Community managers are the gate-keepers of your social accounts. If this sounds vague to you, you\u2019re not the only one. In fact, the role of a community manager is the most misunderstood position in any marketing department\u2026till now. Read on to find out 4 curated facts about community managers that might make you see them as more than just professional chatterers.<\/p>\n
1. They\u2019re the Face of Brands<\/strong><\/p>\n Seen as the face of a brand, community managers are responsible for interacting with audiences and communities online and drumming up buzz for their company or brand. Their job description usually includes the following:<\/p>\n Source: Steamfeed Sign up for events:<\/strong> There are plenty of social media-related conferences and events for you to choose from\u2014no matter where you live. Search for local seminars in your area where you can learn more about community management best practices from others in the field. If you can’t personally attend, find the hashtags they’ll be using, and engage in the conversation online. You’re going to meet so many people. It takes effort, but it’s definitely worth your time. Make it a personal goal to participate in a local meet-up, happy hour, seminar, or conference at least once a month.<\/p>\n Keep up with trends:<\/strong> Keeping up with online trends will be a big part of your strategy. Even though your company isn’t about creating online memes, or posting videos of your staff doing the Harlem Shake, the more you are aware of what’s going on in the interwebz, the better you will be at your job.<\/p>\n Source: Ragan Source: Digital Doughnut<\/p>\n 4. They\u2019re Campaign Managers<\/strong><\/p>\n With the same precision of campaign managers in politics, online community managers can see your social campaigns through from start to finish.<\/p>\n The community manager will have the proper time and dedication to develop campaigns from the ground up and will be able to see through the company\u2019s social media endeavors. Additionally, having this position will make communication easier between different departments in the company in order to support various campaigns.<\/p>\n Another great aspect of having a community manager is that this employee will have the proper social media training to monitor campaigns and shift their focus to improving the company\u2019s efforts. They will be able to see what is working or what is not working and strive to improve the company\u2019s online presence.<\/p>\n Source: Top Ten Social Media<\/p>\n If you consider the overwhelming involvement any social presence takes, you can appreciate the value of having one assigned person to handle all things social from start to finish. While many companies may see it as an additional expenditure, it really is critical on several fronts to task one person with your social media campaigns. More than just a professional chatterer, community managers are the \u201cOptimus Prime\u201d of social networks. Would you want such an important part of your digital presence tasked to 5 smaller, lesser experienced and more distracted workers \u2013 or would you want a juggernaut?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Community managers are the gate-keepers of your social accounts. If this sounds vague to you, you\u2019re not the only one. In fact, the role of a community manager is the most misunderstood position in any marketing department\u2026till now. Read on to find out 4 curated facts about community managers that might make you see them…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":309,"featured_media":4104,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2171],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beyond"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
\n2. They\u2019re Intelligence Analysts<\/strong>
\nA community manager\u2019s job is about more than just finding out what\u2019s going on with your brand. It\u2019s their job to also know what\u2019s going on with other brands, what trends are in place, and how people are interacting with them. This includes the following:<\/p>\n
\n3. They\u2019re Gossip Mongers<\/strong>
\nOk, maybe not so much gossip mongers but they do listen to everything that\u2019s going on\u2026which is something the rest of your marketing team doesn\u2019t have time for. A good community manager should listen to the buzz already online — finding out what groups your target audience is joining on LinkedIn, for example, and who they\u2019re following on Twitter. What are they talking about? What are they interested in? Who are the key influencers within your industry who you should develop a long lasting relationship with?<\/p>\n