Every brand, business, or organization needs a community manager. Until recently, it wasn't too much of a role. Businesses didn't see the need to hire a community manager but with the majority of businesses moving towards the "smart business" using the internet to market their products, the need for a community manager has become more than necessary. 

Who is a community manager? 

A community manager is in charge of a business or brand's community - building the community, nurturing the community members, and engaging them on various social media platforms. This already reveals the need for a community manager to be familiar with all of the social media platforms. The main responsibility of a community manager is to ensure that every customer or client closely belongs to the brand and feels like it, encourage discussions and concerns, and promote positive interactions within the community. They make sure that a brand or organization has an active social media presence. 

Essential skills needed for the Community Management role

Just like everyone needs a skill to perform very well in their roles, if you are looking to pull off the community manager role, you need these skills: 

You must be able to use social media platforms well

You will be spending a larger part of your time on social media. Most brands have an online presence on various social media platforms and it is expected that you know your way around each of them. Whether it is Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or TikTok, you must know how they work as this will help you adjust to your role and excel well. On the flip side, if you know how to use one and not the other, you can take yourself on a tour around it, and spend so much time on it, that it won't be long before you get the hang of it. 

You must be creative

Clients and customers following a brand's social media don't like to be bored, so a community manager must come up with creative initiatives to keep them engaged. It could be a poll on Instagram or a question tag on Instagram stories. A community manager can put up a tweet and ask people to share their opinions in the comment section or retweet. A community manager must always put on their thinking caps to ensure that community members enjoy following the brand. 

Excellent communication skills

A community manager will communicate with community members most of the time. Communication includes responding to the comments on every post and regardless of what the response may be, a community manager must be empathetic. Communication also requires that you have heard or listened actively to what a member/user has to say before sending in your response. This is very important as a community manager is always the face of the brand online. 

Content creation

If no one has told you, content creation is an essential skill for all community managers. A community manager can have the cause to make relevant videos and write articles or posts that the online community can find interesting. The videos can explain a product, how to use it, or what you stand to gain by using it in a certain way. The article must also be an engaging, interesting, yet educative one. Community members must be able to hold on to something even as they continue to be users of the products made by the brand. 

Versatility 

As a community manager, you may work in different organizations, requiring you to know how things work in every single place. You must be able to understand the needs, preferences, and behaviors of the community members in each brand that you work for. Also, you need to know how the organization wants you to engage the community members, just in case they have a special request. Another thing is the platform versatility; the way you engage the community members on Twitter may not be the same way you do with the Instagram communities. 

Common Platforms for All Community Managers

If you are already a community manager or an intending one, here are common social platforms that allow you to perform your role to the fullest: 

• Facebook

• Twitter

• Instagram

• TikTok

• Substack

• Reddit

• LinkedIn

• YouTube

• Quora

• Mailing List

• Telegram

• Whatsapp

Although there are several social platforms, you will find community members mostly on the platforms listed above. 

Tools that can aid your productivity as a community manager

To successfully pull off your community manager role, productivity is important, and here are a few tools that can help you: 

• Google Analytics: This tool helps you to see how much work you have done. It provides data about the performance of your website or social media page. You can see how many people engaged with your content, viewed your page, and spent some time on it. It can also help you to set better goals considering what the data is saying. 

• TweetDeck: If you are in charge of a brand's Twitter profile, you can always monitor the conversation around a certain tweet made by your brand. Topics, trends, and individual hashtags can also be tracked using TweetDeck. 

• Slack: Slack is a collaboration tool that allows you to create topics using different channels. While community managers can engage members publicly, they can also add some channels to discuss more vital topics that are exclusive to them. 

• Google Drive: Ideas come up anything and even after they have been executed, they need proper storage. You can upload content ideas in Google Drive and update it as soon as you have new stuff to add to it. The point is to keep your content safe and free from intrusion. 

• Sprout social: Many times, you will need to schedule your posts on several platforms. While some platforms such as Instagram already have an in-built schedule feature, some do not. Sprout Social helps you schedule your posts and prioritize messages and comments on the platforms. 

How much would a community manager earn? 

While the salary of a community manager would depend on the brand they work for and their years of experience/level of expertise, Glassdoor still says that the average salary is about N283,000 per month. 

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