Hanna Waldrum

Instagram Community Manager

The essence of the profession

The profession of a community manager appeared several years ago, and now it is in demand both in the UK, where I work, and in the USA. A community manager is a person who plays many roles at once. You need to deal with accounts in different social networks, blog, understand brand management. Community managers are needed not only for social networks, but also for the media to interact with readers - before starting work on Instagram, I was the reader community manager for The Guardian and even wrote the book Connected: The power of modern community with my employees. On Instagram, my work is very similar to what I did at The Guardian. My main responsibilities are to maintain the company's main account, blogging, gathering user feedback, and organizing Instameets meetings.

Events for popular users are very important, because the user community is the most important thing for any social network. Most of the innovations were initiated by the community, that is, this is partly the merit of the people who use Instagram most actively. You need to know what people who love Instagram are interested in, what they care about, how they live. At meetings, I always try to find out what pictures people take most often, and watch how the most popular users exchange ideas, tips, and inspiration for something new - this way we can improve our service. We consider popular users to be our "ambassadors", we appreciate and love them.

About 60% of Instagram users live outside the US, so it's pretty hard to keep in touch with everyone directly, but we're trying. For example, Instameet recently took place in Lisbon from 25 the best users Instagram in Europe. Meetings are usually held in informal setting: in Lisbon we walked, took photos, showed them to each other, consulted, etc. On February 6, we held an Instameet in Sochi with the best Instagram users in Russia. A community manager must turn online connections into real conversations: our popular users have never met, so it's fun to get everyone together and chat. Sochi is a great chance to take wonderful photos of the city, mountains, as well as from the Olympics.

Help your users. Everyone has different level knowledge about modern technologies and social media skills. If you want your community members to be more active, organize trainings and meetings, that will help attract more people to interact with your service

From the book by Hannah Waldrum, Mark Thomas and Ed Walker
Connected: the power of the modern community

Where to study

Many community managers have worked in PR or marketing before, someone has blogged - everyone comes to the profession from different areas. I graduated in journalism from Cardiff University and I think that this education is great for being a community manager: at the university I learned how to write, communicate with different people, tell stories. But the most important skill is probably the ability to unite people. It is also important to understand how the media works and how the online and real world interact. In addition, you need to be able to analyze: you must understand what kind of people use this or that social network, what they like, what interests them, what they worry about. That is, you need to deeply immerse yourself in communication with people in order to understand them; For some it is difficult, but for me it is a dream job.

Cardiff University

Flaws
and difficulties

I enjoy absolutely everything I do at work, but many of my colleagues find it hard to have a job that requires you to be in touch 24/7 and be responsible for the entire community. Much depends on the company you work for - if you are not interested in the audience, then it can be difficult.

The most difficult thing is probably helping people overcome distances and difficulties of translation when communicating. We have offices in different countries, because the main office in the US cannot handle everything and communicate with the whole world. There are a lot of Instagram users, the most difficult thing is to keep in touch, despite the distances and different languages.

It is not a secret for anyone that ordinary human communication today has moved into a new environment, namely into a virtual one. On the Internet, there are many thematic forums, communities within social networks and blogs, where everyone expresses his thoughts, shares them with others. After all, what could be easier than coming up with a simple name, clicking with the mouse and creating new theme for online discussion? But few think about what happens to the community then. After all, some of them are losing their audience, while others, on the contrary, are expanding and are popular among users. Most likely in last version well thought out community management.

The concept of community

To understand the concept of "community", you first need to understand what meanings this foreign word has. In modern explanatory dictionary Russian language of the 21st century "community" is "an association of a group of people with common interests, goals, ideas."

In the same dictionary, you can find another meaning. Thus, a community is an online community (an association of users on one forum, blog or social network). Typically, such people communicate with each other on the Web, using not the names given to them at birth, but nicknames. It is the last value that 100% reflects a concept that is close to this topic.

Community manager - a profession of the XXI century?

Community manager is a relatively new profession, so very few people know about it in Russia and other CIS countries. The situation with a specific and little-known profession is now very reminiscent of the situation of the 2000s. At that time, little was known about the work of programmers. Now you can find hundreds of books about them, which describe the specifics of the work and some Interesting Facts. Unfortunately, for now, community managers will have to be studied through feature articles like this one.

Although many citizens of the Russian Federation learned about managers in the community only 5-10 years ago, officially such specialists existed back in the 90s. At that time it was a group of moderators in online games. They were authorized to remove obscene posts, send players to ban and monitor the response of gamers. This method of communication between game developers and gamers proved to be quite successful, so in the future, many began to follow this tradition of "surveillance" of the actions of the Internet audience.

Definition of a community manager and requirements for a specialist

A community manager (or community-manager) is a specialist who administers, maintains community rules, and provides assistance to its members. As a rule, such a person is an intermediate link between the developer (community creator) and the end user (user, community member).

