The Internet and new media provides organizations with a never-seen-before opportunity to reach their users in a unique way. Two-way information exchange is becoming a great way to improve products, customer service and brand image. Portions of these are still controlled by traditional marketers, but much power is now held in the role of the community manager. A community manager is not a forum moderator or a content creator, but is someone that initiates, engages, represents, monitors, and inspires the relationship and enables a true two-way dialogue between the organization and users. This is the person that, to your existing users, represents your product or service. Read on for more!

Responsibilities of a Community Manager

Initiate. A community is useless without members, but sometimes it is difficult to grow to an acceptable size, where members openly expressive their desires. For this reason it is essential that community managers provide easy tools and incentives for these product/service users to join and participate. One of the biggest problems with communities is breaking in a new member – be it a forum, showcase, or anything else. Make it easy to break down barriers by encouraging the welcoming of newcomers. Similarly, offer various avenues of contributing to the community. Not everyone uses Twitter or Facebook and not everyone enjoys company-sponsored forums – offer variety, but keep it organized and keep the message consistent!

Engage. Once users are participating in open dialogue it is crucial to engage them in order to keep the community strong. Recognition of top contributors, news items, unique opportunities, special events, guest commentary and thoughtful discussion are great ways to engage your following. Do not underestimate the power of real-life events!

Represent. The community manager, in the end, is still a company employee and therefore must ensure that a consistent and truthful message is being presented. Alternatively, the community manager is in the best position to represent the demands and wishes of the community itself. These potentially conflicting viewpoints may be difficult to deal with, but a skilled community manager will create great value by merging goals.

Monitor. It is the inputs of the community that offer value back to the organization. If these inputs are lost, are unorganized or are just ignored, the community offers no direct value to the company. Additionally, rewarding top/consistent contributors, asking members to volunteer usage data, and tracking what changes will be made by product developers makes communicating far easier.

Inspire. If the community is involved in a self-created discussion about a feature they wish to see, inspire your product development team to implement it – if realistic, of course! On the other side, showcase some professional creations using your products to inspire creativity among the members. I have largely been avoiding examples in this post, but Nikon is huge on showcasing the works created by both professionals and amateurs using their cameras. This offers a great way to demonstrate the capabilities of the product.

Who Needs a Community Manager?

Broad or niche, your users can most likely benefit from having an online community, but at which point do you need to consider hiring a DEDICATED community manager? If you already have a community developed, at least in part, but are constantly held back by other requirements, it is time to hire one! I have read far too many articles on organization-based communities that have failed due to time constraints. Many firms blend community manager with marketing, PR or administrative duties and this just does NOT work on most scales. It is easy to assume that the community will run itself, but if someone is not engaging two-way communication the value the community offers is completely lost.

Think of the role of community manager as a major player in your research and development department – typically the largest budgetary item at any product-based firm. A dedicated and diverse community can offer amazing insights into what your existing customer base wants to see in future iterations, something that three-hour focus groups cannot always do.

Successful community managers do not only need communication skills, they need to be technically savvy, business-oriented and truly care about the products they are engaged upon. These are the people engaging with your current customer base, so it is no time to cheap out! Community managers can truly help you realize your value and improve your offerings.

There are many organizations that have been establishing their own communities online. These branded online communities allow your customers to connect and discuss related topics with each other. These communities include, but are not limited to, support forums, wikis, message boards, and even product showcases. Support forums, wikis and message boards generally serve as a way for your customers to fix problems themselves using advice from community members whereas product showcases are more focused with the showing off a given product or service. With the cost of creating these communities decreasing and the willingness of consumers to share their experiences online the question must be asked – are branded online communities really necessary?

In short, it depends on the organization and the product offered. If your main product offering is refrigerators what extra value would a branded online community offer to consumers? It is unlikely that your average customer would go online for support when it comes to fixing a problem, thus making forums, wikis and message boards largely useless. However, if you consider the idea that kitchens are a focal point in a home, what if you allowed customers to showcase not only your product but their entire kitchen by giving them the ability to upload images to a branded community? From there, if users do in-fact contribute, this can lead to the possibility of forums where consumers of your refrigerators can discuss the broader subject, kitchen renovations. These members, while discussing a broader topic, will feel a connection with your brand and from there will probably be more likely to recommend your brand to potential customers.