I have been monitoring new job postings for Community Managers and noticing
that the job descriptions, roles and responsibilities, varies widely,
and it made me wonder if many employers are blurring the lines
between community management and social media. In many areas these
roles do over lap, and I think that's what makes it somewhat confusing.
Some roles I've seen advertised are clearly not roles for Online
Community Managers, but rather Social Media Managers/Marketers.
So what's in name, should some of these jobs be titled differently?
Instead of Community Manager perhaps they should be something like:
Online Media Manager
Social Media Manager
Social Media Community Manager
Brand Evangelist
Brand Community Manager
Brand Advocate
Digital Community Brand Advocate Web Manager
What do you think, do you have any you can add to the list?
I really don’t know if it is necessary to come up with that many “fancy titles” (in my opinion, this is really “American” – I’ve seen companies follow this trend of renaming even the most basic positions (like “promoting” someone who was responsible for opening a door to the “location manager”)).
I can’t think of many jobs in the ever-changing online world that are strictly bound to one single task. Officially, I’m an Assistant Community Manager, but still at times I’m also Content Manager, Customer Service Representative, Translator, Author, etc…
Still, I’m fine with calling it ACM. I don’t know if it would be helpful if a company would seek an “Online Media Manager” rather than just a CM.
- Oliver
Hi Oliver,
Thanks so much for your comments. A CM is certainly hard to define and we all have different roles and responsiblities, that’s for sure.
From my perspective this job: http://www.topix.com/topix/jobs#comm_management is one that I envision as more of community manager role, and this: http://www.skyfire.com/about/careers/community-manager is more a social media manager role. I think that Community Manager seems to be a “catch-all” title for everything, when in fact the job descriptions are often not really in line with what I perceive as a community manager role. But then we all look at this from a different perspective and our mileage varies. Plus the CM role seems to be evolving and changing all the time to fit in with the community that it is catering too.
Hi Sue,
Even within ‘purer’ CM roles, I’ve both held roles and seen job specs with varying titles which just cover slight variations in specialisation, such as (to add to Oliver’s list):
Community Producer
Community Executive
Community Liaison Manager/Executive
Community Host / Moderator (for roles which I would have said were more generalist)
Community Evangelist
Community Developer
Community Product Manager/Executive
Community Support Manager/Executive
In most cases, the specialisation is obvious, but in some interviews I’ve attended, it’s been obvious the recruiter had just plucked the term they had first seen as they were not overly familiar with the purpose of the roles itself (obviously less prevalent in the last couple of years, but especially true earlier on in my career)
At higher levels, the confusion continues as well – my current role is Head of Communities, but covers both more traditional community management tasks as well as Social Media training, evangelising, and strategy. Maybe there should be another generalist title such as Head of Interactions
And then we have Chief Community Officers, Community Directors, etc…
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a virtual badge that said ‘I’m here to help’ and leave it at that?
I love the “Head of Interactions” title. And yes, the idea of a virtual badge that says “I am here to help” is spot on. You’ve hit the the nail on the head, the bottom line is we are here to help our communities in whatever way we can.