A day in the life of a Community Manager
Community roles are still developing, and that’s a blessing and a curse. On one hand, there are probably people in your life (or on your team) wondering what you do all day. On the other hand, you have the opportunity to define your role and shape your work in various ways — the sky is the limit.
Regardless, you’ll always get the question, “What do you do all day!?” Well, every day is different, and that is one of the best parts of the job. So maybe a better question is, “What could your job look like on any given day?” Here is one version of my work schedule intended for someone wondering what a career in community management could look like, or someone wondering what their team member spends their time on. This could also be a handy outline for someone considering hiring a community manager and wondering what their day to day may look like. Of course, every community has different needs, but here’s a quick rundown of what it looks like to manage the Venwise community on an average day.
6:30–7:00 AM: Wake up for your morning routine
As community people, we spend a lot of our energy supporting others and can often feel depleted by the day’s end. It is something that’s always been tough on me, but starting my morning taking a moment for myself has made a massive impact on my ability to support others.
Everyone’s morning routine varies slightly to fit their personal needs, but the goal is to begin the day actively considering your needs. Once you solidify your own health, you can more effectively take care of others.
My morning routine consists of balancing my mental and physical health: I meditate and journal, followed by some stretching, a good breakfast and some cleaning around the house. A clear room gives me a clear mind. Then, I’m ready to dive in.
9:00–10:00 AM: Tapping into the Community Community
For years, I’ve joined calls with a wide range of community builders and managers, who vary from my peers to strangers, younger people and more senior ones. It’s proved to be the best way for me to learn and stay creative. It’s also a great way to build a network. When I’m up against a difficult problem, I know I can tap into my community community. Considering “community” isn’t something you study in school and the resources are still pretty limiting — having this network is key.
Recently, I started devoting several mornings a week to paid coaching sessions, and I’ve been loving it! It allows me to simultaneously continue connecting with others while making sure I adequately value my time.
10:00 AM: Time to kick off the work day
It’s too easy to kick off your day by diving right in and answering all the Slack notifications or emails, but it is important to pause, compile a to-do list and then start checking off tasks in an organized fashion. I do take a moment to check Slack and read through emails, only responding to the ones that require immediate attention or will help me accomplish tasks later that same day. Otherwise, I try to hold off until I have time and bandwidth to fully dive in.
This highlights one of the trickiest parts of the job: balancing member support with building out the “product” of the community. I’ve found that making a to-do list ensures I block out time for both.
10:30 AM: Onboarding call with new community member
Regardless of the community you are building, it’s essential to find time to directly connect with your members. For us at Venwise, it starts with an onboarding call. This is a great opportunity to collect data, understand that member’s goals for joining the community, seek at least one way to add immediate value and ensure they understand my role and how to utilize it. I suggest a 15 minute call, and almost always end up speaking for closer to 30 minutes, so I block off half an hour on my end. The last few minutes are good for quick follow up tasks while the call is fresh in your mind ensuring that the member receives quick and accurate info and can both proceed to build momentum.
**An onboarding call may not be a fit for you- if that’s the case, figure out how you stay connected with your members so you have can have a consistent pulse on the community. In the community world, we call this “studying your people.”
12:00 PM: Team call
As the head of community at Venwise, I collect tons of seemingly random data points from our members, and need other data points in order to complete follow up tasks. Connecting with the team, exchanging information, and making sure we are all on the same page provides cohesive and complete service for our members. Depending on your company, and how the community supports your product, you may do this with your whole company or just your team. We are a team of four, and I interface with sales, new product development and account management, so a full team call is always helpful, especially while we are not together in the office.
Immediately following the group call, we are in sync and in a team mindset so it’s also a great for 1:1 team calls to follow up on to-do’s from the larger team call.
12:30 PM: Time to dive into those emails and slack notifications
This is your time to respond to all kinds of messages (including ones that have streamed in throughout the morning), or post new content. Many of these requests require some work (whether it’s intro emails, longer responses to questions, or reviewing and finding appropriate resources. If a task can take a few seconds, I do it. If it’ll take longer, I add it to an Asana list I tackle later in the day.
Since our community is still new to Slack (we’ve really only been using it actively for 6 months), I take time to help people navigate the app, which includes anything from ensuring they re-post in the correct channel, to helping them re-frame their ask to yield better results. I also make sure to look through member posts and see if there is a way for me to be helpful, or if I know there is another member who might have answers. If that’s the case, I’ll ping the other member and urge them to respond to the chat.
1:00 PM: Current member call
I’m generally in touch with our members over Slack, but there are times when it is helpful to hop on a call. A few reasons why this might happen are:
- It’s a member I didn’t meet during onboarding (usually because they onboarded before I joined)
- The member wants to have a full conversation about something that requires a bit more than exchanging messages (or they don’t want to discuss their question in writing)
- I’ve asked to speak with a member as part of my product discovery process
One big mistake community managers make is heavily focusing on engagement during onboarding, and then not staying in touch with members/customers once they are using their product. Great onboarding experiences are important, but strong engagement strategies are equally as important. If your onboarding is great, but your member experience is not, you’ll see a quick drop in retention (which lowers LTV and makes the onboarding experience a worse investment)
1:30 PM: Full stop break
By this time in the day, my head is spinning. This is my chance to take care of myself again. I make sure I’m accomplishing my goals without getting distracted. I eat a healthy lunch, move my body and reset for the rest of the day.
2:00 PM: Attending to requests I’ve received throughout the day
Requests constantly pop up. If I stopped my day every time a request came in, I’d go crazy and never get anything done. By keeping a running list in Asana, I’m able to focus on whatever I am doing throughout the morning and then knock them all out in one concerted effort.
If for example, I have a long list of introductions to make — I make a list of them, then open the tool I use for intros (Bridge) and bang them out one after the other. This allows me to use the right tool for the right task (which saves me time on the backend), and to stay in the same headspace.
2:30 PM: My “work block”
This is my chance to dive deeper into something I need to build or fix without disruption. Making time for the “work block” is one of my greatest challenges but without it, it would be impossible to scale our community from an infrastructure perspective. This includes many projects that range from reworking the onboarding process, planning an event, creating content, or building a process for an aspect of our community that is scaling.
4:00 PM: External Community Call
This could be a partnership call or a call to demo a new tool or product that could help me scale my work. A big part of expanding our community has been raising awareness about what we do, so developing partnerships is critical for us. Tools help to maximize our capacity and create connectivity that a human brain can’t handle alone. The community tool world is on fire these days, and staying on top of what exists is always helpful.
**a note on calls: they can take up your full day! One way I’ve managed my call schedule is by creating multiple Calendly links and adding slots based on the volume I can take on and the time of day the task makes most sense for.
4:30 PM: End of day logistics
In order to set myself up well for tomorrow, I need to close out the day in an organized manner. I make sure I’ve attended to all your slack notifications, emails, calendar invites to events and that I’ve followed up on member requests. I make a note of what didn’t get done, so I can incorporate it into your morning to-do list.
5:30 PM: Time to get to my “non work” work
Now that the work day is finished, I spend time on tasks that get lost in the hustle and bustle but are no less important! These may include writing blog posts (like this one), reading others blogs to continue learning, tending to my “hobby communities” or speaking to someone else who needs community help.
Again, every day looks different, but maintaining a steady routine helps to manage the countless little tasks that pile up, develop important tools that too often get overshadowed by more urgent tasks and most importantly, maintain my own health in order to support my community most effectively.
I hope you found this helpful! If you’re a community manager working to organize your time, or you’re a founder/manager looking to hire a community manager — I’m here to help. Feel free to schedule time to chat here.
