Building an effective community management staff can be a difficult affair. We’ve moved past simply hiring recent grads who “know how to Facebook.” The role itself is such a blend of skills that it can even be hard to know whether someone with a PR background would be better than another experienced in customer service.
Peter Friedman, CEO of Liveworld, has hired hundreds of community managers. He recently told Jeremiah Owyang, Industry Analyst for the Altimeter Group, about the balance he wants in his community managers:
“The key is to get someone with the right personality, enthusiasm and skills. Experience counts too. Even if there were good CM certification programs around, I wouldn’t disqualify someone for not having such a certification. I’d look at the person’s other specifics … For example a person with 5 years real CM experience is likely to be much stronger than a person with 1 year of experience and a certification”.
Back in 2007, Jeremiah analyzed community manager job descriptions and found four requirements:
1. Community Advocate
2. Brand Evangelist
3. Savvy Communicator
4. Shapes Product Roadmap
Indeed, these four are all a balance between nature and nurture. For instance, communication with a community requires a natural knack plus knowledge of the media being used.
Jeremiah concluded his thoughts with this:
The Bottom Line: The emerging Community Manager education and certifications are a good thing for all professionals –yet be sure to balance them out with peer to peer learnings, and real-world experience.
