What Should This Say?

This is from an online community manager job description:

“We’re looking for a Community Manager to develop an army of stark raving fans of our site. We're looking for someone who lives and breathes Facebook. We're looking for someone who can't get enough of updating their Twitter status and Digging articles. We're looking for someone who loves to blog and comment on other people's blogs and talk to people who knew a guy who had a blog once.”

It should probably read more like this…

“We’re looking for someone that knows how to make people feel a part of something special. We’re looking for someone that knows what incites members to spend their time participating and inviting their friends. We’re looking for someone that willingly engages in dozens, perhaps hundreds, of interactions a day and is determined to end each on a positive or constructive note. We’re looking for someone that knows what to measure, and how.

Comments

[jenx67]

Where do I apply? LOL!

[Scott Drummond]

Hey Rich,

I've just come across your blog in the last few days from a link from Connie Bensen. Really enjoying reading your stuff.

I agree with your rewriting of the above JD - it takes the focus away from what the CM is doing, and places it more on how what the CM is doing actually benefits the community and its members.

The more I think about the Commmunity Manager's role, the more I wonder how relevant it really is to strive for a once-and-for-all definition or job description.

Each community has potentially such different and diverse requirements and internal and external dynamics. Should we really be searching for one definition to rule them all?

What do you think?

[Richard Millington]

Hey Scott.

Welcome! Thanks so much for reading.

You're right, there isn't one set job description. My point was more that asking for people who use Twitter/Facebook a lot narrows the field down to about 500m people. Not to mention it's an entirely redundant 'skill'.

Every job description should be more specific to the industry than the job title.

[Venessa Paech]

Hi Richard,

Such a sound, important point. Community management and strategy is not about web 2.0 or shiny, happy social networking. It's about relationship management and truisms that were in play before Facebook was a twinkle in an undergraduate eye. I see a lot of companies with JDs like this, as they begin to cast their net for online community types.

It's particularly salient for emerging community professionals looking for a 'pathway' into this work.

There's a big difference between being active and being meaningful/creating work, content or conversations of value.

Your rewrite returns the role to its core - creating and sustaining a rich scaffold for connectivity and exchange.

[@Stephen]

The first ad is describing the steak, the 2nd is the experience of the sizzle.