Is Community Building a Skill?

Emma Goel

Emma Goel

@aTfJ1zb
Updated: Apr 20, 2025
Views: 398

Hi team! I’m new to Jatra - joined after a friend recommended this space. I’ve spent the last 7 years as a social media manager, focused on content creation, follower engagement, and running paid campaigns.

Lately, I’ve been exploring community building, and it feels quite different from social media work. Is it a skill on its own? Or just an extension of what I already know? Would love to hear your thoughts!

Replies

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  • Kaustubh Katdare

    Kaustubh Katdare

    @kaustubh-katdare Apr 17, 2025

    Yes, community building is a skill. It is a combination of about 21 different skills blended together to create spaces for humans to interact.

    While community building as a skill overlaps with social media in areas like engagement and communication, it goes much deeper. A good community builder creates space for others to connect, not just with the brand; but with each other. It requires a different mindset, toolset and a set of goals.

    In social media, the focus is usually on broadcasting information. It requires creating content that reaches wider audience and drives likes, shares or conversations. It's more top-down.

    Community building, on the other hand, is about nurturing bottom-up conversations. You are helping members build relationships, share knowledge and feeel a sense of belonging.

    Community building requires long-term thinking. You are not just optimising for the next post, you are investing in trust, culture and shared puprose. That means understanding member behavior, designing onboarding paths, managing conflict and sometimes stepping back so that others can lead.

    A background in social media management will definitely give you a head start. But building a strong community will stretch you in new ways.

    Community building is an essential and evolving skill in the world of digital marketing and customer success.

    We have some excellent discussions on this topic:

    1. Essential Community Building Skills
    2. Top Skills for Community Builders
    3. Community Building Activities
    4. Negative aspect of community building

    I hope you will find these discussions and articles useful. If you have quesitons, feel free to post below.

  • Emma Goel

    Emma Goel

    @aTfJ1zb Apr 17, 2025

    Wow! That was fast and definitely very useful. Are there any courses that you'd recommend for someone starting fresh as a community manager?

  • Paul Mills

    Paul Mills

    @aL1PKCS Apr 17, 2025

    Community building is an important skill for every entrepreneur and marketer.

  • Kaustubh Katdare

    Kaustubh Katdare

    @kaustubh-katdare Apr 20, 2025

    Yes, Paul! Community building has become an important skill to grow a business or brand in the modern times. Online community building has become an important part of the marketing and customer success functions. We are building a lot of useful content around community building. Feel free to post your questions on Jatra.