The requirements for this specialist are as follows:

• have an education in the field of journalism (as you know, a community college has not yet been invented);
• know the specifics of the community;
• know the language of the community (communicate with participants in a language they understand);
• be online 24/7;
• know about the basics of marketing and advertising strategies;
• have experience in copywriting (if the community requires writing articles, posts, news, etc.);
• constantly improve the community;
• have knowledge in many areas, including community topics;
• partly have the skills of a psychologist;
• It is desirable to be sociable and balanced.

The work of a community manager outside the community

In addition to the responsibilities in the community itself, there are several other functions that the community manager performs. The work of a specialist also includes:

• in attracting new participants;
• commenting on events, posts and any mention of the community or community products;
• holding events offline;
• creating platforms for communication.

It seems that community managers should do almost everything related to the community, and it is. With the imagination of such specialists, no one will limit it if the community benefits from it. Therefore, stupid and sometimes even the most ridiculous ideas can be warmly received by developers or users themselves.

Among other things, community managers can organize various promotions with reposts, prize draws, creative contests for the entertainment of participants, create memes and viral videos to attract new users, as well as conduct polls and compile ratings. Roughly speaking, such a specialist should be able to keep regular members in the community and at the same time attract new ones.

How do you know if a community manager is doing a good job?

The effectiveness of each employee can be evaluated in different ways. For example, for accountants these are reports, for copywriters - a well-written, selling text. The manager in the community has this:

• statistics of reached community members and unique visitors;
• the number of new comments, likes, reposts of materials within the community or feedback about the community on the Internet;
• the amount of unique content that users like.

When these three main factors are taken into account and implemented perfectly, it means that the community has hired a really good specialist.

The future of the profession

This profession is quite young, so its true potential is still untapped. Although the trend of promoting products through online communities is now rapidly gaining momentum. It is easier for developers to keep consumers close by and have with them feedback. Therefore, in the next couple of years, community managers should become more popular than ever.

Even now, more and more product advertisements go through popular social networks like VKontakte, Twitter and even Instagram. But each such account, group or page must be monitored, if not around the clock, then at least from 8 to 10 hours a day. This is where community managers come in handy.

The very same Internet space has been and will be popular. Therefore, if you bet on a future profession, it is advisable to first of all pay attention to the field of marketing, advertising and PR. In this section, there will definitely be a vacancy for a community manager.

We have released a new book, "Social Media Content Marketing: How to get into the head of subscribers and make them fall in love with your brand."

More videos on our channel - learn internet marketing with SEMANTICA

Very conditionally, a community manager can be compared to a shepherd herding goats. He does not interfere in their lives, the animals themselves choose when to eat, when to drink, when to sleep.

But the shepherd guides the animals in the right direction. Unobtrusive but confident.

The Community Manager works in a similar way. He works with the community - a group of like-minded people. It builds a connection between the administration of a project and its audience. Follows her mood, smoothes the corners. Trying to build trust in the brand.

Community manager tasks

Maintaining a good mood among your audience is the task of effective community management.
This is necessary to form the credibility of your brand, your product in the eyes of your audience.

For example, you are the owner of a service for buying tickets. But you do not just aggregate information from the Russian Railways and Aviaseles website on the resource, you have a whole portal. On it you publish travel news, write useful materials. Visitors maintain personal blogs. That is, a resource that brings travelers together.
Website visitors are your audience, which should be loyal. You do not want to lose customers who buy tickets through your website, do you?
The task of the community manager is to carry out two-way communication between you and the regular users of your portal.

For example, the site crashed, the service was unavailable for 3 hours. Users began to wonder - what happened. The community manager must apologize for the disruption, explain why this happened, and say when the site will be restored.

Users will be negative. And the manager will need to work with him - to calm him down, to try so that there are no more dissatisfied people.

Manager tasks:

• Promotion of the brand idea in the audience of the project.
• Building audience loyalty.
• Engage the audience in dialogue.
• Dealing with the negative.
• Introduction of informational reasons for discussion.
• Moderation.

Qualities of a good community manager

• Literacy.
  Often communication with users on the Internet comes down to correspondence. The community manager must write correctly and without errors.
• Brand knowledge.
  Without it, nowhere. If a person does not know what the company he works for does, he simply will not be able to answer questions from users. He will not be able to build a dialogue with the audience.
• Knowledge of the basics of marketing.
  Marketing is about getting customers. And working with the community is one of its directions. Communication for the sake of communication is great, but it will not bring anything to business. The community manager must not only communicate, he must build trust in the brand among users so that they turn from simple subscribers into customers.
• Ready for high loads.
  Everyone has an 8 hour work day. But the person who communicates with subscribers should be ready for a flexible schedule, for after hours. Users in the community assets at any time of the day. A manager is always needed to communicate with the project, at any time.
• Communication skills.
  And so it is clear that you have to communicate a lot. But you need to know how to do it right. Solve marketing problems with conversations. A person should not be afraid of talking.
• Copywriting skills.
  Often it is the community manager who is responsible for the content of the site, the public. He should be able to write good and strong texts.

