A Community Manager is kind of like a Swiss Army Knife or a one size fits all jacket. They cover a wide variety of roles, have a broad range of skills, and often look like they haven't slept in 4-5 days. Finding an ideal person for this role is to say the least a pretty big challenge for any brand. It takes experience or a certain personality to be able to pull it off successfully. Each brand is different and needs a different voice. Factor this in and your pool of applicants is pretty limited even with the wealth of talent now available.
So now that I've scared you into thinking that finding a great CM is near to impossible, I'm going to give you the solution: 2 Community Managers. Now, I know this idea may not be in vogue and you want to save money given this rough economy. But specializing is always going to lead to a more successful product, especially if those products work in tandem.
What I am advocating is this kind of a divide: One CM handles Marketing/PR (outreach, meet and greets, new campaigns, brainstorming with community and leveraging said community) the other CM handles customer service (community problems, conflict resolution, community advocacy, and devils advocate @ company meetings).
The key is to have the 2 CMs work together constantly and thus always be in contact with one another. Think of it as having two hands instead of one: you need both of them and are stronger when you work together. We all of different strengths. Why not utilize our skills to their best advantage then? I've met people that are dynamite customer service people that would suck at marketing (and vice versa). Their brains just aren't always wired that way. It's tough to find someone that kicks ass at everything (present company excluded, hehe).
So play to their strengths, the essential component to a Community Manager is community. If you deputize two people to be fully committed to this full time and have this balance of skill sets: you are going to have one heck of a community, brand presence, and product.
However, what I am advocating here is completely brand dependent. Ford has 100 Fiestas in the hands of 100 20 somethings who will handle all their community/marketing outreach. Most companies only have one. When your brand needs to go to another level and you've been fostering a community environment and doing all the right things. Bring in a person to supplement your other CMs strengths. It just makes to much sense to me not to happen.
I'm interested to hear your thoughts.
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tagged as cm, cm social, cms, Community Manager, community social media, customer service community manager, marketing community manager, pr community manager, Social Media, specialized community manager
