How To Get Started As An Online Community Manager

I am increasing being asked for tips on how to get started in Community Management, so I thought I’d put my fingers to the keyboard and post some of my thoughts on how aspiring Community Managers could can gain some valuable experience, and get on the first wrung of the CM ladder.

Start from the Bottom

If you don’t have any experience in this role then you will need to start at the bottom. In my opinion there is no better way to learn the ropes than as a moderator. You’ll be down in the trenches interacting with community members, learning the nuances of how to deal with trolls, referee disagreements, calm heated behavior, fight spammers, and much, much more. Moderating a community is truly the best way to learn how people interact and build relationships online. There is a trick to knowing when your presence is needed and when it is not, and it’s not something that can always be taught; it’s a gut instinct that you acquire over time. I equate it to the sort of feeling you get when you know a driver in another car is going to cut you up, or pull out in front of you. You just know, and you can’t really explain why or how you know. It’s an instinctive feeling that you’ve picked up after years of driving and watching other drivers. Community Management is the same, many of the skills are learnt over time after paying attention to how people interact with one another.

So how do you get down and dirty as a moderator?

Get involved in online communities that deal with topics, or subjects,  you are familiar with, or are interested in. Start sharing useful information – in other words make sure that each one of your posts and comments offers something of value to the community. Then as you become a valued member of the community offer your services to the community manager/admin as a volunteer moderator. Regardless of whether a position is paid or not, experience is experience, and by volunteering you will learn an immense amount of community management and moderation skills. Later when you are ready to move on and spread your wings I am sure the CM’s/Admin’s of the community will be happy to give you a reference that you can use when you apply for a paying position. My moderators are all volunteers and I’m always happy to provide them with references.

If you are already familiar with online communities, but don’t want to volunteer in the particular community you participate in, you should think about approaching a local non-profit and volunteer to help with their Social Media/Community outreach, and if they don’t have a community presence on line, offer to start one for them. Also check out sites like Volunteermatch.org, Idealist.org and Do-It Volunteering etc for volunteer positions.

Paying Gig

If you are currently in paid employment and don’t want to take the jump quite yet to a paid full-time moderator position, you should consider taking a part-time gig as a paid moderator. Many of these positions are work-from-home and often shifts are during evening/weekend hours. I’ve even seen some advertised moderator positions that don’t actually list prior experience as a requirement because they will train their new moderators. Some good places to start are:

Liveworld

ICUC Moderation

MetaVerse ModSquad

emoderation

Scout Moderation

Read, read, and read some more

I can’t emphasize enough that you should read, read and read some more, and then when you are done doing that, read again. Community Managers are great at sharing their experiences and you can learn a great deal from their many years of accumulated knowledge. Some great blogs to read to get you started are:

Feverbee

Managing Communities

Community Spark

Blaise Grimes-Viort

Connie Bensen

The Community Round Table

Greg Lexiphanic

Fresh Networks

I would also recommend the following books:

Online Community Management for Dummies by Deborah Ng

Managing Online Forums by Patrick O’Keefe

The Art of Community by Jono Bacon

Training

There is currently divided opinion on Community Management training. Some feel the Community Manager role is still fledgling and going through a transition of developing and shaping, and so not yet mature enough for organized training. Whilst others feel that the time is ripe to start helping the development of the position by offering structured training that will be useful in all genres of community management. (I might add as someone who has been in this role for 12 years, that although the job title may be new the position has been around a very long time. It’s only in the recent years that it has become more recognized as a career path.)

Can one just participate in training and learn enough to be up and running as a community manager immediately? I don’t believe so. It’s difficult to “learn” people skills and experience, but I believe that we can all benefit from additional knowledge, and open ourselves up to new ways of doing things. So if you are able to participate in some type of training it will only improve your skill set and broaden your horizons. Currently there are two paid Online Community Management courses that I know of:

Community Specialist Certificate Programme 

Pillar Summit - Community Management Course

I have not participated in the above mentioned training, but I know many of the organizations and people (I am a member of The Community Roundtable) who provide this training, and they are all talented and experienced professionals.

(Edit – Blaise Grimes-Vort has just added a great list of training and degree courses to his blog here)

Webinars

Webinars are most often free and a great way of learning from Community Management professionals. So if you aren’t able to fork out money for paid training you can still learn from others in the field. Most webinars are promoted well in advance, so keep an eye out and when you see them sign up for as many as your time allows. You will obtain a wealth of information. For instance Rachel Happe from The Community Roundtable recently presented The CR’s Maturity Model via a recent webinar.

Blogging

Have a passion for a subject? Blog about it. Write about a subject that you enjoy or are interested in, and allow comments on your posts. Try and engage people who comment and build a community around your blog.

Some blogging platforms available include:

WordPress

Typepad

Blogger

Start your own Community.

It’s not easy, but it’s a great way to “put your money where your mouth is.” Start and grow your own community. There are many free forum platforms you can use, and starting your own community is an excellent way of putting into practice what you have learnt. It’s not an overnight process though, building an engaged community takes time and a lot of effort, but it’s one way of displaying your skills and you will certainly learn, from first hand experience, what works and what doesn’t.

Here is a small list of some free forum platforms that are available:

Vanilla forums

phpBB

Free Forums

Hang out with Community Managers

Last, but by no means least, hang out where the Community Managers hang out. Here are a few places to start you off:

Community Manager, Advocate, and Evangelist -  Facebook Group

Association of Online Community Moderators – LinkedIn Group

Community Managers (Social Media Managers) – LinkedIn Group

Online Community and Social Media Managers – LinkedIn Group

e-mint  Association of Online Community Professionals – Yahoo Group founded in June 2000

Australian Community Manager – Facebook group for Online Community Managers based in Australia

Twitter
A Community Manager chat is hosted each Wednesday at 2pm ET using the #cmgrchat tag

Also follow the #cmgr tag for lots of useful information and community manager related conversation.

So those are a few of my tips for now. I will try and add to this post, as I’m sure I’ve missed out loads. But in the meantime what are you waiting for? Dig in, get started and I’m sure we will bump into each other on the interwebs.

Questions?? Ask away. I’ll help all I can, and if I don’t know the answer I’ll try and point you in the direction of someone who does.