Communities are important to the success of any project, product, and solution especially in the online space. Community managers play the crucial role of managing communities, ensuring stability and growth, involvement, and satisfaction for the majority of members. This important career is in high demand these days, and whether you are just starting out or have some experience as a community manager, you can gain a wealth of skills and leverage various technologies to bring your passion for nurturing communities to this field.
The increase in online communities has increased the demand for competent, knowledgeable, and efficient community managers to help brands reach their goals. In this guide, you'll learn how to become a community manager, no matter your professional background or experience, and find jobs in your niche.
Who is a Community Manager?
A community manager is a professional tasked with building, growing, and engaging communities, which could be offline or online and are focused on a variety of niches or topics such as common interests, brands, causes, products, services, etc. Community managers are responsible for helping brands and clients to achieve their goals through community engagement. To do these, they play vital roles and perform specific functions.
Roles and Key Responsibilities of a Community Manager
As a community manager, some of the roles you’ll be expected to play are:
- Moderation: as a moderator, you’ll manage discussions within the group, ensuring that everyone has a safe and secure space to speak and listen. Although moderation is a broad skill, you may need to learn the specific requirements of your brand and align community discussions to meet such.
- Creating and sharing content: community managers often have to generate content for their communities to pass information or to stimulate and maintain activity. You may have a content team to work with, but you should also be able to create basic graphic designs and clear content.
- Organizing and hosting events: Community moderators also organize and host events within the communities and collaborate with other communities to co-host events. You’ll plan the schedule, reach out to speakers, and moderate or delegate tasks.
- Collaborating with development teams: you’ll sometimes work with developers to ensure that community feedback is adopted and deployed. You’ll be the bridge connecting community members with the backend team to ensure a smooth flow of the community.
- Promoting and advocating for communities: you may also work with marketing teams or work alone to promote and advocate for your community online. This may take various forms, such as online campaigns, garnering votes, or reaching out with proposals to leverage your community to build partnerships with brands.
- Developing and implementing growth strategies: your community growth strategies may change as the members and focus change, so you’ll have to step up and work on developing and implementing new strategies to keep positive growth.
You may have to take on more roles or tasks as you work. Make sure you have a defined job description before signing contracts so you know your job boundaries with your team. But don't be afraid to step up to more responsibilities; that’s how you grow!
The Basics of Community Management
If you have experience working with a group, such as your close friends and work colleagues, you can transfer those skills to community management. But whatever your experience, here’s what to know as you manage your community.
- Define your community: The first step is to define your community by the common goal. This will help you streamline your strategies and get the right community members. For example, a free web3 learning community could include anyone, but a premium community for DeFi calls may not include everyone.
- Create an inclusive and relaxed atmosphere: Your communities will only thrive in a conducive atmosphere, and that’s your next task. Start by laying ground rules that members must accept to abide by before they can participate in the group. Stick with the rules and show no biases. Ensure there is a clear line for escalating issues.
- Engage your community: Community engagement is your primary duty as a community manager. Ensure you engage your members daily through posts and various activities such as trivia, Q&A, and other activities you can think of.
- Provide value: Your members must have something unique and valuable to keep them rooted in your community. You may be managing a group with similar interests to others, but providing value will keep members satisfied.
- Promote and grow your community: Always seek opportunities to grow and develop your community. Share useful resources and encourage the sharing of knowledge in line with the community rules and values. Also, advocate for your community members to get discounts and deals on purchases or premium services.
- Protect your community from threats: Online communities are targets for unscrupulous users looking to breach and steal data for various reasons. You are a line of defense for your community, so ensure to put everyone in line with the security measures, such as discouraging and banning people who consistently share suspicious external links and warning against identity theft and phishing messages.
- Stay consistent and responsive: Provide answers for every question related to the brand/topic/interest. Never direct community members to other communities unless permitted by your employers or as part of your job description. Ensure you respond to queries within the hour or before the day ends. Also, post links to FAQ sections where members can find answers.
- Be flexible: Community management requires flexibility to deal with situations as they arise. Sometimes, you may need to be creative when solving an issue or organizing events. Flexibility allows you to take anything in your stride and meet up with targets.
You can learn all of these within a few weeks. Find resources online and start studying to become a community manager. If you need to learn how to use certain tools, check YouTube for walkthrough videos to guide you.
Community Manager for Web3
Web3 community management is focused on maximizing web3 communities through decentralized applications, blockchain, and cryptocurrencies. Web3 community managers help members to identify and interact with web3 projects, leading various responsibilities such as content creation, virtual meetings and AMAs (ask me anything), brand evangelism, onboarding, communication, support, education, and partnerships, among others.