The community manager is responsible for the course of life in the community. He can arrange events - offline, online. Run contests among subscribers. It should attract new users, monitor the growth of the community.

His work is at the intersection of psychology, HR management, marketing, SMM, copywriting.

To become a great community manager, you need to know a lot. And you have to keep learning.

This profession is new. In Russia, until 2005, no one heard the term “community manager” at all. But now more and more companies are hiring such specialists. After all, audience support is one of the key factors that affects how many customers a company will receive in the end.

There is such a profession - community manager. Someone says that it is the future of modern communications, someone is already yelling about the lack of demand (just like throwing slogans that PR is dead). In this article, community manager Igor will tell you what he does and answer any questions in the comments.

To bookmarks

Taken from ilgiornale.it

How stressful is being a community manager? How do you generally work?

I wouldn't say that community management is a stressful job. If you know how to navigate the flow of information and be at the right time in right place, then you can safely forget about the concept of "stress". On the other hand, it is, after all, working with people, with many people. The golden rule of morality helps to avoid unnecessary worries: "Treat people the way you want to be treated."

Over the course of my work, I have developed an ideal schedule for myself, which I try to follow as much as possible. I devote daylight hours to chats and feedback from players, in the evening I completely devote myself to analysis and philosophical reflections about the path of the project. Deep night, as practice has shown, is ideal for writing and designing voluminous texts, and in the morning I surrender to the power of human nature and sleep. Yes, a little awkward, but I like it - the stress passes by, and large amounts of work can be done.

From the outside it may seem that you are sitting at the computer and doing nothing, but the reality is different. What does your daily work schedule look like?

To be honest, I don't have a specific work plan. I am involved in a game project where unique events constantly occur that require attention and direct participation. Of course, there are days when I work buried in routine tasks, but this happens so rarely that it would be a strange decision to ration my work day because of this.

Excuse me right away for a stupid question - are community managers taught anywhere? 🙂

I comprehended the basics by studying the work of colleagues from other large projects, and I connected the acquired skills with personal experience work in SMM and PR. But, for example, the same Netology has an excellent community management course - just for those who are ready to comprehend our difficult task. Beginners will definitely not remain in the infovacuum.

What are the KPIs of a community manager? What are the basic, textbook goals in the work of such a manager?

Communication skills, stress resistance and good analytical skills directly affect the effectiveness of the community manager. Something is constantly happening in the community, and if you do not catch the trend in time, wrapping it in favor of the brand, you may not achieve the desired result. From above, let's add creativity, discipline and vigor as accompanying features. It turns out a master talker with a systematic approach to communication. And just such a talker will most effectively cope with increasing the level of consumer loyalty to the brand.

In large companies, there are also some community managers. They are called intercompany communications managers. Do you have the same role?

The positions you voiced are very different, although they intersect in the methods and methods of work. Community management is more about PR, while corporate people work with HR. Simply put, we instill love for the brand in the first place - customers, and only then - employees. And our corporate counterparts have a completely opposite direction of activity.

Our team is more likely to fall under the stereotype of developers obsessed with healthy lifestyles and productivity from Silicon Valley. But as for the studio, many people associate the obligatory presence of an office with this term.

How long does your job usually take?

I work constantly, with breaks for household chores: sleep, sports, food, etc. Otherwise, it doesn't work, because I'm working in a game project. Not a byte of information should be lost: any trends within the community need to be captured, analyzed and directed in the right direction. Only by constantly being in contact with the community, I can effectively carry out work tasks. Of course, it's exhausting. But if you find your rhythm, then you can forget about fatigue. I found my rhythm.

You mentioned the players and the game project. Do I understand correctly that your work is directly related to the gaming industry?

Yes, we are wholly and completely in the igrodelov community. I'm on the Wasteland Wars project team, it's a bot-based RPG on Telegram. Although our product is unique, it generally does not stand out from the general outline of the industry.

I deal directly with the communication with the players. If you hit the specifics, then I process messages and respond to feedback, organize events, as well as collect statistics and analyze community preferences.

Wasteland Wars Community Manager

Usually, when talking about games, a studio of a dozen bearded developers, led by a gloomy genius, comes to mind. Do you work in a similar team?

No, we don't wear beards and we don't get lost in the studio. Our team is more likely to fall under the stereotype of developers obsessed with healthy lifestyles and productivity from Silicon Valley. But as for the studio, many people associate the obligatory presence of an office with this term. Actually, we do not have an office: we put comfort, not location, in the first place. Can there be something more convenient work from home? It doesn't matter where we work from - you can control indicators and maintain team spirit remotely. It is only necessary to debug the process.

