Do we have a strategist shortage? Perhaps.
Let's consider this from another perspective.
How many community strategists have you come across? We see several strategies a week. How many truly successful branded communities can you name? 5? 10?
That's not many given the number of strategies out there.
I don't think we're short of strategies, we're short of community managers that can work strategically.
Most community managers are reacting to what happens. They don't have strategic goals and a plan to get there. They don't optimize what they do. They do the same job from one year to the next. They have few targets for growth, activity, and sense of community.
Even if they have goals, they get distracted from them. They put out fires instead of doing the important strategic work that has a long-term impact upon a community.
It doesn't take that long to create a strategy. It takes a lot of discipline to stick to it, every day. It's hard not to get caught up in conflicts, spam, and begin playing the numbers game.
We may need more community strategists.
We certainly need more community managers that can work strategically.
