Hi Claire- Thanks for joining in! Would you mind sharing a link to your post
about community managers?

Thanks!

Thanks for joining in, Evan! You raise a terrific point that the community,
just like not being “controlled” by one person or organization, it also
isn’t “contained” by just one space or platform. A community manager really
need to be able to cross from space to space and help connect the community
whether it’s from an event to on online platform, from one network to
another, or even one conversation to the next one!

I agree, the strategy aspect is key. Especially – as you said, Amy – since community managers are eventually becoming less involved in a community as it gains critical mass/speed. We need to be able to work in the trenches but also from a more strategic position where we can guide the whole organization to support a community, not just within a silo like social media.

Thanks so much for making the connection! For those who are unfamiliar with
Kotter’s 8-Step model, here’s a link:
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_82.htm

I really like the idea of a community manager explicitly serving to support
and even catalyze a change. It’s so true – but rarely described that way.

Thanks!

Vanessa –

Thank you so much for sharing such a thoughtful response! I really like the
addition you made here that Community Managers are central to identifying
opportunities and creating community-driven strategies, whether it’s for a
campaign or a program, or anything else. And as the person who’s elbows deep
in the community, they are definitely key to evaluating and measuring
engagement.

One thing your comments bring to mind, and this may be something for another
post (just like the “what makes a great community manager” post): if, at
least in my opinion, a community manager’s success if measured in part by
the community itself usurping the role and responsibilities, how does that
impact an organization, say, that relied on that staff member to create the
engagement strategy and track success? Do those functions get handed over to
community members as well or does the “role” of the community manager shift
at that point?

Thanks for keeping me thinking!

I believe that community managers are a key connector not only connecting individuals within the online community, but also connecting with the greater cause ecosystem externally. They help to create an important bridge between online community members, employees, supporters (and many other stakeholders/collaborators), and information and resources. Perhaps even more importantly, they help to identify the opportunities that exists in between each of these connections and the potential value.

Community managers help to develop critical organizational and cause driven strategies. They are able to observe the conversations and translate them into actions, programs, or improvements. Defined metrics and measurements help to inform and direct this translation and therefore are also a critical part of the community managers responsibilities. They need to be able to define forms of measurement (as appropriate to the community, organization and cause goals) that can help to support actions based on these observations, improve issue awareness, boost online participation, and so much more.

This also leads to the question of – what makes an amazing community manager. Once the role has been advocated for and ideally approved what do organizations need to look for when filling this position. I think that this is an increasing need. It’s great to have someone who knows the tools, but what other skills and traits are needed? There is a certain level of experience or ability to strategy look at the larger picture and the myriad of moving pieces that extends far beyond the tools used to connect.

However, this is totally a conversation for another blog post or at least another day 🙂

Thanks very much, Jason! Would love to anything you’d like to add to the
list, too 🙂