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by Vincent Boon on 31 Jul 2018

Community Job Descriptions: Community Manager

Standing on Giants Contact

The roles that are described in this series are an example of a team structure for a large and mature community and can be expanded on, depending on the specific needs of the company.

Generally we would expect large Community teams to be structured using the following roles:

Head of Community

Community Manager

Community Coordinator

The first two roles have a strategic focus and are the business interface between the community and the company. The Community Manager and Community Coordinator roles have a more detailed view of their workload.

Please click on each of the links above to view the different Community Manager Job descriptions. On this page, we’re taking a closer look at the Community Manager role.

Community Manager – Job Description

Responsible for the day-to-day running of a Community, including management of a team of Community Coordinators.

Reports to:

  • Head of Community

Responsible for / involved in:

  • Managing a team of Community Coordinators on a day-to-day basis. Setting work rotas, assigning projects, monitoring and mentoring.
  • Ensuring that the Community is following the direction set by the Head of Community.
  • Arranging on-going Community Coordinator training and development.
  • Monitoring the sentiment of the Community
  • Regular reporting of Community sentiment and agreed KPIs to Head of Community.
  • Active participation in recruitment of Community Coordinators
  • Active participation in selection of Super-Users, Ideas Manager, Knowledge Base Manager
  • Collaboration with Community Coordinator in Community member suspension decisions.
  • Act as ‘critical friend’ to Community Coordinators
  • At a practical level, acts as the Community interface with Marketing, Social Media, R&D, Public Relations etc.
  • Receiving guidance from the Head of Community and ensuring the Community is following the correct strategic direction.

Below is a breakdown of work carried out by a Community Manager, operating in a full time capacity. (usually operating in a team of Community Managers)

Forum Community:

Forums: Active Discussion Management and Monitoring

  • Reading (Forum monitoring – sentiment, issue specific, business requests, checking Community Coordinators)
  • Discussion posting and management (depending on service/product launches/issues of the week.  Includes general posting as well as specific discussion (e.g. pre-prepared content).
  • User Generated Content Management (Collaboration Projects)

Private/Direct Messages:  

  • Community / Highly Engaged Member engagement
  • Positive reinforcement
  • Issue management
  • Project work
  • Discussion support

CS support/Outages/Service:

  • Escalating and mediating extreme, technical or account based forum queries
  • Service issue management (some of this is accounted for in issue management PMs above)

Meetings, Team Management and Training:

  • Meetings (Company and Team)
  • Team Project Management
  • Training
  • Day to day Community Coordinator help
  • Mentoring
  • Out of Hours team support – (arising issues, queries on evenings/weekends)

Coordinator Tasks / Projects:

  • Workload Reporting
  • Community Coordinator Training and Process Documentation
  • Community Coordinator process improvement (eg Community Coordinators <-> Ops/CS
  • improvements)
  • Knowledge Base
  • Database improvement / community reporting
  • Recruitment

I really hope this helps you if you’re in need! We’ll next look at the entry level role in our series – The Community Coordinator role. Don’t hesitate to get in touch to talk about your community, or take a look at our solutions page to find out more about what we do.