Online community manager

The online community manager role is a growing and developing profession. People in this position are working to build, grow and manage communities around a brand or cause.

History of Online Community Management

While the term "online community manager" may not have been used at the time, the role has existed since online systems first began offering features and functions that allowed for community creation. These early efforts, in the form of Bulletin board systems, had leaders known as System Operators or Sysops. The early 1990s saw the growth of mainstream online computer services such as Prodigy, CompuServe and America Online. Prominent features of these services included communities which went by various names; Special Interest Groups, Communities of Interest and so on. And their leaders were often referred to as "Moderators."

General Online Community Manager Roles

Online community managers may serve a variety of roles depending on the nature and purpose of their online community, which may or may not be part of a profit motivated enterprise. Patti Anklam has asserted that "Every network has an underlying purpose" and motivations for such network creation include; Mission, Business, Idea, Learning or Personal.^[1] She claims such leaders hold the collective vision, create and manage relationships and manage collaborative processes. Anklam does not distinguish a fundamental difference for these roles as related to the varying purposes of network, (i.e. community), creation.

Professional Online Community Manager Roles

In the fall of 2007, Jeremiah Owyang (was Sr Analyst at Forrester Research: Social Computing) independently gathered job descriptions. His research resulted in his publishing The Four Tenets of the Community Manager.

This is an emerging & fast growing profession, especially given the growth of branded online communities, online research communities, corporate blogs and other social media marketing and research activities.

In 2008, Jeremiah Owyang began maintaining a list of online community managers employed by large corporations (a Fortune 5000 company or over 1,000 employees). This list is certainly not exhaustive and does not include the many community managers at smaller organizations, but it does indicate the prevalence of the position in mid 2008.

Community Manager Culture and Appreciation

In 2010 Jeremiah inspired an international Community Manager Appreciation Day to take place on the 4th Monday of January.^[2]. People are encouraged to send sincere thank you notes to their online community managers. People using Twitter include the #CMAD and #CMGR hashtag in their tweets about this event.

CA Technologies [1] participated in the 2011 Community Manager Appreciation Day by issuing a press release [2] and a video [3] to publicly celebrate the contributions of its community managers. Many other events around the world commemorate this event.^[3]

References

1. ^ Anklam, Patti (2007). Net Work. Elsevier. ISBN 978-0-7506-8297-8.  | pages=4,31,108
2. ^ Original blog post where the event originated (25/01/2010): "Community Manager Appreciation Day #CMAD (Every 4th Monday of Jan)"
3. ^ Jeremiah Owyang tracks many of these on his blog http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2011/01/23/wrap-up-of-2nd-annual-community-manager-day-voices-around-the-world-cmad/

See also

• Community building
• Community of practice
• Internet forum
• Internet social network
• Market research
• Online deliberation
• Online research community
• Qualitative research
• Research 2.0
• Social network
• Social media

Further reading and external links

• Community Manager Job Description by Connie Bensen
• Community Manager Responsibilities by Connie Bensen
• e-Mint: the Association of Online Community Managers
• Community Manager Room (FriendFeed)
• Online Community Managers Group (Facebook)
• Community Manager, Advocate, and Evangelist (Facebook)
• Online Community Manager (LinkedIn)
• Creating Online communities web site (Joomlapolis)
• Online Community Manager Community Management tool for property owners
• Community Manager Responsibilities in spanish by Webcuatro
• Community Manager Tips in spanish by Bloguismo.com
• MIS 300 Managing Online Communities course at the University of Arizona
• Community Management Description by Two Pi Team
• Rosenkranz, C., Feddersen, C. (2010). Managing viable virtual communities: an exploratory case study and explanatory model. International Journal of Web Based Communities. Volume 6, Number 1: 5-14. http://inderscience.metapress.com/link.asp?id=j2888h3537761355