If you’re looking to hire a Community Manager, you have to know one thing: Not everyone who is experienced in social media is qualified to become a Community Manager—it requires a special set of skills that goes beyond monitoring a brand’s page.
A Community Manager is the voice behind your brand so it’s important to choose someone who knows how to represent your brand the best way possible. So, what should you look for in a Community Manager?
Not all Community Managers are the same, but we believe that all good Community Managers have these 5 qualities in common:
Strategic Communication Skills
This one may seem obvious, but we’re gonna say it anyway. Great communication skills are vital to managing a community.
Community Managers need to communicate in a strategic way in order to win the customer’s hearts and minds. They need to speak the language of the audience they’re talking to, even if they’re not a part of it themselves. They need to be able to deliver bad news in a way that won’t make the situation worse.
You know a Community Manager is good when they’re able to talk in a way that makes the customer feel heard and seen. Because anyone can listen to your customers, but not everyone can make them feel heard.
These communication skills will also come in handy when a Community Manager has to coordinate with the brand’s team to make sure they’re relaying messages that the brand approves of.
Empathy
Empathy is one of the most important qualities that a Community Manager can have. A good Community Manager has to be able to understand your customers’ problems and relate to them. They have to be able to put themselves in the customer’s shoes and imagine what it would be like for them if they were encountering their exact same challenges.
If someone complains about a problem with your product or service, they won’t just reply with justifications or excuses—they’ll respond as though that problem was happening directly to them, and then do everything in their power to make things right. A Community Manager who approaches customers with warmth and compassion is bound to be a hit with the community.
Plus, it’s such a joy to be working with Community Managers who are empathetic toward their colleagues at every level of the company hierarchy!
Excellent Problem Solving Abilities
A good Community Manager has the ability to think on their feet and handle problems with tact, sensitivity and a level head. When a customer is upset (and customers will always be upset, let’s face it) they need someone who can listen carefully, find out what happened and be able to offer them a solution quickly. If they’re left unaddressed, the customer will get increasingly frustrated and the brand will have lost a customer.
A good Community Manager acts with a sense of urgency to prevent that from happening and to make the customer’s experience as positive as possible. They know why the customer is complaining (which we explain in this blog) and the exact consequences of not proactively addressing it.
Good Conversational Skills
A good Community Manager is a people person. Along with being great communicators and problem solvers, they’re also enthusiastic conversationalists. They know how to keep a conversation flowing, and most importantly, they know how to keep it exciting.
Having this trait means that the Community Manager will be a natural at forming genuine bonds with customers in online communities. They’ll also have the ability to communicate with different groups of people and be genuinely interested in what the other person has to say.
Patience
Patience is a virtue. It’s also a key quality that all Community Managers need if they want to be good at their jobs.
We’re all human, and it can be frustrating to manage the complaints and expectations of others for hours on end. But the best Community Managers find ways to stay patient despite inevitable challenges.
A tip for aspiring Community Managers: With enough experience under your belt, patience will develop naturally. You’ll know how and when to respond, as well as when to take a step back and take a breather. The more patience you have in the beginning though, the better off you’ll be long term!
You should know what to look for in a Community Manager before you hire one
Community Management is often overlooked in managing a social media page, so it can be hard to know what qualities are important for a Community Manager to have.
Our Community Managers have all these essential qualities so you won’t have to keep looking for the perfect person for the job. Contact us for information on our Community Management Services.