5 Signs Of A Bad Com­mu­nity Manager

With the grow­ing pop­u­lar­ity of so­cial me­dia, blog­ging and on­line re­view sites, many com­pa­nies us­ing these tac­tics have started to put the re­spon­si­bil­ity in the hands of a com­mu­nity manager.

Com­mu­nity man­agers can

• keep track of all the so­cial and on­line platforms,
• en­gage with the audience,
• mar­ket the com­pany and
• pro­vide a great and ever­last­ing on­line brand for the company.

Plus, they take the bur­den off of your other employees.

But be­cause hir­ing com­mu­nity man­agers is such a new con­cept, many com­pa­nies are un­sure of what ex­actly to look for when it comes to choos­ing the best pos­si­ble can­di­date. While there are many signs that some­one is qual­i­fied for the job and will help put your com­pany on the on­line map, the fol­low­ing are five signs of a bad com­mu­nity manager.

1. They can’t name a so­cial me­dia or on­line re­view tool.

Com­mu­nity man­agers are re­spon­si­ble for a va­ri­ety of so­cial and on­line ac­counts, and the eas­i­est way to man­age and mon­i­tor these ac­counts is through us­ing tools such as Hoot­suite or Re­view Track­ers. If a com­mu­nity man­ager has no idea of any so­cial me­dia or re­view man­age­ment tools, then they’re a bad choice for your company.

2. Their so­cial knowl­edge doesn’t go be­yond Face­book and Twitter.

Yes, Face­book and Twit­ter are the two most pop­u­lar so­cial net­works, but it’s im­por­tant that your com­mu­nity man­ager have an un­der­stand­ing of other so­cial net­works out there, such as Foursquare or Google+. While it’s pos­si­ble your au­di­ence may only be us­ing Face­book and Twit­ter, it’s still a good idea to hire some­one that knows more than what you need.

3. They don’t be­lieve in en­gag­ing with your audience.

There are some com­mu­nity man­agers that think they can send out a few tweets or posts and that’s it, but this won’t give you a suc­cess­ful on­line per­sona. Not only do you need to ini­ti­ate con­ver­sa­tions with your au­di­ence through tweets and posts, but you also need to en­gage them through their own posts and tweets. For ex­am­ple, you can­not have a suc­cess­ful so­cial strat­egy if you’re just stat­ing in­for­ma­tion and never re­spond­ing to oth­ers posts or tweets. Share Face­book posts and retweet Twit­ter posts. This gives your com­pany a more per­son­able feel.

4. They be­lieve solely in automation.

There are plenty of tools avail­able that al­low your com­pany to sched­ule tweets and posts in ad­vance, and while this is a good way to en­sure that your com­pany is con­stantly en­gag­ing, it’s not the only way to use so­cial me­dia. In or­der to be suc­cess­ful, you need to act in real time. Con­stantly send­ing out posts and tweets by sched­ul­ing them weeks in ad­vance is not a qual­ity you want in a com­mu­nity manager.

5. They think it’s a part-time job.

Be­cause on­line re­view sites and so­cial me­dia sites are on­line, they never shut down. This means that your com­mu­nity man­ager has to have a plan in place to mon­i­tor these ac­counts ²⁴⁄₇.

If your com­mu­nity man­ager be­lieves that their job only de­serves part-time ef­fort, then they’re not the best fit. In­stead, you want some­one that can com­mit to con­stantly mon­i­tor­ing your brand, even af­ter the 9-5 busi­ness hours are over.