Professional community managers plan their week in advance.
Their plans are based upon data collected from the community (growth, engagement and sense of community), and knowledge of what communities need to further develop.
Let’s assume your community is in the establishment phase and you’re a full-time community manager working 40 hours a week (I know, but let’s imagine).
Using the Community Management Map, you would spend approximately the following amount of time on each element of community management:
- Strategy: 2 hours (collecting/analyzing data)
- Growth: 10 hours (direct invites, promotion, referral tactics etc…)
- Moderation: 8 hours (initiating discussions, resolving disputes, soliciting responses, steering the community).
- Content: 4 hours (writing content and encouraging others to contribute)
- Relationships: 6 hours (personal participation, cultivating volunteers, befriending key members)
- Events & Activities: 4 hours (planning online/offline events regular/irregular events)
- Business Integration: 2 hours (Engaging employees and integrating price, producs and promotion etc…)
- Technology: 4 hours (maintenance, optimizing areas of the site, checking out future technology)
Now you can slot these activities into a plan for each day.
For example, a typical day might include:
- 9am – 11am: Growth tactics (invite 5 people, reach out to a blog for promotion)
- 11am – 12.30pm: Resolve disputes, initiative discussions and solicit responses
- 1.30pm – 2.30pm: Plan upcoming events for the week
- 2:30pm – 4:00pm: Participate in current discussions. Reach out to top members, build relationships, ask if people want to volunteer.
- 4:00pm – 5:00pm: Create content for tomorrow
- 5:00pm – 6:00pm: Tweak registration homepage an test
You wont undertake every activity on every day. Strategy can mostly be done on a once-a-day or once-a-week basis. Some urgent things might derail your plan, a major technical problem for example. As will internal meetings and other cumbersome events.
The purpose is to be proactive in your approach to community management. Establish a weekly plan based upon the data which highlights what your community need. And do your absolute best to work to that plan.
