It pains me that most community-related discussion can be boiled down to:
1) Be nice to members
2) Don’t lie to members
3) Remove the bad stuff
Community management is a complicated topic that spans technology, data, marketing, and a range of social sciences. When we dwell too much upon the softer side, we do no favours to our profession, our communities, nor our own personal development.
About 1/3rd of the people reading this are passionate hobbyists building communities in their spare time. The remaining 2/3rds of you are paid professionals.
If you’re a paid community manager, I think you have a duty to master a body of knowledge, work to develop a specific set of skills, and bring with you a growing playbook of successful case studies.
When we shift the conversation to what that body of knowledge should be, how to further refine and improve the set of skills, and bring more case studies in the arena, we all get better at what we do.
If we don’t take this profession seriously, no-one else will.
I'm in the 1/3rd. I started my community as a hobby.
However, I've fallen inlove with the role and take it very seriously, soaking in as much knowledge and community building/management blogs as I can.
Bought Martin's CB Pack, ordering your Buzzing Communities & Patrick's managing online forums.
I watched your webinar and downloaded half of your buzzing communities to have a little sneak peak and wow, pure excellent Richard!
I knew community management went a lot deeper than most people realize, but I didn't realize just how deep 'til I read excerpts from your book.
It's half 8 in the morning now and I'm still awake from when I e-mailed you yesterday, stayed up all night implementing changes needed based on your book.
Particularly regarding moving content 'above the fold', stripping down the community features and installing a couple of plugins in my back panel to collect data and creating a couple of surveys.
It's 'only a hobby' for now, sure, but once I'm out of the inception phase monetization will come into place, it's already almost a 24/7 job.
So yes in summary I agree. It should be taken very seriously, I particularly support your notion that community managers should be more pro-active, not just reactive. Must.. collect.. analyze.. data!
Great post Richard, thanks.
Posted by: Tommy T | Friday, 14 December 2012 at 08:31
Yeah Richard,
Sometimes, it's funny how closely it resembles the life a substitute teacher in 5th grade.
Imagine if there was a "time-out" built into the software for some folks, it's crazy sheesh.
Posted by: Jacko | Friday, 14 December 2012 at 12:54