How To Hire Community Manager: The Top Freelancer & In-House
If you’re looking to hire a community manager, you might be wondering what makes a candidate stand out and how to identify the right fit for your company.
A community manager is the bridge between your brand and your audience, playing a key role in driving engagement and loyalty.
This article will provide you with the essential skills to look for when you decide to hire a community manager, tips on where to find qualified candidates, and useful strategies to measure their impact, ensuring you make an informed hiring decision.
What we will explore together:
- Community managers are key to business growth by fostering strong bonds with the audience, enhancing customer interactions, and leveraging feedback for product development.
- The right community manager should possess excellent communication, adaptability, and proficiency with various tools and platforms, plus stay updated with industry trends.
- Effective community management requires utilizing advanced tools like Disco for automation, maintaining performance metrics, and continuous training and support for the community manager.
Why Hire A Community Manager?
Community management plays a pivotal role in strengthening the bond between a brand and its target audience, particularly through social media marketing and social media management. The community manager position is of significant importance as they engage in constructing, engaging, and upkeeping online communities and ensuring the prosperity and alignment of online communities with the brand’s objectives.
The scope of community management transcends basic online engagement. It significantly influences business growth and success by:
- Enhancing customer interactions and conversions
- Fostering a loyal customer base
- Ensuring customer satisfaction by providing dedicated platforms for conversation and shared interests
Community managers play a crucial role in business growth and success. They:
- Leverage community feedback to refine products
- Assist product teams in implementing new features
- Inform marketing initiatives for better alignment with the community’s requirements and choices
The collaboration of these roles underlines the indispensable contribution of community managers to business growth and success, playing a crucial part in business development.
What should you look for in hiring a Community Manager?
While hiring a community manager, one should consider not only their experience and qualifications but also their skill set. Essential skills for a community manager include excellent customer service and communication skills, flexibility, adaptability, and open-mindedness. Moreover, basic content marketing and creation knowledge, like writing engaging content and editing videos, are also crucial.
Additionally, an online community manager should be proficient in using a variety of community management tools and platforms. These include social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google, and LinkedIn, and tools like Notion, HubSpot, Mailchimp, Zapier, Google Suite, or an all-in-one community software like Disco. Managing a community with these tools effectively is crucial for a successful online community manager.
Lastly, adaptability and industry awareness are indispensable. As the digital landscape evolves, these skills enable community managers to adjust strategies effectively and embrace new platforms or tools. Staying abreast of industry trends is essential for cultivating a thriving community and engaging in successful community building.
Learn more about the essential skills of a community manager.
Outsourcing vs. In-House Community Management
One crucial decision in community management is choosing between outsourcing and in-house hiring. Several factors come into play here, including costs, specialization, and the nature of the employment relationships. Below is a comparison table outlining the pros and cons of each option:
The cost of hiring an outsourced community manager can vary. Freelance rates, for example, could be around $15 hourly, which may differ from the salaries or hourly rates established for in-house employees.
An outsourced community manager can contribute specialized skills and knowledge. For example, a freelance online community builder with over 25 years of business consulting and coaching experience, including over 5 years specializing in platforms such as Disco, could bring a wealth of experience to the table.
Steps to Hire & Evaluate a Rockstar Community Manager
The process of hiring the best online community managers kicks off with drafting a community manager job description that matches your business’s unique needs. Once that’s done, you can start the search for potential community manager candidates by engaging within the community itself or posting job ads on platforms such as Upwork, Fiverr, LinkedIn, and Indeed.
Explore the Community Job Description Complete Guide!
An essential step in the selection process is to thoroughly examine the portfolios of your prospective community managers. This will enable you to pinpoint candidates who have relevant industry experience and the necessary level of expertise to drive your community forward.
To evaluate a potential community manager’s enthusiasm for the position, you could request the individual to spontaneously generate creative work. This approach could provide insights into their passion and innovative abilities, helping you identify potential rockstar community managers.
Adapting to Diverse Community Examples, Tools, and Platforms
A community manager’s success hinges on their ability to adapt to diverse community examples. By understanding the audience, selecting appropriate platforms, tailoring the message, and establishing measurable goals to track progress, they can navigate the complexities of different community types.
