Why your startup needs a Community Manager
Companies both big and small are trying to explore the new tools offered by social media and leverage them for their product or service. Social media tools can be used to share news, talk to customers, build up an audience, and engage with people around the world. Big companies like Dell and Molson are already leveraging these tools – in the case of Dell, they’re crowdsourcing ideas through their IdeaStorm community; in the case of Molson they’re engaging with their customers by becoming entrenched in local community events. But startup businesses have a unique advantage when it comes to social media. When a large company steps into the world of social media their every move is scrutinized, often ending in negative press and sentiment (Motrin Moms anyone?). There are often levels of approval for any communications – and this is when the company is even involved in social media at all. Startups have the advantage of being a smaller entity – they can explore different tools and engage on a grassroots level. One role that is becoming increasingly popular at startups is that of Community Manager. The role can be different at every company, but usually involves some level of customer support, public relations, speaking engagements, attending community events, and social media strategy.
Host Justin Kozuch & Sprouter's Erin Bury at StayFresh
Sprouter’s Community Manager Erin Bury has been in the role for almost a year, and recently spoke to Justin Kozuch of Refresh Events at his monthly StayFresh event. She talked about Sprouter, her role there, and how she has engaged the community of entrepreneurs. She also spoke about why startups should consider hiring a CM, and what the role really entails. See below for some of her main points, and listen to the podcast below to hear the entire interview:
- If you’re a startup with limited resources consider hiring a CM over spending money on traditional marketing or advertising – it can be more effective to truly engage your audience (through attending events, traveling, blogging, customer support, etc)
- When hiring a Community Manager, experience shouldn’t necessarily be equated with ability – companies tend to place importance on years of experience. In the case of a CM, more importance should be placed on how fast a person can learn, their willingness to innovate and experiment with new tools, and their passion for the company and audience.
- Make sure to communicate that the role of a CM isn’t 9-5 – it involves attending events and conferences on evenings and weekends, responding to customer comments and complaints at all times, and adapting to whatever needs to be done at the company.
- The qualities every Community Manager should have can vary, but usually include: ambitious and hard-working, learns quickly, some experience in PR or communications, good written skills (if they’ll be creating any blog content or articles), either some knowledge of social media or a desire to learn about the tools, and an outgoing personality.
- If you can’t afford to hire a Community Manager the worst thing you can do is ignore the conversations that are taking place online – just because you can’t afford to hire a CM doesn’t mean you can’t have a presence online. It may involve having the Founder/CEO spend their time establishing a presence on social media sites, or writing for the blog, or attending events in the community. Getting out, getting involved, expanding your network and building relationships is imperative to gaining referrals for your business.
You can listen to the podcast here.
What do you think? Is the role of community management as important as traditional PR & marketing? Do you do community management at your startup?
12 Responses to “Why your startup needs a Community Manager”
Leave a Reply
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Ryan Short, The Sprouter Team. The Sprouter Team said: New blog post: Why your startup needs a Community Manager (feat. podcast with #Sprouter CM @erin_bury): http://bit.ly/2rwphe [...]
Nice piece Erin – seeing your success as Sprouter’s CM has actually motivated us to consider the importance of this role and begin taking early steps to addressing it.
I think that you’re bang on in suggesting that rather than going the traditional marketing route, hiring with the CM role in mind would be more advantageous….provided, of course, that the majority of your business is related to the online sphere.
Balancing the CM role with regular Founder duties (for startups without the resources yet to pay for it) is much easier said than done. All that event hopping can be exhausting and more importantly, time intensive. It needs to be done but I just don’t know if a Founder can do it all that zealously.
Any tips on where to find CMs who are interested in joining early stage startups would be greatly helpful.
Cheers.
Erin,
Well put, concise description of what a Community Manager can and, more importantly, should do for a company. A good CM is an evangelist, customer service wizard, publicists, and able to establish and maintain real relationships via a keyboard.
It’s key that the CM be deeply familiar with the entire organization. Inside the company, the CM is a representative of the clients/customers/partners and to the outside, the CM is the company’s representative. It seems to me that there is a trend to think that you can have someone sitting in a dark room tweeting, posting to facebook and the like and get the same results. I just don’t see how that’s possible.
[...] This post was Twitted by boutotcom [...]
Hey Robin,
Thanks for your comment!
I completely agree with you – a good CM should be an evangelist, customer service wizard, publicist, and should be able to form real relationships.
Although I do spend some hours behind a desk (like right now) I’m usually out telling people about Sprouter, forming those relationships, and madly Tweeting in a corner (what would I do without my iPhone?).
Anyway thanks for your thoughts!
Erin
Thanks Adil! Thanks for your kind words, and for your comment.
I think hiring “just” a marketing person or “just” a PR person limits you in their abilities. I like the idea of CM’s because they’re almost like a jack or jill of all trades. They can switch between customer service rep, blogger, writer, PR person, event planner, guest speaker, etc.
I think you can even have a community managers for offline businesses – take Molson for example. They are an offline business (beer!) but their community person (the amazing Tonia Hammer) does a great job of finding relevant people and events to connect with, and establishing an online presence. They even add a bigger philanthropic arm to her role.
I absolutely agree that it’s easier said than done for a Founder – this is my “best case scenario,” that a Founder has the time to get out to events and manage their presence online. I guess my point is just that ignoring it is the worst thing possible, and that there are some free or inexpensive tools out there that can do part of the job for you.
In terms of recommending where to find community managers – that’s tough. It’s such a new role, so it’s not like you have people with CM experience out there (I’m sure there are some though!). I would suggest looking for people with journalism/communications backgrounds, or people who work at PR/digital agencies. Or get recommendations (I’d be happy to send you a few).
Hope that helps!
Erin
Adil,
Plus try the yahoo community managers group e-mint to search for community managers interested in start-up roles.
Regards,
Stuart
Very interesting article. I am a pr/marketing student as was just hired as a CM for a start-up. Your post was very interesting for a me as student as well as for a new CM. Do you have any other tips you can offer?
Hi Amy,
Congratulations on your new position! In terms of other advice I would just advise you to research blog posts about getting started as a CM, or social media in general. And to be authentic – engage with your audience on a daily basis and be honest with them about you and your company. If you have any further questions feel free to e-mail me at erin@sprouter.com.
Cheers,
Erin
[...] Why your startup needs a Community Manager [...]
Awesome tips for this growing area! We have a community especially built for community managers and social media enthusiasts with links to resources and job leads. We’d be more than happy to promote community manager positions for free
We twitter jobs and links daily. Get in touch.
The role can be different at every company. Usually Community Manager involves some level of customer support, public relations, speaking engagements, attending community events, and social media strategy. This is a great tips for those who are interested on this topics.
Indiana transcription