New professions: skills required to become a good Community Manager
Updated on July 03, 2024
The Community Manager, also known as Gestionnaire de Communauté or Animateur de Communauté in French, is a relatively new profession that emerged with the rise of social networks and web 2.0. Generally speaking, the Community Manager is responsible for managing the online presence of a company, brand, organization or public figure on social networks and community platforms.
In larger companies, this aspect of marketing is sometimes split into two complementary professions. On the one hand, there's the Community Manager (CM), who acts as the link between the company and its audience (or clientele) on social networks; and the Content Manager (CTM), who works upstream to prepare, plan and organize the distribution of content in line with the objectives of the sales department, for example.
Day-to-day activities and tasks of a Community Manager
The Community Manager's main mission is to develop and manage the online presence of the company or brand he/she represents. He/she must be able to create, animate and federate a community around this brand on the various social networks.
- Create and animate accounts on social networks: Facebook, X (Twitter), Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube...
- Develop the notoriety and e-reputation of the company or brand by creating attractive content and interacting with the community.
- Analyze the performance of actions carried out, suggest improvements to optimize community engagement and reach.
- Keep a constant watch on social networks to detect trends, conversations and potential crises.
- Create advertising campaigns on social networks to promote company or brand products or services.
Essential skills for the job of Community Manager
The job requires a wide range of skills, both technical and interpersonal.
- Mastery of social networks: the Community Manager must be able to master the different social platforms, their functionalities, uses and codes, in order to exploit them to the full.
- Creativity: to be a good Community Manager, it's important to have the creative capacity to create original, attractive content that will engage your community.
- Listening skills: the Community Manager must listen to his or her community's needs, expectations and queries, and respond in a timely fashion.
: it's important to be able to analyze data and statistics to be able to measure the effectiveness of your actions and suggest improvements. - Sense of diplomacy: the Community Manager must be able to handle conflicts and criticisms that may arise on social networks with tact and diplomacy.
: the Community Manager must be able to work as part of a team with other departments (sales, management...) and other communications professionals (graphic designers, copywriters...) to develop coherent and effective communications strategies. - Ability to adapt: social networks evolve rapidly. The Community Manager must be able to adapt to new trends in order to propose innovative content.
“ Full Job „
Tools, software and services essential to the Community Manager activity
The job of Community Manager involves using a wide range of tools and software to effectively manage day-to-day activities on social networks, measure performance, create content, monitor online reputation and work as part of a team.
- Social network management platforms: these tools enable you to manage multiple social network accounts at the same time, schedule posts in advance, track engagement statistics and manage comments. Popular platforms include Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Buffer, Agorapulse and CoSchedule.
- Data analysis tools: these allow you to track community performance on social networks, analyze demographic and engagement data, measure Marketing ROI (Return on Marketing Investment) and create customized reports. Popular tools include Google Analytics, Socialbakers, Brandwatch, Talkwalker and Sprinklr.
- Content creation tools: community managers use tools to create images, videos, GIFs and other visual content for publications on social networks. The most common tools are Canva, Adobe Photoshop, InDesign and Premiere Pro, Animoto and Giphy.
- Monitoring tools: these tools track news and trends in the company's or brand's sector, monitor online reputation, track mentions of the brand on social networks and competitor activity. The most commonly used tools are Google Alerts, Mention, Brand24, Talkwalker Alerts and Hootsuite Insights.
- Collaboration tools: community managers often work in teams with other communications professionals (graphic designers, copywriters, SEO experts, data analysts...). Collaboration tools such as Google Drive, Trello and Slack enable more effective collaboration between team members.
Training and remuneration
There is no specific training to become a Community Manager. However, some communications schools offer specialized courses in digital marketing, digital communications or community management. It is also possible to train online by following courses offered by specialized organizations or Massive Open Online Course(Mooc).
The salary of a Community Manager varies according to his or her experience, level of training and the size of the company employing him or her. In France, the average remuneration for an entry-level Community Manager is around 25,000 euros gross per year. With experience, this can rise to 35,000 euros gross per year.
In conclusion, the Community Manager is an all-round profession requiring both technical and interpersonal skills He or she must be capable of creating, animating and federating a community around the company or brand he or she represents on social networks. To perform this role, it's important to be highly creative, a good listener, good at analysis and a team player. It is also essential to have a good command of social networks and the ability to adapt to rapid developments in this field.