Community managers: the new kids on the block.

Ok, I’m not taking Mauritians for stupid people, never had because I’ve always thought that we are capable of the best. The current post is really social media and web oriented but one must take into consideration the fact that Mauritian companies are still in the Ice Age of technology in terms of web presence as I pointed out in my former post: What Mauritian companies are missing on the web. So here’s another thing that we won’t see THAT soon in Mauritius but can open a lot of doors to the young Internet savvy Mauritians: Community Management.

Community managers fall in the web strategist work category. It is a fairly new job but it is up and coming for two things. Social Media is getting much more importance in the world and there must be a way of managing and directing all these to drive information to companies. To get a an overview of the evolution of social media, have a look at Island Crisis’ article on Twitter and personal information.

So what do community managers do? As Jeremiah Owyang, one of the first and most famous community managers, puts it, the community manager is not a customer or a company advocate. The community manager is the “online champion” of a company who will be driving the web strategies for it. His/her role is to get the company into the various social communities and get the possible customers or product users to interact with the company itself. The idea is to use the web as a vector to get the human being as the centre of a brand or a cause. This is done by building and helping the community to grow around the brand or cause.

The community management skills need to go from a deep understanding of the web and the levers, not to say the social levers, that organise it. The use and even abuse of social media is a great quality (hello “good” Mauritian bloggers). Other tools used for social media monitoring and observatory tracking are important. Managing people, knowing how to listen, interprete and reply in a polite and friendly manner while being authoritarian are all parts of the job. The whole picture is that of the person who’s the centre of it all while making sure that the brand or cause is the core if it all.

So any of the readers feel like they’re ready to become community managers in Mauritius? As I said earlier, it is a budding job having no real root if not necessity. Maybe in some years (again!). Otherwise you might also be interested in Chris Bogran’s excellent review of the Essential Skills of a Community Manager.

Tags: career, community management, community manager, job, Social Media, work

Category: Business, Other, Resource Depot, Resources, Social Media