So Mom, this is what I do for a living

What being a Community Manager actually means

My mom is not on Social Media. Her approach is, if I can meet or call my friends to say hi, why do I need a Facebook account?

Fair point.

So when she asks me what is it that I do exactly, I have to admit, I find it hard to answer. For someone who’s not active on social, (maybe even sometimes, for people who are) managing social media or online communities, are concepts difficult to explain.

From personal experience, people immediately jump to conclusions like: “Oh, so you tweet for a living?” or “Ok, so you spend your whole day on Facebook”.

Well yes. But is that all really?

I got to think: What exactly is it that I do? What does being a Community Manager actually mean?

So mom, this is it:

I connect with people. Much like the offline world, to build a community online, you need to interface with people on various platforms, start and jump into conversations, advocate, ask, respond, listen, reward.

In one word: Interact — with peers, customers or potential customers, haters, experts, fans, you name it; anyone that is (somehow) related to your brand and industry niche.

Because all these are the community.

I listen. Listening is big part of what I do. The community manager is the one to make sure that the voice of the community is being heard, internally, by the rest of the team, whether these are comments, requests, questions, feedback, issues

More than that, I am listening so that I can find new opportunities to connect with people and add to the existing community. Opportunities to grow and evolve.

I share. The way I see it, an online community manager has a bit of a social media manager in her and vice versa. In fact, the way digital works and with the fast evolution of social media, the latter is an essential tool for building communities online.

Using the social media platforms my audience is on, I share everything that they could find useful and interesting, or anything that is likely to trigger conversation and enable a sort of interaction. This can be knowledge, updates, news, curating content from sources within my community, contributing to ongoing conversations.

At the end of the day, successful community managers are members of the community they are trying to build for their brand. They are active, they put themselves out there and they do not hide behind a brand’s account but they learn to use their channels to help the cause: contribute.

So mom, this is what I do for a living.