Being a community manager is a job that is part of these businesses of the future on the web. If it has not stopped developing for more than 10 years, it remains the victim of many prejudices. Let’s take a look at 7 absolutely false misconceptions…
Significant baggage with more than most community managers. In 2022, according to a survey conducted by BDM among 902 professionals working in this profession, 53.5% of chief ministers have bac+5, while 36% have bac+3 or bac+4.
In addition to developing a great web culture, taking training in social media helps to learn more about the tools needed for the profession. Among his many missions, the community manager must regularly monitor the competition, operate a digital clock to learn new trends, follow innovation, news and development of platforms.
To run an effective digital clock, it must:
- visiting social networks every day to obtain various information and observe your competitors;
- Use various RSS feed aggregators, such as Netvibes, Feedly, and Google Alerts. These tools make it possible to know the news of selected blogs or sites the day before and display them on a single page.
2. It’s not a real job
Many still think that the community manager does not have a real job, because he hangs out on social networks and regularly publishes content. This bias comes from the fact that publishing posts is just a simple daily pastime for users.
However, each post produced by CM has a specific purpose (acquiring new followers, retaining current customers with a view to converting them later, etc.), as it follows a precise editorial line and its Actions are judged on the basis of various results.
The community manager has a range of skills, as his or her job is to perform multiple tasks within the same profession. He is a digital strategist, moderator, marketer, editor, designer and can also play the role of content manager.
He makes sure to publish content that appeals to his audience and posts at a time when maximum users are connected. To properly contextualize his posts and attract his target audience, he chooses the most appropriate hashtags, then adopts a tone consistent with the company’s spirit.
This professional represents the negotiator between the brand or company and the consumer. He spends a lot of time on social networks, especially in order to respond to the many opinions and comments. In addition to being a moderator, he is also an animator as he creates polls, stories, games/contests and events.
He knows how to highlight the benefit of the client because of his great human qualities. This parameter is especially necessary to increase the engagement rate.
3. Easy to post on social media
Each post is designed to achieve a specific goal. Thus, the CM should be organized, creative and endowed with a good analytical mind.
a good organization
It is necessary to prepare an editorial schedule in order to be well organized. In this case, mastery of spreadsheets, such as Google Sheets or Excel, is essential. Retro planning or editorial planning helps to visualize all the posts coming in a given period of time. This publishing tool offers:
- the various subjects to be treated;
- time and date of posting;
- media credits;
- The text of the post as well as associated media, such as videos or photos;
- Hashtags according to the social network;
- Publication Status: This can be validated in the process of proofreading or in the process of verification.
creativity
Its visual and editorial content should be original, in keeping with the graphic charter as well as the editorial line. Video editing and photo retouching require mastery of some appropriate software. In order to captivate your audience and evoke emotion in them, good spelling and a great imagination are essential.
an analytical mind
After publishing visual and editorial content, the community manager checks and then records the post’s performance in a spreadsheet. Indeed, the latter provides details on reach, number of followers, interactions, use of hashtags for Instagram, etc.
4. He can post from anywhere in the world
While it is possible to post from anywhere in the world, more and more CMs are traveling to meet their clients to conduct actual interviews. Such initiatives allow them to do a Facebook Live related to the life of the company and learn more about the philosophy of the customers.
5. Only youth are recruited for this post
A BDM study conducted in December 2019 shows that 35% of CMs are over 30 years old, while 65% of them are between 21 and 30 years old. This result is justified by the fact that newcomers to the profession who have opted for professional retraining already have many years of experience in a given area. Moreover, the first entrants to this profession are starting to get old.
6. He should be the subject matter expert of his client
The community manager should know the objectives, properties as well as all the elements related to the customer’s product. However, it is not necessary that he should be an expert. In fact, it’s even more beneficial for him to know how to put himself in the customer’s place in order to provide him with content that answers his problem.
Once the designer or product specialist has explained all the details to him, he resumes his explanation with less technical and catchy words to attract the target audience. Thus, the audience would like to know more about the product and subsequently buy it.
7. Anytime Availability for Your Community
Like any other human being, CMs need rest in order to be active and productive on a daily basis. Thanks to various programming tools, he can choose the time and date of publication of his content. Upon learning of the arrangements made by its competitors, it could react quickly by altering recorded programming if necessary.