Community Manager What is it, what is it for and how can I train for this digital profession?

The Social Media have definitely become an essential element for the development of any Marketing strategy for companies. In fact, today we usually say that if a company does not have a profile on Facebook , Instagram , Twitter or any other social network, it just doesn't exist .

Thanks to this scenario, a new professional profile was born; the Community Manager or Community Manager . This is extremely important in the organizational chart of any company, as it will be the one who will be responsible, among other things, for managing the social profiles of the company in question.

That you want to hire a good CM or want to become one by because of the strong demand for these professionals that exists today, in this guide we'll teach you everything you need to know about them . In this way, you will know clearly what kind of person is qualified for this position in your company, or you can simply know the knowledge and skills that you need to know to become one.

What is a Community Manager and what are these digital professionals for?

A community manager is a person responsible for managing the social profiles of a company or a public figure . In theory, it's just that, but the context of what it means is much broader than you might think, as you need to have a specific set of skills to be able to develop this function in the best way. Simply put, a plumber is responsible for repairing the pipes in your house.

It may sound simple, but in order to do your job, you should be familiar with the tools you are going to use to resolve each situation, know the different types of pipes and measures that exist, then recommend what is indicated to repair a leak. This is how CM's work also works. You need to be more prepared than people think to be able to do your job effectively, and that is precisely what we are going to teach you in the relevant sections of this article.

CM Duties What are the tasks you have to perform on a daily basis?

You now know what what is a CM More what exactly are its functions? Well, the answer is a lot more complex than just sharing content.

The most important tasks he has to perform are:

• Know the company's strategies : we obviously cannot be effective in a profession if we do not know in depth the methodology of action that our company uses, so before even launching, it is important that we know each of the marketing strategies that have our trademark in mind .
• Keep the account active : these are the basics, what we have told you so far; You should share content in the form of posts or stories / statuses so that the account remains active and its followers consume some of it on a recurring basis.
• Interact with the public : Once the publications are made, you can receive several comments from the followers. This is when the CM must try to respond effectively to the greatest number of comments, thus creating a bond between the brand and the consumer because they feel really attentive.
• Interpreting the audience - This is where the real work begins which differentiates a CM competent to un CM incompetent. Once we have interacted with our audience, it is important to learn how to interpret it to meet their needs in more detail, this information is vital and will serve other professionals such as social media or marketing expert to develop much more effective strategies.
• Identify influencers : a secondary task of CM is to learn how to identify the most influential profiles in your business niche. This will allow to establish collaborations with them that will result in a growth of the relevance of the same in their sector, allowing at the same time that the reach increases.
• Identify the competition : it is important that you can navigate through the different profiles to identify those that represent greater competition for the company in question, so that later these can be studied to create strategies that overcome them in the short or long term.
• Create weekly / monthly reports : all the information that a CM results from its audience and its competitors should be reflected in a report that will then be given to other members of the company's marketing department, who will interpret it to develop new ones. strategies for the future.
• Suggest ideas : finally, it is important that you are 100% involved in the growth of your business, so you must design your own strategies and communicate them to your "Superior" in order to actively participate in the development of future actions that they will run on the profiles.

It might sound a bit of a stretch, but the reality is that to be a competent (and well paid) community manager, you need to be able to do all of this, in order to be a valuable part of your business organization chart. and become an essential person for your bosses.

CM skills What knowledge do you need to have?

You already know everything that a CM should be able to do , but what are the skills you need to have to perform all of these tasks effectively?

Well, below you will know all the skills you need to have to be a true expert in your job:

• Basic Marketing : While you don't need to be an expert on the whole rule, there are some marketing concepts you need to deal with such as target audience, market niche, engagement, and most importantly the sales funnel.
• Redaction: un CM must be able to correctly write descriptions for each of the posts he shares on social media. A spelling or semantic error can be considered professional misconduct.
• Handling of online tools : You need to be pretty adept at handling the various online tools you need to schedule posts, set up multiple posts on different social networks, retouch and edit photos, as well as of platforms analytical to see how your audience interacts with each post.
• Analysis and interpretation : You have to be very good at interpreting and analyzing the signals that your target audience gives you when you interact with them, so that when you write the relevant report for the social media or marketer, you do it the way you want it. more precise. possible.
• Organization : Finally, you must be a person with a strong organizational capacity, in order to be able to perfectly comply with the content schedule that the brand in question applies.

How to learn to become a Community Manager? 5 online courses to train for FREE

At this point you clearly know what it is, what it is for and what are the most important skills a community manager should have. . If you don't have them, you might be wondering where you can get them. Right off the bat, we tell you that you will need persistence and dedication to be able to master this craft to perfection.

In such a way that you can take the following online courses which will provide you with the knowledge you need to be successful:

Basic Marketing Course on Google Activate

Activate by Google is probably the best free digital marketing academy you can get on the internet . Although his course is not 100% community manager, it will give you the basic knowledge of online marketing that you need to know to function as fluently as possible in this environment.

Moreover, being from such a recognized company, you can be sure that any employer who notes this certificate on your CV will be seduced by your profile. To do this, you just need to have an account Google and grab Google Activate to start your online course.

