A Community Manager’s Job Description

Community Manager is an increas­ingly pop­u­lar job title.

I think of the com­munity man­ager (also known as social media man­ager) as a clas­sic­al con­duct­or ded­ic­ated to show­ing the online com­munity (the orches­tra) how to get in sync, nev­er through force or coer­cion, but by using the magic­al powers of sug­ges­tion alone. 

So, what exactly falls “under the jur­is­dic­tion” of the com­munity manager? 

Here goes:

Responsibilities of a Community Manager

I’ve out­lined sev­er­al typ­ic­al respons­ib­il­it­ies here:

The above scopes of work are some of the most import­ant pub­lic rela­tions activities. 

Affiliate: I use Mailchimp as my default email list manager.

Affiliate: I use Missinglettr to plan, cre­ate and sched­ule my social media posts.

Affiliate: I use beacon​.by to cre­ate, man­age, and deliv­er lead mag­nets and con­tent upgrades.

Affiliate: I use Email List Validation to pro­tect my sender’s repu­ta­tion by keep­ing my PR email lists free from boun­cing emails.

Affiliate: I use SamCart to host online courses and oth­er edu­ca­tion­al PR material.

The Community Manager Appreciation Day

Many com­munity man­agers I talk to tend to have this one thing in com­mon. They often feel under­ap­pre­ci­ated. No won­der the pro­fes­sion has its own day every 4^th Monday of January—the Community Manager Appreciation Day.

PR Resource: The Inbound PR Strategy

Spin Academy | Online PR Courses

Inbound vs Outbound

The inbound mind­set is a fun­da­ment­al shift in the PR- and mar­ket­ing industry.

Historically, many PR- and mar­ket­ing depart­ments have argued:

“Why should we spend our PR- and mar­ket­ing budgets on ‘already acquired’ audiences?”

The truth is — it’s the oth­er way around.

Instead of “spam­ming” non-exist­ing audi­ences, pub­lic rela­tions and mar­ket­ing can do much more with exist­ing online pub­lics. ¹Silfwer, J. (2015, June 11). The Publics in Public Relations. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​p​u​b​l​i​c​s​-​i​n​-​p​u​b​l​i​c​-​r​e​l​a​t​i​o​ns/

Drawing a line between those who know you and those who don’t know you is noth­ing new:

• Pull mar­ket­ing vs push mar­ket­ing
• Hot leads vs cold leads
• Permission mar­ket­ing vs tra­di­tion­al marketing
• Internal com­mu­nic­a­tions vs extern­al communications

This inbound shift is the online equi­val­ent of draw­ing the line between those who know you and those who don’t know you:

• Inbound com­mu­nic­a­tions vs out­bound communications

If your Inbound Shift PR Strategy is good, you might not need to pri­or­it­ise out­bound PR strategies — because your inbound audi­ence will attract out­bound publics.

Learn more: The Inbound Shift PR Strategy: Beauty From Within

💡 Subscribe and get a free ebook on how to get bet­ter PR ideas.

PR Resource: The Follower Contract

Spin Academy | Online PR Courses

The Follower Contract

How can brands bet­ter under­stand fol­low­er engage­ment? Think of every fol­low as an invis­ible contract.

Dear Brand,

• Yes, I’m now fol­low­ing you. Congratulations (to you).
• I fol­lowed you based on what you’ve demon­strated in the past, so don’t be sur­prised if I stop enga­ging (or unfol­low­ing) if you do oth­er stuff.
• You now have my per­mis­sion to provide me with the type of con­tent that first attrac­ted me to your brand.
• I, the fol­low­er, will determ­ine any involve­ment on a future case-by-case basis.
• My fol­low is not a ‘pay­ment’ for your past accom­plish­ments; my fol­low is an ‘advance pay­ment’ for what I expect from you in the future.
• It would be best if you always pre­sup­posed that I’m inter­ested in myself and my friends first and then, maybe, in your brand.
• Until we part ways, I expect you to be clear about my poten­tial involve­ment in your cause.

