people. You all talk about how much you love Coke products, and grow it into a large community that you lead. Coke then hires their own Community Manager that isn’t you, and they build their own websites for their community. Now that you’ve made people aware of the fact that there is a Coke community, how long until they go to the “actual” Coke community site?
Of course, I still think that if you love a product, service, company or niche, there is nothing wrong with making a community, and you might feel honoured that the company decided to step up and manage their community, but people should be aware of that possibility.
Also, some companies think of their community as a marketing arm, and if there is one thing that many companies do not like (still) it is not having control over their marketing message.
Ah, I think we have crossed wires here. I was talking about setting up and keeping control of the community yourself. Not doing all the hardwork and giving the company the keys to the community!
- Martin
Additionally, if you have developed the community properly, people will not want to move to another community. They’ll want to stay at yours, regardless of whether it is official or not.
- Martin
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