Social media for IEBS newbies

IEBS Business School has a great social media course where they will teach you the most important concepts you need to master to understand and create your own marketing strategies on social networks. Without a doubt an ideal course for those looking to get started in this world of business management. medias social .

Coursera Social Media Strategy

Coursera is by far one of the best e-learning platforms in the world. There you will find hundreds of top level digital marketing courses, one of the best. You will learn the most essential things there to understand and implement your own sales strategies on social networks. , so that in addition to being a community manager, you have skills as a social media strategist.

Facebook master plan

Facebook offers you the most comprehensive course you can find to understand how everything works on its platform. . As it is the largest social network in the world, it is inevitable that you run its learning program so that you know what are the best practices to make any profile or fanpage grow like moss.

Online Marketing Strategy and Community Manager at Miríadax

This is an all-in-one program in which you will learn more about digital marketing and social media strategies, so you can be a CM also equipped as possible, which can even perform much more complex tasks than just posting content and responding to subscribers.

5 tips to build your personal brand as a Community Manager and find a job

At this point you should already have all the skills to be considered a fairly complete CM. , which will allow you to be one of the main options for companies looking for a professional with these capabilities. However, there is no point in being trained if you cannot corroborate it with something stronger than a certificate, so you should also start working on your personal mark .

To do this, you need to follow the tips we share below:

Take care of your social networks

A social media professional cannot afford to neglect their own profile. This will be your main cover letter so you should start working on it and taking care of it so that when someone sees them , he immediately notices that you really are a real professional who knows exactly what he is doing.

Ideally, you should share a lot of content related to your profession, with tips to increase the number of followers or to better engage with your audience. Posts in which you share your knowledge and others notice that you have a solid grasp of the subject .

Create your portfolio

It bothers you a lot when you see a job posting that specifically asks the candidate for experience. Well this refers to the experience of managing profiles and what you need to do to overcome this hurdle is create your own portfolio.

It never hurts to create a Facebook fan page sharing memes or one on Instagram about health and lifestyle. , or various news. With a few accounts of this style that you manage to position with a few hundred followers with good engagement, you can consider yourself a CM with experience to spare.

Join online communities

Make yourself felt among your colleagues. On LinkedIn and Facebook, you can find hundreds of social media and digital marketing groups that are full of community managers and social media specialists. . Being part of these groups will allow you to stay on top of the latest trends and chat with other professionals to demonstrate your point of view and show that you are a qualified person.

Learn writing

We have already told you that one of the basic skills of a CM is to know how to write, but if in addition to knowing how to do it, you know the exact words to persuade your audience , then you become an item of great importance for any business.

Learn Graphic Design

Another skill that will give you a bonus is the knowledge of graphic design . We're not talking about being a full-fledged artist like real designers are, but we're talking about learning to master bitmap and vectorization programs such as Photoshop ou Illustrator, so that you can easily create nice designs for your posts. company you work for.

10 essential tools every community manager should know

We now want you know what are the main tools you need to know and in most cases mastering perfectly, so as to considerably facilitate your work.

Let's see below:

Trends.Google.es

It is a tool that allows you to be aware of the main trends. If you don't know it yet, trends are things most people talk about on the internet. and on social networks. If you know the trends and participate in them, your profiles will gain visibility and their audience will grow almost automatically.

Buffer.com

It is one of the most powerful tools for managing multiple accounts. With it, you can schedule posts to different profiles, whether or not they are from different social networks. , as well as being able to schedule them to leave multi-day's work done and focus on other tasks to build your brand.

Trello.com

An application that stands out for its organizational value . With it, you can coordinate tasks with other departments in the sales funnel, create personalized calendars and create alerts so you don't forget anything. Although it is not directly related to networks, it will help you a lot as a professional to do your tasks and not to skip any steps.

Hootsuite.com

The most basic for a CM. It is impossible not to have it among your tools since it will allow you both to schedule publications in all the social networks for which you are responsible , and respond to direct messages in multiple accounts from the same interface, which makes it a very valuable item for a manager.

Slack.com

Another organizational tool that will allow you to stay in touch with all your colleagues , to make it much easier to coordinate all kinds of joint actions. If you are in a large company, it is more than likely that your bosses will ask you to set it up for your convenience.

Brand24.com

This application is quite simple but extremely useful for a CM. He monitors everything that is published about our brand, the competition and the industry in general , so that we can keep full track of how our actions influence audiences.

BuzzBundle.com

A free website similar to the previous one. It allows you to find conversations in which your brand is mentioned , as well as establishing keywords to search for comments on the industry of it, which gives you important elements to analyze the impact of your strategy and even those of your immediate competitors.

CrimsonHexagon.com

A website similar to the previous one but much more efficient since it offers you more information on how they talk about your brand or the sector. Urban artist it allows you to follow the profiles of your competitors and your own business on all existing social networks .

Canva.com

It is an image design and editing platform, where you can find hundreds of models with the exact measurements to post on all existing social networks. It will save you a lot of work and the level of the compositions is quite high, so whatever you do will look like it was done by a real professional. If on top of that you have some graphic design knowledge, you can edit it in another bitmap program such as Photoshop to create your own models.