Web3 Community Management Skills and Tools
These are some of the skills and tools you need to become a successful web3 community manager.
Skills
- Strong understanding of web3.
- Excellent communication and writing skills.
- Analytical skills
- Conflict resolution/mediation/
- People-management skills.
- Interpersonal skills to build and maintain relationships.
- Experience with social media management and moderation.
- Experience with event planning and community engagement.
- Remote working experience.
- Confidence in leading people.
Some clients may request that potential candidates have specific skills and qualifications, such as:
- A degree in communication or relevant fields.
- Working experience with specific software and tools, such as Trello or Slack.
- Specific experience working in a particular niche or sub-niche.
- Marketing and sales skills.
Tools
- Social media management tools: Hootsuite and Sprout Social are useful to help you manage your social media accounts and track engagement across your communities. You may also need to learn how various social media platforms work so you can get the best from them.
- Customer relationship management (CRM) software: these tools are useful for tracking community engagement and interactions. They are also used for funneling members to other groups and platforms.
- Community management platforms: Discord and Geneva are examples of excellent management platforms with features that help managers perform various tasks. Most of these features are not available on the major social media platforms.
Thankfully, these tools are not too complex to learn; you can spend a weekend learning how to use them effectively.
Community Manager Courses And Books
There are many resources online that help interested persons become competent community managers. These range from free to paid courses, videos with practical tips, and formally structured learning programs. Some of the top community manager courses are available on LinkedIn, Coursera, Udemy, and other online learning platforms. Some brands also offer in-house community management training for staff and may provide access to further learning. Hubspot and Hootsuite learning programs are also worthy mentions. Note that most social media marketing and management courses provide solid foundations for community management.
How to find Community Management Jobs
There are many ways to find web3 community manager jobs. You should explore platforms such as Community Manager Job List in Remote3, LinkedIn, and Indeed. Social media platforms are also an excellent choice. Here are some tips to help you:
- Build an online presence: Be consistent in putting yourself out there on social media and other online platforms. Find related community management topics and contribute to them. Show up and give value and build connections alongside.
- Volunteer: You can reach out to new or existing communities and volunteer your services. This will help you gain more specific and related work experience and build professional relationships with clients.
- Cold calling/emailing: You can also reach out to startups and brands looking to build communities and pitch your services. You typically need proof of your experience, but don’t be discouraged if you are just starting.
- Create an impressive but job-tailored resume: Your resume should be tailored to fit the jobs you apply for. This is an important aspect of the job application process that you must take seriously. Let your potential employers gain clear knowledge of your skills just by looking at your resume. Use AI to help you write a resume. Check this 10 Best AI Resume Builders.
- Create your community: Why not? You can start a community around an interest and go ahead practicing your management skills. This is an effective way to become a web3 community manager in 2023. Your community can become your asset when you can get marketing gigs based on their size, influence, and engagement.
Finally, keep improving your knowledge and skills. A community manager with web3 marketing skills may find better-paying jobs. Target a minimum of ten daily job applications to increase your chances of landing a paying community manager job.
Community Manager Salary
Web3 community managers make an average annual salary of $65k; the range is typically from $30k to $180k based on experience and level. But salaries also vary from one country or major city to another.
- In Africa, community managers make between $22k to $30k.
- In Asia, the rate is between $30k to $100k annually.
- In Europe, community managers earn between $40k to $101k annually.
- In North America, the rate is between $67k to $150k annually.
- In South America, the rate is much lower at between $30k to $100k annually.
These figures are approximates; salaries may be lower or higher depending on many factors. For instance, community managers in developing countries may be paid far lower salaries when hired by local brands.
Conclusion
Web3 community managers are in high demand thanks to the growth of web3 and blockchain-based solutions. You can learn community management and start earning even before the year ends. There are tons of resources to help you learn web3, social media management tools, and other soft skills that you need.
FAQ
How do I start being a community manager?
You can become a community manager by getting a business, marketing, communications degree, or a related degree. You can also get certified through some of the top courses and training available online.
What experience do you need to be a community manager?
Most employers ask for a minimum of one year experience working as a community manager, or in sales, marketing, and communication roles. You can start your community management career with no experience.
What does a community manager do?
A community manager serves as the link between brands and their audience. They represent brands to communities and help communities engage the products and services of brands for mutual benefits.
What skills do you need to be a community manager?
Some of the skills you need as a community manager include: excellent communication skills, organizational and project management skills, interpersonal skills, analytical ability, market research skills, adaptability, and engagement skills. You should also have some blockchain and cryptocurrency knowledge for web3 community management.
