What exactly does a community manager do every day? I’ve noticed that a lot of startups and even big companies hire community managers, but their job descriptions often feel vague or undefined.
Can anyone break it down? What are the main responsibilities, daily tasks, and expectations for community managers?
I'd love to hear insights from the pros!
Member • 4mos
I agree that community management job descriptions are vague. It's because community management involves an overlap of multiple duties and responsibilities.
As a community professional with experience of working with enterprises and startups; here's what I do almost on daily basis.
I engage with community by replying to comments, direct messages (DMs) and even on social media. I actively find new topics or pain-points to create new conversations and make sure that they align with our business goals.
All my efforts are logged-in so that I can keep track of the conversations that resonate better with our members.
I create posts, creatives, graphics and even videos to encourage interaction. Now with AI-tools, video and image creation has become easier; but you still need to be very creative.
Crafting newsletters is another task I undertake monthly. It's turning out to be more challenging than I thought. But I'm enjoying it. No complaints!
I am on the moderating team of a large community. Our community attracts spam and trollers every day. It's our job to keep our community free of spam, trollers and build a positive environment.
Sending warning to users and sometimes banning them - are a part of my job that I do not enjoy much.
As a community manager, it's my job to keep an eye on the latest trends in the community-world. As a part of my job, I gather feedback from our community members. You cannot build a thriving community if you do not listen to your users.
Keeping community active is always a challenge. I love organizing events, challenges for members and campaigns to boost engagement. We recently experimented with Reddit-style 'AMA' sessions with micro-influencers in our niche. It turned out to be a banger!
Community management is a multi-faceted role. You have to balance between building trust, encouraging engagement, supporting members and ensuring that the community keeps growing.
My advice to you is to discuss the responsibilities and set clear expectations before you accept any community management role. Be prepared to wear multiple hats. All the best!
Community Administrator • 4mos
Excellent, Paula! I'd like to point to a few articles and discussions relevant to the topic:
These discussions will give you an insight on what community managers have to deal with on daily basis. I hope it helps. Happy to answer any questions you may have.
Community Administrator • 3w
Update: I had an opportunity to discuss the tasks and responsibilities of a community manager with a SaaS company. I made a few suggestions to them. These are based on my experience in running large-scale online communities for the past 18 years.
A community manager wears many hats. The role aways centers around one thing: building relationships - between members and between the brand and its audience.
Community managers spend time ensuring that the new members feel at home and welcomed in the community. They send personal messages to the new users, tag them in relevant discussions and motivate them by liking their content. We have a discussion about this topic: best ways to onboard a new community member
Beyond the day-to-day engagement, a community manager has to think long-term. This would mean defining and refining community goals, set community KPI like monthly member growth rate, engagement, content creation etc.
Community is not just a support function. It drives product feedback, brand advocacy and SEO
An underrated part of the job is being the community's voice within the company. This means, the community manager shares the community insights with the stakeholders - founders, marketing and sales team and even the customer success teams.
Managing tools like moderation software, analytics dashboard or community platforms (like Jatra ;) ) is a part of a community manager's job. They often experiment and test new tools.
In short, a community manager is a connector, strategist, and caretaker.
Founder • 2w
Here's an interesting discussion that Paula has created: Can AI replace community managers?. If you are looking for insights from fellow community managers, do go through it.
