Let's take a closer look at the key responsibilities of a community manager.
Community management goes beyond replying to comments or addressing user concerns. It's about creating relationships and engaging in meaningful conversations with an online audience.
Before we can dive into what a community manager does, we need to cover the different approaches to community management. There's a helpful model for community management called the SPACES framework, which outlines the key areas of focus for this role:
Support: Guiding user discussions, answering questions, and encouraging peer support
Product: Gathering feedback and tracking product-related conversations
Acquisition: Recruiting ambassadors and managing referral programs
Contribution: Encouraging and managing user-generated content
Engagement: Fostering community connections and hosting events
Success: Providing resources and guidance to help community members succeed
You can see that some community management roles look more like customer service, while other look more like marketing strategy.
In general, community management is a people-facing role that deals with customers, followers, partners, and collaborators. When it sits within a social media team, community management most likely touches all of the above responsibilities, but is most focused on UGC, engagement, and customer success.
Here are some tasks of community managers on a social media team:
Engage with users across platforms: Community managers are often the first point of contact when customers or followers interact with the brand. They answer questions, guide users toward solutions, and ensure audiences feel welcomed and heard. They usually do this via a social media management platform like Loomly, which has a unified inbox that allows them to manage interactions and engagements from one place.
