Online Community Manager

ledgesquared

Hi there,

I am going to be putting a website together for a recreational / lifestyle company and we're hoping to have a good forum element to increase the users interaction with the site and hopefully attract more traffic / general attention.

I ran the idea by some people and they informed me that for a site of the size that we're hoping to launch we will need a community manager for a number of reasons: to perform routine administration, keep information fresh and updated, answer customer queries, ensure proper connectivity to social media, etc.

http://www.aimclearblog.com/2009/04/05/social-media-community-manager-job-description/

The link above was very helpful in clearing up what the role is but I would appreciate your opinions on the necessity of this position. It sounds like an important function but is it really a full time job? I'd especially like to get the opinions of some of the moderators of this site - what has your experience been? Also how much should a small start up company expect to pay for a full time community manager?

Thanks for your help!

BuffyBot

At least initially, it's unlikely to be a full time position, though it is somewhat crucial as a function. As for salary - well that will vary.

Do be careful though, there are a lot of "community managers" out there right now, with absolutely sod all experience. One person who has used Twitter and Facebook a bit does not a community manager make.

You should probably join http://www.e-mint.org.uk/ and ask the professionals for more advice, and possibly make some contacts.

RedXIV

I have a friend who does that full time and the best advice I can give you is get someone with customer support experience. You need patience and the ability to come across well through text and as said above, someone who spends all their time on Facebook and Twitter is not necessarily a great person to hire. While they are certainly two growing forms of interaction, the communication ethos is different from forum moderation.

Just my 2c as someone with a friend in the biz

r3nu4l

In the first instance you will need the community manager to help you set policy, and develop a userbase growth strategy. The next step would be to implement the tactics necessary to bring the strategy to fruition. If you have ambitious growth targets then a community manager would be essential.

If you have commercial targets for advertising revenue, promotional partnerships etc then the community manager would be essential there too. I would imagine that it would be a full-time role but that you would find it difficult to actually 'see' the worth of any salary paid for at least a couple of months. That's not saying it would not be worth it, just that any measurable output would be difficult to see.

Without a doubt, over time, if you have forums, someone will threaten to sue you. This is where community managers can help resolve the problem before it reaches the courtroom stage.

However, if the site does not grow or grows too slowly then you might find it hard to justify having a community manager in place. I would recommend rolling contracts if you can get away with them, at least until the community is established or on a continuous growth curve over a defined period.

SerialComplaint

Is there any real, realistic chance of creating a lively and vivid online forum in your sector? The vast majority of forums I see have virtual tumbleweed blowing across the screen. Why would somebody be active on your forum over a period of time as opposed to one of the existing forums or a facebook group.

I'd have thought that your chances of creating a vibrant and active forum are very low, so I wouldn't be thinking about employing somebody.

ledgesquared

Apologies for the late reply but thanks for the input. There were some good points to take onboard.

@SerialComplaint - I know exactly what you mean. If anything a site with an empty forum can be a real negative as well. We see the forum as a good way to keep people's attention on the site - checking for new content etc. It's for this reason that we were looking into a moderator to keep it ticking along and keep that interest there.

@RedXIV - I completely agree. It's striking a balance that we'll be hoping for.

@r3nu4l + BuffyBot - I don' think we'll be employing anyone from the start. We have the know how to put everything together and manage it for the first few weeks / months. After that we'll take stock and see what needs to be done. Rolling contracts is a good idea but one question I would have is how to go about actually get in touch with potential managers? What would the best place be to advertise the position? Clearly I believe that in 3 - 4 months we will be taking this step, and I'd like to have an idea of how to go about it.

Again thanks for your help.

BuffyBot

Advertising - try the e-mint list for one as there is a large weighting towards European based folks, thecommunityguy.com has a jobs board (but you're likely to get a host of US based folks reading that, so unless you're allowing remote working, it may not be what you need. community-roundtable.com - ditto.