Nine questions to reflect on your community manager role

#discuss #career #selfreflection #advice

Simon Tomes Feb 11 ・2 min read

I'm learning how to be an official community manager and perhaps you are too. Or maybe you're super experienced and would like to reflect on what you've achieved so far.

I'm curious to discover if the following nine questions are useful. I have a feeling I'd learn a lot from reading answers to them from community folks. I assume others would, yet that's an assumption I'd like to test.

So if you get a spare moment, would you mind answering some of the following questions?

Many thanks 🙏🏻
– Simon

What do you absolutely love about your role? 😍
What’s really difficult about your role? 🤔
What do you dislike about your role? 👎 The thing that maybe you could change or perhaps is something that’s completely out of your control.
Where do you mostly go for help? 🤗
If you travelled back in time and met yourself on the first day of your community manager gig – ignore the shock of past you freaking out 😅 – what advice would you give yourself?
Who are the new voices of community building? Who should we lift up right now? 🙌
How do you measure the impact of your role? 📈 (yikes to this question as from what I can gather it can be a trigger for a heated debate)
How will community building and the role of the community manager evolve over the next few years? 🔮
What other questions do you think I should ask to discover more about the role of a community manager/builder? 🙋🙋‍♂️🙋‍♀️

Photo by Emily Morter on Unsplash

Discussion (3)

Victoria • Feb 11

Great questions -

I love watching the members learn and figure things out with each other, in a space they may not have otherwise had
Difficulty typically surrounds my ability to get the adequate tech help needed to be able to get tracking done, because my role isn't revenue generating primarily and thus de prioritized
I dislike the constant troubleshooting and repeating myself because many members do not read or feel overwhelmed by all the information around them, especially when they're a veteran member
I have a mentor that I go to for help, I come to these forums, I joined a group thanks to Danielle M, and a few other places like that
I would tell myself, in the past, that 'enough, also works.' So that I can quit being derailed by chasing perfection and fear of associating my name with work that isn't quite up to my [arguably impossible] standards
We should lift up everyone in this club and any community members you already follow on your networks that you may not have taken a closer look at previously
Measuring impact is difficult for me because I find a lot of what I have control over, are unmeasureables. But, I try: NPS [Net promoter score], percentage of engagement [i host monthly meetings, create monthly surveys, create monthly newsletters & give weekly slack updates], # applicants, % churn, # events held, % conversion from events, % MAU [monthly active users], and so on. Whatever is within my control
I imagine there will be more visibility in companies, like Chief Comm Officer roles, and more resources provided to the ethereum that is community
These were goodies