Why you need a Community Manager

Your Business is Digital (whether you like it or not)

Your customer’s first point of contact is not your sales force, nor is it in person. If we take a quick look at the purchase funnel model, we find the first three interactions with your company or brand are probably done without your input. In other words, consumers are gaining awareness, forming opinions, and choosing to do business with you online from the comfort of their chair.

Do you provide the digital bread crumbs for your customer to find you? To know you? To trust you? To buy from you? To communicate with you?

What is a Community Manager?

A community manager is someone who builds bridges or connection points between your company and customers through the use of content and communication. They use inbound marketing instead of or to complement traditional marketing. They work with others in your company to both grow business by adding to the sales funnel (above) and control costs by reducing information inertia.

What does a Community Manager do?

First and foremost, a community manager should provide solutions to help meet your strategic goals. Simply put, if the company needs more sales, then they find more customers with their digital toolbox and track conversions. If the company needs to reduce customer service costs, then the community manager creates several self-service platforms for your customers to get help. Digital and social communication can provide a boost to every company function.

Another way to view the roles of a community manager is to associate their functions with a few well-known personalities.

Celebrity	The community manager is the “face” of your company on all of the social outposts. You are seeking a Derek Jeter instead of Bob Knight here. Although your community manager should be well-known throughout your company and user community, the real spotlight should be on your customers.
Counselor	Sometimes you need to listen. Other times you will need to referee, provide answers, give and take suggestions, deflect some heat, be the voice of reason, or be the shoulder to cry on. Each situation is unique but you have the Midas touch.
Evangelist	Guy Kawasaki was an Apple Evangelist. He touted, raved, and made you love their products. A community manager is this type of natural pitchman. (After all, he is still talking about Apple’s greatness decades later!)
Politician	Great politicians do one thing well — they energize a tribe around a common good or higher purpose. Community managers find and organize your business tribe.
Expert	Your community manager knows your business, products, community, and competitors. They are subject matter experts for your products or at the very least know where to quickly find them.

Considering a community manager is involved deeply with your business and customers, the question of whether to outsource this position is a definitive no.

Next Steps

The next step is to define the strategic goals of the company that need a community manager. Set the direction and performance indicators to measure. From that point it is easier to determine what skill set and personality to hire.

photos: Keith Allison, greggoconnell, Robert Scoble, mediajorgenyc, mansionwb