However, managing communities across multiple platforms and social media accounts necessitates a unique approach. Here are some best practices to consider:
- Define a community strategy that aligns with the platforms.
- Optimize content and social media posts for each platform to enhance engagement.
- Implement a cross-posting strategy to reach the audience across platforms.
- Establish clear goals and objectives for community management campaigns.
- Create a thriving brand community through an effective community management strategy.
By following these best practices, you can effectively manage your communities across multiple platforms.
Both these strategies require a community manager to be flexible, adaptable, and open-minded, able to adjust their management style as per the needs of different communities.
Monitoring Performance and Measuring Success
Having a data analytics skill in community management is crucial. When you hire community managers, being able to identify key metrics, monitor performance, and gauge success is key in any role, with community management being no exception.
Key performance indicators (KPIs) such as community health metrics, visitor metrics, engagement metrics, conversion, and customer satisfaction metrics can give a clear picture of a community manager’s performance.
In addition to these KPIs, it’s vital to quantify customer engagement. Methods such as:
- the Net Promoter Score (NPS)
- monitoring likes, comments, shares, mentions, replies, ratings, reviews, and feedback
- analyzing activity metrics like session length and retention rates
Lastly, customer sentiment can be quantitatively tracked and assessed by analyzing customer satisfaction surveys, social media comments, and reviews using specialized tools designed to measure sentiment and tone. Leveraging both quantitative and qualitative data, community managers can effectively assess community analytics.
Platforms like Disco offer community analytics and performance metrics, making it easier to monitor performance and evaluate effectiveness.
Onboarding and Training Your New Community Manager
Upon finding the ideal community manager for your business, the next step is to onboard and train them. Providing a comprehensive orientation, delivering tailored community manager training, cultivating connections and engagement, establishing transparent expectations, and offering continuous support are recommended best practices for onboarding a new community manager.
Training holds equal importance. Essential components to incorporate in the training program for a new community manager include:
- Community management strategies
- Technical skills
- Communication and interpersonal skills
- Content creation and curation
- Community analytics and reporting
- Community engagement plan
- Crisis management
- Collaboration and teamwork
- Continuous learning and professional development
Specific onboarding procedures may be required for community managers responsible for different types of online communities. These procedures encompass:
- Setting goals for the community onboarding system
- Tailoring onboarding messages for various community members
- Improving the onboarding process with established strategies like promoting hospitality and utilizing feedback.
Maintaining a Strong Relationship with Your Community Manager
Sustaining a robust relationship with your community manager is vital for a flourishing online community. Fostering effective communication ensures clear and timely sharing of information, leading to informed and engaged community members. It also fosters trust and transparency, enabling community managers to promptly address concerns and share updates.
Providing ongoing support to your community manager can significantly enhance their performance. Here are some ways to support your community manager:
- Active listening to customer concerns
- Maintaining productive partnerships with consumers
- Measuring key metrics such as engagement, growth, response times, sentiment, and conversion rates to track success
By implementing these strategies, you can ensure that your community manager has the necessary support to excel in their role. Remember, a strong relationship will not only benefit your online community but also contribute to the overall success of your business.
Disco: The Leading Community Software for Community Managers
When hiring a standout community manager, it's crucial to pair them with a community platform that is user-friendly, customizable, and designed to encourage community engagement. Disco, for instance, is such a platform. With Disco, both you and the community manager can easily achieve your community OKRs, engage members, streamline operations, and measure KPIs with analytics, among other things.
Managing a community is no small feat. It demands dedication, hard work, and the juggling of many tasks. Thankfully, all-in-one community software exists to assist community managers in managing their responsibilities and daily tasks.
After securing two prestigious awards in 2023, "Fast Company’s Most Innovative in Education" and "EdTech Breakthrough's Startup of the Year", Disco has established itself as the most trusted community software among the world's top online communities! With these credentials, you can be assured that with Disco, your online community can thrive in the competitive market.
