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Quick note: This is something I’ve thought about for awhile. I know some Community Managers, they’re my friends and I look up to them. They’re intelligent people. Hell, I’d be a Community Manager. To be cliché, I’m not trying to hate the player. I’m hating the game.
It annoys me that more and more brands are adding a Community Manager to their payroll. They shouldn’t need one. Instead, they should be investing in new product development, improved customer service, or *gasp* a better marketing scheme that encourages a community to manage itself. Yes, that means giving up control. You’re foolish if you think you have that much control in the new media landscape, anyways.
Products and services don’t need to hire Community Managers. They already have them. Use your brand evangelists- the unpaid fans of yours that like you for you (I use “you” in the sense of product/service/brand). They are the best people to lead your community. They already are leading your community. For free.
Agencies and firms don’t need to hire Community Managers. They already have them. Actually, they usually have tons of them. Look at Fast Horse. Nobody is their ‘Community Manager’, but Mike Keliher, George Fiddler, and others have done an excellent job at managing their community. Same goes for the people over at Brains on Fire. People that love working in a strong community will take it upon themselves to manage that community. You’re already paying them. They’re already a part of your community.
Take away the Community Manager. The community will still exist. The community will take care of itself, because that’s what a community does.
Focus on building a community strong enough to manage itself. Don’t focus on hiring a community hitman – an outsider. That dilutes the word “community”.
You don’t need a community manager. You need a strong community. A strong community is it’s own community manager.
Shameless plug: at the end of every post this month, I’m putting a call to action to vote for Pepsi Refresh projects. Specifically mine, obviously. You can vote for an idea once every day and have 10 votes each day. That means you can vote for my idea, or others, but preferably mine, up to 28 times.
photo credit Flickr user eva101
Well what is easier: Making people love your brand so much that they will spend unpaid hours for you, or hiring some person to take care of your online communities for you?
As you said about hating "the game" though is the need for "community managers" shows that many brands still don't understand social media and how to evolve their brand to become more conversational.
The very position shows the dated idea that you have to be paying someone an hourly wage who spends a certain number of hours to get something of value.
So perhaps brands that need to do this are behind in more than one way? Sounds like they are trying to play catch-up.
Or maybe they aren't playing catch up.
Maybe it is more about caring?
I'm not sure it's that simple. You point to examples where employees have effectively done the job of community management without the firm needing to hire someone to fill that role, and in that situation where it happens to work out, that's great. If you've got employees who want to be involved in that way, by all means encourage them.
But what if your people just aren't that social? I have friends working at startups who are supergenius coders, but they could care less about interacting with strangers on Twitter or going to events to boost awareness of the brand. They're providing tons of value to the company they work for, but being social isn't part of it.
If you've got great product being put together by a great team, but you don't have a community around it because no one in firm feels comfortable talking it up and encouraging people to connect with one another, it makes absolute sense to bring that kind of person on board to take you to the next level. There are places where the staff will do that work - Fast Horse being just one of many examples. However, the idea that every company is going to have kick-ass community managers among people hired to do other things is flat out misguided, and I think it's a poor idea to push your employees into being those people when it's not a great fit for them.
I don't think it's a situation where companies lack understanding of what it means to be social, more that they understand the need, and understand their current staff well enough to know that there's a talent gap someone should be brought in to fill.
Stop using your companies pre-printed thank you notes. Hand write a thank you note! Hand writing is much more personal and it shows you care. More...
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