Don’t Underestimate the Value of Your Community Managers

3 thoughts on “Don’t Underestimate the Value of Your Community Managers”

  1. Luis – thank you for you additional commentary here. It’s interesting to hear your perspective and one of the reasons I wrote the post is because it poses the same risks as it once did. These ‘social business’ initiatives that everyone is so excited about will die a slow death if they don’t have proper staffing and resources. Because we have a bit of a pulpit off of which to advocate I think it’s critical that we do so and I appreciate your help in that effort!

  2. Great post Luis! Your comments about outsourced community management reminded me of some recent experiences. I’ll call it “The Dark Side of Success.” If managers – community, people, project – are doing a great job of keeping things together, moving forward, applying bandaids, making do, then their efforts demonstrate success and there is no need for executives to participate. This success shields executives from entering the social networks themselves and talking directly to employees and customers.

    For all my big talk of supporting the notion of failure, it is still such a scary prospect to allow something to fail. So we continue to scramble and smile. But when we do this, how do the leaders know that we need help? I think sometimes it might be better to let something fail spectacularly – SPLAT! – in order for the business to take the need seriously. But in my direct experience, I have yet to see this happen.

  3. Great post – and thanks to Rachel Happe for initiating! But perhaps Luis I would question your emphasis in places and look at it slightly differently.
    “Smart” community managers, apart from having other colleagues to help administrate their community, will foster community leadership from the within the organisation and develop a network of “Local” community managers to help facilitate, nurture and train at ground level. This does not preclude senior executive involvement in the role of approver, affirmer and facilitator – but to achieve longevity you need to penetrate the community more tangibly at ground level – because the real bottleneck to community success is not necessarily executive level – but middle management where open social collaboration poses more of a perceived “threat”.

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