What Is a Community Manager? Job Description and Essential Skills

If you’re interested in marketing and love engaging directly with audiences, a community manager role could be a perfect fit. But community managers do a whole lot more than respond to comments and answer questions — they foster a sense of belonging and community among users and fans, strengthening brand loyalty and driving more meaningful engagement.

Let's take a closer look at the key responsibilities of a community manager.

What does a community manager do?

Community management goes beyond replying to comments or addressing user concerns. It's about creating relationships and engaging in meaningful conversations with an online audience. 

Before we can dive into what a community manager does, we need to cover the different approaches to community management. There's a helpful model for community management called the SPACES framework, which outlines the key areas of focus for this role:

• Support: Guiding user discussions, answering questions, and encouraging peer support
• Product: Gathering feedback and tracking product-related conversations
• Acquisition: Recruiting ambassadors and managing referral programs
• Contribution: Encouraging and managing user-generated content
• Engagement: Fostering community connections and hosting events
• Success: Providing resources and guidance to help community members succeed

You can see that some community management roles look more like customer service, while other look more like marketing strategy.

In general, community management is a people-facing role that deals with customers, followers, partners, and collaborators. When it sits within a social media team, community management most likely touches all of the above responsibilities, but is most focused on UGC, engagement, and customer success.

Here are some tasks of community managers on a social media team:

• Engage with users across platforms: Community managers are often the first point of contact when customers or followers interact with the brand. They answer questions, guide users toward solutions, and ensure audiences feel welcomed and heard. They usually do this via a social media management platform like Loomly, which has a unified inbox that allows them to manage interactions and engagements from one place.
• Moderate user-generated content: Community managers are responsible for keeping conversations respectful and constructive. This means moderating comments, removing inappropriate posts, and making sure posts and comments follow the community guidelines.
• Host events and discussions: To keep communities active, community managers sometimes organize online events like Q&A sessions, webinars, or contests. They might also contribute to in-person events.
• Gather feedback from the community: Community managers listen to their audience’s needs and concerns. They gather feedback and relay it to relevant teams, whether it’s about product improvements or issues with customer experience.

Community manager skills

Community managers are first and foremost communicators, but they must spin that skill into several forms. One minute they're empathetic listeners, the next they're data-crunching analysts. It takes a special kind of person to wrangle an online community and keep everyone happy.

So what skills do they need in their toolkit? Let's break it down:

• Communication: Whether they're calming an angry member or sparking a lively discussion, community managers need top-notch communication skills. They respond to everyone with clarity, warmth, and a little bit of charm.
• Conflict resolution: Heated debates and hurt feelings come with the territory on social media. Community managers have a secret superpower — the ability to de-escalate tricky situations and keep the peace.
• Creativity: Engagement doesn't happen by accident. Community managers are creative strategists, constantly dreaming up fun, interactive content and activations to bring members together, from playful contests to live events.
• Social listening: Community managers engage in deep social listening to understand what their audience cares about. By closely monitoring conversations, sentiment, and emerging topics, community managers can help their team make more informed decisions about content, campaigns, and interactions.
• Empathy: Perhaps the most important skill of all, empathy allows community managers to truly connect with members on a personal level. They make everyone feel heard, valued, and understood.
  

How to become a community manager

Interested in becoming a community manager? There are plenty of ways to start building the necessary skills and experience.

First and foremost, work on developing your communication abilities. Community managers need to be excellent at connecting with people, resolving conflicts, and sparking engaging conversations. Courses in areas like rhetoric, psychology, organizational development, or public relations can help sharpen these talents.

Next, look for opportunities to put those skills into practice. Managing your own online communities, whether it's through social media or forums, is a fantastic way to showcase what you can do. Volunteering or interning with organizations that need community support is another great option.

Finally, don't be afraid to reach out and grow your network. Connecting with other community managers is a wonderful way to learn best practices and uncover new job possibilities. Look for brands or organizations that have a community presence you admire and see if you can get in touch with their community manager or social team to learn from them.