Hey dude, you need a community manager!

Who doesn’t like a thriving community of like-minded customers discussing interests, products and most importantly, your brand? But does this community manage itself? Of course not, most likely there’s a smart manager who may be steering all this interaction. Here’s some instances to help you see why you need this manager.

Instance 1: Knowing nothing

You probably assumed that a business gets its social network designed, developed and would leave it on its own to flourish, thinking people would find things to interest them all by themselves, leaving deep engagement to chance.

But the reality is that like everything else in life, more than your original product or service, what matters is how you sell it and how to maintain it.

Managing a social network invites understanding of social sciences, psychology, design, communication and an ardent interest in the common interest that people share in a particular social network.

Instance 2: Knowing little

A 15-year-old community manager for a video gaming social network was just doing fine. He was delighted to be doing a dream job around something he was inherently passionate about. One fine day he lost his job because he couldn't answer these questions:
 / Is your community doing better than last month?
 / Is your community healthier?
 / Are members happier?
 / Has your community grown?
 / Do members feel a strong sense of community?

It was made tougher for him with these questions:
 / How are you doing as a community manager?
 / Can you prove you have increased the ROI of community?
 / Can you prove you have grown membership, gotten members more engaged, boosted a sense of community?
 / Can you prove you are a valuable asset instead of a wasteful expense?

Online community management role is fast moving from amateur wilderness into the professional mainstream. We need to get professional about it. Not a single community manager who has lost a job recently can tell you what his own ROI was.

So, who's a community manager?
We believe a community manager is the biggest champion in driving a social network or a community forward, making sure it is growing and it stays relevant to the business sponsoring it.

In a nutshell, here’s what he does -
He is wise enough to understand which responsibility to be given more importance at a given time. Amount of time spent on each component varies by the stage of growth a community is in.

Data: A community manager's best weapon

Sometimes what you do just happens to work. Sometimes it doesn't. You simply have no way of knowing. Without mastering data, you are simply working in the dark.
 / Without data, you are not a professional.
 / Without data, you will never become better than you are right now.
 / Without data, you can't optimize your activities.
 / Without data, you can't probably develop your community.

So, hey dude, you need a community manager, who is friends with data.