5 Key Characteristics Every Social Media Community Manager Should Have

What are a community manager’s roles and responsibilities?

1) Sets Up and Manages Profiles

Nothing makes your company look like it doesn’t care like half-filled in, out of date employee and company pages on LinkedIn or Facebook. This involves setting up the content within our social media publishing tool, but just transfer this step to whatever tool you use -- and ensuring profiles are standardized and present the company in a professional light.

2) Listens to the Buzz

A good community manager should listen to the buzz already online -- finding out what groups your target audience is joining on LinkedIn, for example, and who they’re following on Twitter. What are they talking about? Who are your rivals? What are they interested in? When are they most likely to read a tweet, or an update? Are they aware of your brand? Who are the key influencers within your industry who you should develop a long lasting relationship with?
Community managers should also investigate the various social media automation tools available, and stay up to date with technology, marketing, and industry news.

3) Grows the Network

A good community manager should then grow your networks by engaging every day online (via forums and owned communities) and offline (via events, conferences, and meet ups). They should also, of course, craft status updates, posts, and tweets -- because like most of your other marketing channels, social media also depends on sharing excellent content.
They should also increase your Facebook fans and quality Twitter and LinkedIn contacts. Quantity is important to establish reach, but your community manager should also focus on creating a larger base of high quality social media fans and followers. A thousand Facebook friends from the wrong industry may not be as valuable as 20 very influential friends with the right connections.

4) Distributes Content

Your community manager should promote your blog and website content to your network. They should help your company foster meaningful business discussions that will allow you to reach your target audience and gain more clients. It’s about dialogues, not monologues.
This should include blogger outreach, too -- finding the right person to get to know and ask for guest blogging opportunities. You could also consider reaching out to the publications, forums, and Q&A sites your target audience uses.

5) Joins the Conversation

This involves replying to online questions and comments immediately, giving your brand a face, and creating a relationship with prospects. The community manager should represent the client's voice, but should also be able to get their individual personality across. Especially in blogger outreach, conversation should come naturally to them -- they shouldn't be struggling to find a voice when contacting strangers.

Don't forget to subscribe to my blog!