Community Managers are the Unsung Heroes that Fit in Everywhere and Nowhere

I landed my first paying community management job in 2010 when I became the Community Manager for SourceForge. For years before that, I had been doing "community management" type tasks as a volunteer for various open source projects, just because it was fun for me. Community Management as a career wasn't yet really a thing. And I still remember the incredulous feeling that someone was going to pay me to do the thing I loved doing anyway. It was a huge shift in my career, and I've loved it ever since.

Since then, the idea of "community management" has evolved into some amorphous catch-all that is often overlooked or under-appreciated. So let's talk about this for a second!

The Community Manager Role is Amorphous.

When someone asks me about community management as a career, they often ask, "what does a community manager do?" My answer is typically, "that depends on who you ask."

Generally, a community manager is meant to grow (and be the caretaker of) a community of contributors, users, or customers.

A search for the phrase "community manager" on LinkedIn will give you an idea of some of the expected responsibilities. But the job title is so ambiguous, it can also refer to managing a physical community (such as a co-working space or an apartment complex). Nope, job seekers, nothing confusing about that!

In tech or industry, Community Managers are often tasked with one or more of these jobs:

• contributor (or user, customer) experience - generally making sure concerns are heard and that everyone is having a great experience as they interact with the product or project
• social media management - understanding the nuances of and posting to various social media and responding to comments or mentions in a timely manner
• blog writing - creating content that is informative, SEO friendly, timely, and pertinent to the product or project
• producing podcasts - locating guests, deciding on topics, planning episodes, producing and posting (and in some cases even editing)
• data analytics and reporting - building dashboards and reporting mechanisms for tracking effectiveness of campaigns, clicks, likes, conferences, or whatever else is needed
• moderating online spaces - keeping an eye on the community's discord or forum and handling disputes, as well as booting bad actors and enforcing the code of conduct
• event planning - bringing the community together in person for small or large events, sometimes responsible for all parts of this complex ship (everything from registration to venue coordination to catering to planning post-conference social events)
• hosting informational webinars and creating videos - educating the community on new features or functionality in the project or product
• answering support tickets - helping customers or users find their way or troubleshoot (yes, really) and keeping track of customer sentiment and pain points to communicate back to Product
• sending swag to people - making sure those who want to be part of the community through swag have an opportunity to show their support through swag
• representing the product or project at conferences - coordinating the booth setup, staffing the booth, traveling to various conferences, making sure there is enough swag to hand out
• onboarding new contributors (or users, customers) - making sure newcomers can easily find their way and acting as a friendly point of contact for new community members, reaching out to them, and providing resources to them
• documentation - filling the gaps in product or project documentation that people often struggle to find or need assistance with
• contributor (or user, customer) recognition and appreciation - keeping up with who is contributing what to a project, and making sure they feel valued and appreciated so they continue to be in the community
• sponsoring and publicly supporting other initiatives - building goodwill and aligning with other projects or companies to boost community sentiment
• newsletters and email management - writing timely updates for subscribers and understanding the basics of spam and email marketing so those email messages actually go through
• meeting facilitation and coordination - keeping a calendar up to date and facilitating community meetings, being familiar with conferencing apps and able to handle multiple time zones
• public relations - when bad things happen, the community manager is typically front and center and managing damage control

"But Elizabeth," you might say, "each one of these tasks could be its own role!" And I would say, "Yes. Yes, each one could." (And yes, I have absolutely done all of these things in various community manager positions.)

So when you ask what a community manager does, it really does depend on the whims of an individual organization. And in my opinion, this is problematic.

The Community Manager Role is Inconsistently Organized.

Because no one quite understands what a Community Manager is supposed to be doing, this role is often misplaced or shuffled around the org chart.

You may find Community Management on:

• Sales and/or Marketing Teams, because growing the customer base is important and a community manager helps keep customers happy
• Support and/or Documentation Teams, because moderating online user forums and creating helpful content, while also listening to customer complaints, helps the company build better products
• Outreach Teams, because befriending potential customers, users, contributors and introducing them to an awesome community is an important first step (even before marketing)
• Education Teams, because informing the customers, users, contributors and making sure they have the tools and resources they need to have a good experience matters
• DevRel Teams, because even though this role isn't typically super technical, it may overlap quite a bit with the activities of a Developer Relations team
• Communities Teams, because sometimes this warrants its very own team

It's hard to find footing when no one is really sure where you belong, and there are shifting goals and priorities based on what team you're on. And when you touch as many pieces of other teams as a community manager often does, flexibility, communication and collaboration are absolutely vital.

The Community Manager Role is Undervalued and Overloaded.

Community Managers often get tasked with anything that remotely touches on community growth. As a result, it's quite easy for an organization to keep adding tasks as needed. This happens in organizations of all sizes, because sometimes it's difficult to justify a whole new FTE when there's someone who can "easily take this on." (I will also say, Community Managers are typically people pleasers who often say yes when they want to say no, which doesn't help.)

Community Manager roles have long been undervalued because there is a faint dotted line between community management tasks and income to the organization. Sometimes data around community management impact and success is hard to quantify, and the value back to the organization can only be communicated through storytelling and loose numbers. There are many variables that affect a Community Manager's ability to grow and nourish a community, and Community Managers are often seen as non-essential overhead. And when you have a role where the "market value" is capped at a certain level (and that level is less than it could be), there is a perpetual stagnation of salary. No one wants to budge.

But when you look at all the contributions a Community Manager makes to the product or project, it's easy to see just how important this role is.

The Community Manager Role is Harder Than it Looks.

Not only does a Community Manager have to be an expert in multiple fields, they are highly visible people, and often "the face of" the project or product. They often communicate under public scrutiny, they are very well known in their community (and often the one people go to by default), they must solve problems with empathy and grace, and they are the glue that holds a community together. Because their work touches on many other parts of an org, they are typically under pressure from one or more internal teams, so they must be expert internal collaborators and diplomats. Most of all, regardless of the common thread that brings the community together, they are responsible for creating a place that is welcoming and inclusive and has a firm foundation for community growth. They aim to make people feel good, and we all know how hard people can be. Community Managers juggle a lot.

So, Hug Your Community Managers and Let's Rethink Our Perceptions.

I sound old and cranky in this post, and I want to be clear that I love being a Community Manager. I love being engaged in different types of tasks and being challenged to learn new things. I love making people feel good and like they are part of something bigger. I love seeing community members turn into friends and colleagues. I love when people have a good and fulfilling experience, whatever that means for them. And I love watching a community evolve and a product or project become better as a result.

But mostly, in a world full of tragedy and trauma, I love creating a little oasis of safety and comfort for my community members. I am protective of them and their experience while under my watch. It doesn't matter if it's a product or an open source community. I care about my people.

The burnout rate is high for community managers. Let's stop thinking of them as endless wells of energy and enthusiasm who should be responsible for anything remotely touching the community, and start being more mindful of the real value they bring: empathy, attention, and heart.