#NoCode Series: Community Management
Do you want to be a techie without writing code? Here’s one way to.
Communities are essential parts of society. They act as safe spaces for people to interact in different ways. They can be virtual or physical communities. In the tech scene, communities are vital. They are created for many purposes such as to help people learn together, mentor beginners, brainstorm on project ideas, plan events and many more reasons.
What all of these communities have in common is a need for people who will run and take charge of the activities of such communities.They need people who will continuously interact with members, keep the space alive by engaging with members, act as a buffer between the organization and the members of the community. In essence, make the community worth being a part of.
That’s where community managers come in.
Who are community managers?
They are everything I listed above and more.
Community managers are responsible for building an organization’s community. Both physically and virtually. Physically can be through meetups and physical events while online can be through mediums such as slack, discord, telegram, WhatsApp and many more.
Community managers maintain an organization’s image in line with its values and help create awareness for the organization. They monitor conversations concerning a brand and act based on it.
As a community manager, you should care about the brand of the organization you work with. Understand the organization’s core values and what they are trying to achieve. Be able to make your community lively by having great people skills. Community managers are the people who interact with members of the community and keep it organized.
Community managers help members achieve their goals of being part of the community.
What does it take to be a community manager?
You don’t need to write code to be a community manager in a tech organization. What you need is interpersonal skills and knowledge concerning the community you want to manage. Let’s explain some of the skills you’ll need.
- Knowledge of the community: You should not be managing a community you know nothing about. Imagine not being interested in anything finance-related and managing a finance community. You’ll be constantly frustrated. Try to understand the organization and what they do so that your actions can be in line with them.
- Communication skills: As a community manager, you should have great communication skills which include verbal, written and listening skills. People will communicate with you daily. As a community manager, you should be able to listen to them and understand them. You should find it easy to talk to members and communicate effectively. Without great communication skills, you will easily miss out on the information they are trying to pass. You’ll also have issues passing or relaying information to both community leads/organizers and members of the community if you are lacking adequate communication skills.
- Empathy: A community manager should be empathetic towards others. Being able to understand people and see things from their perspectives is a skill every community manager needs. You’ll be interacting with different people most of the time and being able to understand their concerns and relate in an adequate manner is a valuable skill to possess.
- Be adaptable: Be willing to be flexible about many things. Community management is about knowing when to be professional and also knowing when to switch it up and create a fun environment. You should be able to plan professional or work-related events as well as fun party events and do it right without messing it up.
- Organization/ Time management: You need to be able to organize things in order to excel at community management. There will be many things happening at a time. Of course, you may not be the only one managing the community but you’ll have different tasks to handle and at the same time people from the community may reach out to you concerning one issue or another. How will you deal with all of these if you cannot organize things? You should be able to create schedules and follow through.
- Conflict Resolution and Mediation: in every society conflicts exist. People will have issues with one another or with something. It may be caused by anger or stress. The community you will be managing is not left out. When there are conflicts, you should be able to mediate between the parties involved and come to an agreement. You should also do it in a way that does not add more stress to the situation. Don’t be quick to criticize or blame one party, and you should also not take drastic measures without having a clear plan. Understanding the different parties will help more in conflict resolution.
Getting started
If you have read everything above and feel that community management is something you would love to do, here are some tips to get started:
- Read books and articles related to community management.
- Take a course or two related to it. Don’t take too many courses before feeling ready else you may fall into a procrastination loop.
- Talk to people already into community management. They already have an experience that you can learn from, so why not?
- Practice by starting small. You can manage a small WhatsApp community to get started or volunteer for some organizations.
- Follow community managers of different organizations and brands on social media platforms to learn from them.
What next?
After taking courses and practising with smaller communities, what next?
You start applying.
You can research organizations whose communities you would love to manage and apply to them.
Remember to not feel pressured to get a role immediately. Everything takes time and community management is part of it.
