Where to find community managers in your organisation
Getting more of your team involved in social media activity is a great way of extending your reach. It’s also essential for engaging with your community and fielding enquiries. But what skills and traits should you look for to find the community managers in your organisation?
If you’re serious about growth then you need to make the experience and knowledge of your best people available to your inbound marketing. So what do you need to look for?
A person with insight
It’s not just about being opinionated – though that’s a start. You need to people who have an understanding of your market and the customer’s world. But what you really need is people who have an opinion about those things based on experience and understanding. Insight is more than just knowledge, it’s usable information.
If you can find people with insight, they can provide comment and a point of view about the news in your space. Really valuable for social media participation (and content creation).
Good written communicator
Remember what I said about being opinionated? It’s a start but your social media representatives need to be able to control themselves, to see the bigger picture. They need to be good with the written word. They need to be able to get their point across. They need to be succinct.
They’re going to represent your business and will be the first contact some prospects have with it. Don’t expect them to use a homogenised company-speak or try put everything they want to post through an onerous approval process – especially for social media responses. But you do need to know that they feel some responsibility and know how to conduct themselves.
Emotional intelligence
Perhaps it’s as simple as not behaving like an idiot. Maybe it’s about empathy and nurturing. Good community managers, having spent time in their communities, build up an understanding of their networks.
It’s very possible that they’re going to occasionally need to deal with conflict or criticism. Doing so in a positive way requires a fair amount of perspective and sensitivity. It definitely needs someone with a thick skin.
Passion
Are their people in your team who have genuine passion for your organisation, their area of expertise and their community? You probably already cherish them. I bet they already have a lot on their plate?
Aligning your business with purpose and passion is generally a very powerful thing. For social media and engaging with the outside world, it’s a real must-have.
Inventiveness and flexibility
Sometimes in social media you work with what you have and spin out an interesting angle to a trending story. That takes a little creativity and lateral thinking. It also means that sometimes you need to deviate from the pre-planned content.
Do they have a streak of curiosity?
No-one can be sure what will and won’t work in social media. Which topics engage and which ones sink like a stone is specific to time, place and organisation. Community managers need to be inquisitive and interested in trying new things and finding out what works. But they need to know that what works is likely to change over time.
If you’re asking yourself where to find community managers in your organisation think about how people measure up to these traits and skills.
