The Many Hats of an Online Community Manager

Defining your role as an online community manager is difficult because you do so many different things. On one hand, you’re advocating for the customer. On the other hand, your loyalty is to your brand. You answer to many different people and departments and perform a variety of tasks.

Fortunately, most of an online community manager’s duties are enjoyable. They allow for creativity, and an outgoing nature can shine through. Other duties aren’t so fun and exciting, but they’re important nonetheless.

Make no mistake — despite the friendly nature of the job, community management is a huge responsibility. As the most public person in the company, you have to present an image befitting the brand. A major portion of the job is making sure that the customers and the community members are happy with the brand, the product, and the image.

You better like hats because you’re going to be wearing a lot of them, and all of them have to fit. The job of community management is for you if you truly rock the people skills and handle negativity with humor and grace, but are strong enough to handle public criticism and not give in to adversity.

There’s more to being a community manager than a little social networking. You need a thick skin, a pleasant personality, and the ability to organize and prioritize.

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Source:http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/the-many-hats-of-an-online-community-manager.html