How important is it for a community manager to be able to defend his opinion in front of the management?

Incredibly important, given that the perception of the brand as a whole depends on certain actions of management. No matter how subtle and skillful the manager's approach to the community may be, obvious "jambs" of the product that negatively affect the brand must be corrected. Not always those who make the decision are able to adequately assess the impact of certain decisions on the community.

That is why, if necessary, a community manager comes into play, who relays "up" the opinion of the community regarding certain features of the product. And when necessary, makes every effort to lobby for those changes that would make the community excited.

What exactly are you doing now? What are your responsibilities?

In the project, I deal directly with the communication with the players. If you hit the specifics, then I process messages and respond to feedback, organize events, as well as collect statistics and analyze community preferences.

The peculiarity of Telegram-bot projects is that community members can freely communicate with each other. Therefore, from time to time I weave various informational reasons into their communication, thus provoking the community to certain actions. For example, to generate content - memes, publications, streams.

In addition, our project is an RPG with its own setting and in-game foundations. That is why my duties also include structuring the influence of players on the setting. Simply put, I'm preventing zombie dinosaurs from Mars from appearing in the game's post-apocalyptic world. Although the end of the world is madness, everything must have its limit.

How did the game developer contact you?

Maxim and I (namely, that's the name of our leader) collided in one little-known MUD project about two years ago. At that time, we were engaged in the media of one of the gaming clans: we wrote articles, digests, interviewed, and engaged in podcasts. Along the way, we separated, found a lot in common - from global hobbies to food preferences - and further stayed together in the network space. We have love at a distance, yes.

How long have you been in the project?

A community is a separate group of people who are united by common interests and hobbies. They communicate with each other via the Internet. Each member of the community community has a specific goal, view, and opinion. In most cases, they coincide with those of other participants. The main task of such a virtual community is communication.

What is this association?

Community is a definition that is very similar to the term "community". Some people constantly confuse these two concepts. But there is a significant difference between them. The word "community" can accurately and correctly characterize a separate group of people who live in the territory of one region. The goals of their association may be the creation of a blog or forum, the cultivation of a land plot.

Community is the connection of a person with other people. Now it does not matter the geographical location of the participant and the area of ​​his residence. Particular attention is paid to common interests and hobbies. People communicate using online space. Participants correspond in social networks, forums, blogs or chats.

How can you create a community?

In order to organize a society, several fundamental conditions must be taken into account. To do this, absolutely all participants must have common interests, goals, objectives and needs. You should also take care of a permanent resource to which a separate group of people will have unlimited access. You can connect to the Web around the clock, when you have a desire and free time. The ability to find mutual language in order to communicate with each other. The "Steam" community, for example, is a separate platform that opens up opportunities for communication between members who have a common group. Separate groups are usually clearly separated and have a certain number of members. Scientists have found that each person in such a community can remember up to 140 participants and keep their names in their heads.

The use of the community in modern life

Thanks constantly emerging technologies, in modern business quite actively used "Steam" -community. With its help, businessmen promote their own products, goods and services. Recently on site Russian Federation the position of community manager. The people who founded this kind of movement were the creators interesting games in online mode. This profession was recognized as valid in 2007. If there are more than 140 members in the community, then they form a set, the main difference of which from groups is the absence of any connections. These are ordinary people who are in the same community. They can watch the same movie or play interesting games of chance. The age of participants is not limited.

Today, a large number of people with common interests prefer to communicate in communities and forums. A community is a group that has united because of the common interests of its members. That is why a new position was introduced. Community manager is a rapidly growing profession. The person in this position is responsible for creating the brand, its further development, self-management and communication with other participants.

In 1990, the first signs of the work of online moderators were noticed. The main difference between a community manager and a moderator is the publicity of the latter's profession. Such people can express their own opinion and point of view, personally be present during online events. Managers must be sure to support users and be on their side.

Companies that own large online games, first of all, took care of having managers who worked on the steam community platform. They did their best to ensure that the leaders could understand the needs and needs of this or that community. The people in this position dealt with all the emerging issues in a timely manner and gathered leaders to form a plan. further action. According to this scheme, the development of the gaming portal took place.

The main tasks of a community manager

Community is an activity that requires constant attention from the manager. A person in this position should become the bearer of the idea of ​​the promoted brand of the company in which he works. The manager must necessarily engage in the formation or determination of a loyal attitude towards a product or service on the part of customers. It engages community members in conversations to discuss the brand of a particular company. The community manager must first plan and outline further discussion. He keeps order in the group and comes up with interesting topics for communication.

"Comfort Town" community, for example, is a small social network where various investors communicate. Managers monitor the communication on the forum and answer all questions of interest to users.