Should a community manager’s primary function be content creation?

| Danielle Geva

Domestic Goddess

No, the community manager’s primary function is connecting users to each other and to the company itself.

The community manager is responsible for building, nurturing and growing the community. While content creation can be a part of the mix, it sometimes isn’t even part of the role.

Similar to parenthood, the more resources you have, the more specialized help can be obtained. In a small startup the community manager often takes care of outreach, customer support, content creation, email marketing, and event planning. However, larger teams may have one or more specialists assigned for each area, working along the community manager.

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Why do you want to work for us?

| Danielle Geva

The Office

The make or break question. Interviewers often end interviews with this seemingly simple question in order to weed out those just looking for a paycheque. However, less than qualified candidates can fake interest with a shallow answer.

It seems as if some candidates prepare for interviews by only spending a couple of minutes on online research. They then mention a unique aspect of the company during the interview, which may fool some inexperienced interviewers. While information can be harder to find when applying to smaller businesses, I used to wonder why recently launched startups even asked interviewees “why do you want to work for our company?”.

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Your Company’s Five Customers

| Danielle Geva

#beta #invite

Every business has to deal with these five types of customers. Below are some tips on how to treat each customer, once you’ve identified which category they fall into.

1. The Early Adopter

Characteristics
The Early Adopter signs up before you’ve even had a chance to read your own launch announcement. They are eager to try the latest products, and their Twitter feed is full of “I just signed up to x, join me now… #beta #invite”.

How To
Beware, it won’t be long before the Early Adopter gets distracted by the next shiny startup and forgets all about you. One way to keep these customers around is to make them feel like insiders and constantly update them on new features. Don’t worry if they do disappear, as they are often not your target audience. However, try to keep the Early Adopter engaged long enough for the word to reach prospects in her network.

2. The Groupie

Characteristics
The Groupie is an Early Adopter that felt so special she decided to stick around. These customers will bombard you with suggestions, and won’t hesitate to answer any requests for feedback.

How To
Accept their advice graciously, but don’t feel compelled to satisfy their every demand. You might find some gems, but as much as these customers love your product, you’ll notice the Groupie rarely converts into a paying customer.

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Never Underestimate the Competition

| Danielle Geva

Craigslist

How many times have you exchanged emails with your team linking to a horrendous looking website?

It’s easier to poke fun at a competitor and underestimate their ability based on appearances, than to actually do the research. While, it may boost morale in the short-term, you won’t be smiling when your customers suddenly switch over.

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You’ve had a bad day

| Danielle Geva

haters gonna hate

Once your company will be worth billions, one mean-spirited email won’t matter. In fact, it will most likely never even reach you.

The story is different when you’re a team of five. Every single email, good or bad, is forwarded to you. While feedback is always welcome, some people don’t realize that sending an email full of hate isn’t very helpful. These people might even be your biggest ‘fans’, but they fail to realize how badly their careless email hurts. Furthermore, they fail to realize how their follow up tweet will hurt your chances to close your upcoming funding round.

The best solution is to kill them with kindness, and hope they move on to their next rant.

Don’t worry about launching your MVP without an email sign-in if you’re targeting Facebook users. Don’t delay your weekly blog post because you haven’t found the perfect image. Don’t leave out a call-to-action until you’ve hired a copywriter.

These type of people are always going to find something to complain about, make a big deal out of it, and say that you’re the worse. Haters gonna hate. The next time someone has a bad day and takes it out on you, remember that the only reason you have a missing feature is because you actually had the courage to launch something in the first place.

 

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