The perfect Community Manager – is there such a thing?
What makes a good community manager? If there was a simple answer to this, many of us may be out of a job!
It’s a question we at SWOOP Analytics are regularly asked. A few days ago, I received this email:
"Good news! We have approval to hire a Community Manager for Yammer. So we are going to expand our team 😊.
Now I would really like your advice on the profile that fits a community manager.”
I popped the question on our Viva Engage network and got loads of responses from my colleagues, but I also wanted to tap into the brains trust on LinkedIn and ask the experts who run Enterprise Social Networks (ESN) every day. I’ve been a blown away by the response. The knowledge people have shared in this post needs to be captured!
So, I’ve pulled together some advice on the most important skills, mindsets and experiences you should have in mind if you really want to make your Viva Engage, Yammer or Workplace from Meta network a space for game-changing conversation where sustainable communities flourish.
Whether you’re in the lucky position to be able to hire a dedicated Community Manager, or you’re thinking about how you might refocus your current time or team to make the most of your ESN, here’s the top tips we’ve come up with and gathered from the fabulous minds in our network:
| Passion over experience |
You must find people who really, genuinely, deeply care about nurturing community. It’s no good having a 10-year comms veteran who deeply cares about producing shiny, polished content if they don’t have a passion for helping people engage with that content. The content is the spark, not the fire, when it comes to community and conversation. Perhaps you will find the mindset you really need in more diverse backgrounds. Customer Experience, Contact Centre, front-of-house teams – people who enjoy spending their days dealing with customers can be fantastic places to seek community management talent. |
| Humility and empathy -essential qualities |
It’s vital community champions are people with the humility to understand it’s not about them, it’s about empowering everyone else to contribute, creating an inclusive environment where people know how to engage as much as what to engage with. And with humility must come empathy. A top community manager needs the ability to understand the varied contexts and cultures that impact on how people interact. They then need the ability to know how to adapt to accommodate these cultural and contextual factors. That’s pretty darn nuanced and complex stuff if you ask me! |
| Facilitator rather than Manager |
While there’s a certain element of governance and management in nurturing your community network, it should be the lesser proportion of duties. For truly epic community development, your focus and energy should be spent on being a facilitator rather than a manager. Bringing people together around content they care about, providing value consistently – and helping others do the same. It’s not the job of the community manager to provide all the answers, it’s much more about asking the questions that bring others in to provide and discuss answers. Creating space for active discussion and true engagement is the priority – and with that may come a little discomfort and a need to hand over more control to the community members than perhaps you are accustomed to! |
| Curiosity is key |
If you’re going to nurture community, you need to understand what makes it tick. You need to be interested in understanding what’s happening, who’s leading the conversation, who’s engaging others, what content is hitting the mark and what’s not! You need problem-solving skills that help you see under the surface and really work the right levers to get bigger-picture results. That takes a fair bit of self-confidence and a real inquisitive nature, where you may sometimes need to ask difficult questions or role-model having difficult conversations. |
| Firm but flexible |
Like bamboo in a strong wind, a Community Manager/Facilitator must be flexible and adaptable in the face of resistance but firm and strong enough to come back to the point time and time again. They need to have the tenacity to repeatedly make the case for community as an amazing business value driver, along with the wisdom to understand that different people are at different stages of the enterprise collaboration maturity journey at different times. |
Now look back at the heading of this blog post: The perfect Community Manager – is there such a thing?
What do you think now you’ve considered all the things we’ve outlined above? Is it feasible that one person can bring all of these factors fully-formed?
I think it’s probably a stretch to expect there to be a perfect community manager out there. It’s asking a lot for one person to excel across each of the factors outlined above but I think you could reap outsized rewards if you focus on these factors and expand your thinking beyond the default “must be someone with X years of internal comms experience” mindset.
So go expand your search! Seek a humble, empathetic and curious facilitator with a passion for creating inclusive communities, as well as the adaptability and tenacity to repeatedly make the business case for community as the core of communication and collaboration. Easy, right? ;-)
Note: Special thanks to all those who shared their thoughts on this topic via my post on LinkedIn. I hope I’ve effectively captured a flavour of what you each contributed.
Here’s some suggested reading/watching for you too – a few blog posts and case studies touching on how to run a successful ESN:
To find out more about the importance of community management and creating a thriving community, please reach out to SWOOP Analytics.