Best regards,
Your New Follower

Think of every single fol­low­er, fan, and sub­scriber hav­ing such an agree­ment with your brand.

Learn more: The Follower Contract

💡 Subscribe and get a free ebook on how to get bet­ter PR ideas.

PR Resource: The High Road Tonality

The Stoic Tonality

An organ­isa­tion is the poly­phon­ic sum of all its cowork­ers. Imagine extract­ing each cowork­er­’s most vir­tu­ous and mature traits and com­bin­ing them into one voice — the Stoic tonality.

Stoic Tonality Examples

“Why does­n’t your brand speak out against indus­tri­al over­fish­ing killing our oceans?”

“As a com­pany that sells fish­ing gear, we want our oceans — and all anim­als and plants liv­ing in them! — to be healthy and plen­ti­ful. We, too, were dis­turbed by the recent news of over­fish­ing. How could any­one not be? We now ask ourselves, how can our com­pany make more of a dif­fer­ence? Honestly, we’re dis­cuss­ing our strategy for sus­tain­ab­il­ity every day. I can­not say how or when we might take spe­cif­ic action regard­ing this latest news, but rest assured that we’re tak­ing the gen­er­al issue of sav­ing our oceans seriously.”

“Why does­n’t your brand engage in Black Lives Matter?”

“As for right now, we’re listen­ing. We’re listen­ing to the stor­ies being told. We’re listen­ing to under­stand bet­ter how we can learn and grow as a com­pany. As for inclus­ive­ness and human rights in gen­er­al, we think we’re doing a great job, and part of that is to stay open and care­fully listen to people’s stor­ies. We might take spe­cif­ic actions, but we’re listen­ing and learning.”

“Why does­n’t your brand join our protests against tox­ic mas­culin­ity and the pat­ri­archy?”

“Honestly, we’re a product com­pany. We make products for any­one who likes them. And I dare say that we’re experts in mak­ing these products. However, we’re not experts on ideo­lo­gies or soci­et­al struc­tures. So, for now, we listen. And we con­tin­ue to focus on mak­ing the best products that we can. For every­one. We believe that’s our best way of con­trib­ut­ing at this point.”

“Why does­n’t your brand sign our peti­tion to boy­cott all com­pan­ies on our Environmental Black List?”

“As a com­pany, we oper­ate dif­fer­ently. Instead of sign­ing peti­tions or par­ti­cip­at­ing in oth­er pub­lic demon­stra­tions, we take action with­in our sphere of influ­ence. And I dare say that our many envir­on­ment­al ini­ti­at­ives are mak­ing a lot of dif­fer­ence world­wide rel­at­ive to our size and reach. If we were to sign your peti­tion, we would first have to use our resources to research the legit­im­acy of its cre­at­ors and then make sure that none of the com­pan­ies on that list is being wrong­fully accused. While it would be pos­sible, we’ve decided that we can do more good by dir­ect­ing our resources to where we can make the most difference.”

“Why does­n’t your com­pany act against your female employ­ees who take time off for abor­tions?”

“All our employ­ees are grown-ups, and what they do on their own time is frankly none of our busi­ness. We’re a large com­pany, and we have employ­ees who are pro-life and pro-choice. We believe we have a work­place where people can have dif­fer­ent opin­ions but still respect each oth­er and work well together.”

“Why has­n’t your com­pany offered your thoughts and pray­ers for the vic­tims and their fam­il­ies of the school shoot­ing?”

“The vic­tims and their fam­il­ies have our empath­ies, of course. I speak for every­one work­ing at our com­pany when I say we were dev­ast­ated by the news as every­one else. But you’re right that we haven’t pos­ted any status updates about the shoot­ing on our Facebook page. It’s not that we don’t care (we do!), it’s just that we focus our updates on our products and ser­vices and how they make a pos­it­ive dif­fer­ence in the world.”

Learn more: The Stoic Tonality: Rise Above With Integrity

PR Resource: The Social Objects Workshop (SOW)