5 Most Significant Features for Community Managers
When it comes to selecting the best online community platforms, it's important to look for useful features that can give value to your community management. As an expert in the industry, Disco, a leading name in community software, proudly presents its five most significant features that are essential in contemporary learning platforms:
- customization
- integrations
- automation
- scalability
- affordability
Each of these features is designed with a strategic approach to facilitate community managers in their daily tasks and make community management a breeze.
Intelligent Automation
Disco's powerful automation feature is designed to help community managers work smarter, not harder. It provides robust tools that can automate repetitive tasks, reminders, and content delivery, thereby freeing up your time to focus on the most crucial aspect: nurturing your community.
By reclaiming hours spent on routine tasks, you can shift your attention towards more critical, growth-oriented activities. Regular updates and reminders can be automated, ensuring your community remains informed and engaged. Furthermore, processes like sending welcome messages to new members can be streamlined for a seamless and efficient member experience.
The automation feature is further enhanced by Disco's AI co-pilot, which uses artificial intelligence to assist in community management.
With Disco, it's also now possible to optimize content creation with AI-generated texts and images, reducing the workload for community managers while ensuring high-quality content. It's like having an extra pair of hands that never tire, working tirelessly to make your community management more efficient and effective. With Disco's automation feature, you're not just managing your community; you're leading it towards growth.
Multiple Integration
Disco provides seamless integration with a variety of platforms, significantly enhancing the ease with which community managers can manage their communities across different platforms. The platform's integration capabilities are designed to work harmoniously with the tools and software your community already uses, ensuring a smooth transition and efficient workflow.
Another standout feature is Disco's Slack integration. This feature allows for streamlined communication, making it easier for community managers to keep their members engaged and informed.
With the Slack integration feature, community managers can send updates, share news, and interact with members directly from their Slack workspace. It's a game-changer for real-time communication and collaboration, allowing community managers to respond quickly to members' needs and inquiries.
Customization
This feature is particularly beneficial for community managers who wish to tailor the platform to better serve their community's specific goals and objectives. For instance, they can customize the onboarding process to ensure new members are introduced to the community in a way that aligns with their brand's voice and values.
This can involve personalizing welcome messages, creating custom onboarding tasks, and even adjusting the layout and design of the onboarding interface to reflect the brand's identity.
Furthermore, Disco also offers profile customization options. This feature allows community managers to design and manage member profiles in a way that promotes engagement and interaction within the community. They can decide what information to include in the profiles, how to display this information, and even add custom fields that are relevant to their community. This can lead to more meaningful connections between members, as they can learn more about each other and find common interests or experiences.
Finally, Disco's group management feature is another aspect of its customization options. This allows community managers to create and manage multiple groups within their community, each with its own set of rules, members, and content.
Scalability
Whether you're adding new products, offering discount codes, or analyzing your growth, Disco's robust features can easily adapt and scale to meet your evolving needs. For instance, if you're expanding your product range, Disco's platform can accommodate the increase, ensuring your community members have access to your latest offerings.
Additionally, if you're planning to offer discount codes to incentivize member engagement, Disco's platform can effortlessly handle the distribution and tracking of these codes. As your community grows, it becomes increasingly crucial to analyze your growth metrics.
Disco's platform comes equipped with comprehensive analytics tools that can provide valuable insights into your community's growth patterns, member engagement levels, and other key performance indicators.
Affordability
For only $79 monthly, billed annually, any community manager and business can start their communities with Disco! It is the most affordable among the top-tier online community platforms across the internet. These popular software solutions could cost you around $500 per month like Bettermode and €7,200 annually like SanaLabs.
What's more? Disco offers a small gift of a 14-day free trial for first-time users. If you are not ready yet to sign up, then you can still get a first-hand experience of the Disco platform through our interactive product tour!
Discover 6 game-changing strategies from Section CEO Greg Shove.
Discover 6 game-changing strategies from Section CEO Greg Shove.
Wrapping Up...
As we’ve seen, hiring the right community manager is more than just filling a position; it’s about finding an individual who can foster engagement, cultivate relationships, and drive business growth.
At the end of the day, the best community manager can transform your online community, enhance member engagement, and contribute significantly to your business’s success. So, take your time, do your research, and make a choice that best fits your business needs and goals.
Additional readings to fill up your knowledge about community management:
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