Exceptional Communication Skills
The community manager will be responding publicly on behalf of the brand. They will need to be thoroughly versed in its tone and voice. As a communications professional, they will need to have excellence writing, proofreading, and editing skills. They will need to champion empathy in all their work. Also, they will need the ability to adapt communication style for audiences: typically, a formal style for internal colleagues and a friendly style for external audience.
Good Judgement
The people who participate in an online community have a wide range of beliefs and perspectives. The community manager must be respectful, but firm in creating an online community that is accepting. They must be able to delicately manage both a large conversation with many voices as well as private one-on-one conversations (typically done through private messaging on the platform).
Non-Standard Work Hours
Social media is a fast-moving medium. The community manager needs to be ever present – this may result in long hours or working non-traditional hours. If the community is highly active at night, the community manager may have to a lot some of their time to an evening shift.
Content Planning
Content is the fuel that powers online communities. In a healthy community, the majority of the content will be generated by its super users. However, to attract new members and maintain existing members, communities require regular new content in the form of: blogs, articles, FAQs, and/or polls. The community manager should maintain an editorial calendar for this content and also either produce it themselves or coordinate its production with a content team or agency.
Technical Skills
While a huge site or group of sites may require a dedicated technical administrator, for smaller site the community manager will probably also handle low-level technical issues. For some community platforms, basic HTML skills may be needed if a community manager embeds a video or survey into a content location on the community (for example, in a new post or in an announcements section). Also, the community manager should serve a as first line of technical troubleshooting when a use reports an issue with the site (for example, the site not loading).
Additional technical concepts the community manager may deal with are: pixel size, file size, converting file types, and/or using a url shortner.
Analytics
Common data available from online communities are: page views, threads, posts, replies, registrations, minutes online, and clicks. The community manager will be responsible for regular reporting on the community’s health to ensure it is meeting it objectives. They will need to be able to analysis data within the community platform, a web analytics program like Google Analytics or Adobe Analytics; and Excel. The community manager will be adjusting their strategy in real-time to adapt to the changing needs of their community. For example, community platforms provide data on the number of searches that do not yield content. A community manager might need to adjust their content strategy to close gaps in it.
My Thoughts 