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Are Bloggers Community Managers?
Today’s guest post is written by Jelena Woehr.
Are all bloggers also community managers?
Jayme Soulati , in suggesting this topic, wondered if ignorance regarding community management might explain some blog failures.
Because this post began as a comments-section Q&A, we’ll continue it in the same vein:
What Is Community Management?
Community management is the art of creating something by allowing it to create itself, then nurturing it by creating an environment in which it nurtures itself. Community managers conduct an orchestra of hundreds or thousands as a community forms or sustains itself, but the credit for a successfully developed online community belongs primarily to its members.
Are Bloggers Community Managers?
Some bloggers are (whether they know it or not) community managers; others are new media journalists, content curators, or simply diarists. If any of the following are true of your blog, you might be a community manager:
- You find yourself mediating audience disputes.
- Your goals for your blog include “community growth” goals, such as, “By the end of the year, 50 percent of my comments will come from people who leave at least two comments per week.”
- Your blog has spawned “memes.” One good example is Hyperbole-and-a-Half’s “alot” post, which is reliably linked by a H & ½ audience member anywhere online commenters misplace the space between “a” and “lot.”
- You find yourself making moderation decisions based on your audience members’ feelings as much as your own.
- You let your audience members have access to your pages by inviting guest posts or using a “diarist” system (a la Daily Kos).
- Your audience maintains its own rituals to strengthen a group identity. (More on rituals in my last Spin Sucks post.)
Are Failed Blogs Victims of Neglectful Community Management?
When a blog collapses, the most common outward culprits are blogger burnout or failure to thrive. Poor community management won’t unilaterally cause these, but it could contribute. Trolls running rampant can cause an audience to evaporate, leading to failure to thrive.
Alternately, blogger burnout can be caused by overenthusiastic community management. Take negative comments personally or adopt every audience member’s problems as your own, and you’ll soon run out of energy.
So What’s a Blogger to Do?
If you do your best to remain an objective blogger, rather than building a personal connection to the audience, feel free to simply moderate comments as necessary to reduce spam.
If, however, you’re striving to build an online community, look for community manager meetups in your area and learn from professionals who work with big brands. Consider giving audience members the opportunity to guest blog, or adding a diaries page for community members. Schedule community events and Ustream chats.
Above all, remember that you can’t create organic communities by force. Take a deep breath, release it, and appreciate the symphony your “orchestra” creates—even if it’s not what you expected!
Jelena Woehr is community and social communications manager for Yahoo! Contributor Network, where more than half a million writers share their knowledge on some of the world’s most visited websites, including Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Shine, and more. In her spare time, she herds cats, feeds carrots to ponies, reads management theory textbooks, and works toward her goal of becoming a professional CEO/Senator/Cowgirl/Eccentric Novelist hybrid.
I think when it comes down to it, everyone is a community manager.
Customer service reps; funeral directors; fruit stall sellers; blog readers as opposed to just the bloggers; etc.
Anywhere where we're in touch with the public and they're forming an opinion on what we do, we're needing to be careful of our perception.
So I guess in that respect, yes, bloggers are community managers. But then so is everyone else. ;-)
Yes, what you said. Not so sure there's a clear cut delineation for most because it's what we're always doing. Spin Sucks not included. DannyBrown
DannyBrown I'd say everyone is a communications manager, but only those who a group of people choose to spend time with, not just as a friend but in acknowledgement of their group leadership role, are community managers.
To a point, I think most bloggers are community managers. Or should I say they are perceived in that light. Someone needs to give direction to the discussion, and moderate the emotional topics. The "expert" is the natural choice for the role of community manager.
I'm interested in the idea of blog collapse. What does that mean? Has it happened that a blog has collapsed from rampant community? If yes please name names!
Thanks for making me think about this.
jennwhinnem I'm currently watching one of my favorites resist it. I think it'll pull through, but fuglyblog.com (it's about horses) just changed writers and ownership and the community revolted because the new writer spent a couple posts snarking off at her own new readers and talking about her daughter before she got back to what the community wanted. Looks like she's going the right direction now, but it didn't look a couple weeks ago like she was going to make it--I was all but peeking at the page through my fingers to see if it was still there in the morning!
jelenawoehr I had no idea blog communities had high-drama meltdowns at this degree. wow! thanks for sharing.
First of all I came here from Google Plus. Just wanted to let the administrators know that.
As I commented on Google plus I think all bloggers who allow comments and pursue community vs reading need community management skills if you plan on engaging that audience.
The Huffington Post often moderates controversial posts and allows others to be free. Some news outlets do not moderate or participate. For good and bad. I often wonder why they would do this. Great you get 3000 comments and 250 are sick comments no one would want. So that is a tact you can take. or like Mashable you can ban the smart people from commenting.
But most bloggers like to get personal with their visitors in some way shape or form. Could be thank yous, could be expanding on the discussion. And as we have seen when some people have misbehaved in some way things can get testy. And then your community management skills are important. Obviously people like me go off topic...how do you steer me back. There was this time in Budapest and the train was late and I had no more beer and I saw this nun......
Or sometimes people butt heads...I mean whenever I see KenMueller you know fisticuffs on his porch can happen. But I mean come on he doesn't make the martini's dry enough for me no matter how many times I tell him!
Other times you get really smart people who like to show off. Like that Alien dude. Who the hell does he think he is. Phlbt! Or people who write full essays like nittygriddyblog .
I do think the ones with the best skills, level heads, and moderator skills have the most staying power. Great post jelenawoehr !
HowieSPMKenMuellernittygriddyblog Thank you!
I had a funny conversation yesterday--I found myself talking to a right-wing talk radio host and he told me "I don't read the Washington Post. I do read the Huffington Post. Does that surprise you?"
I responded back, "I DON'T read the Huffington Post. Does that surprise YOU?"
The moral of the story is--sometimes I wonder if many of these sites really know their own audiences and consider that in making commenting policies. 20-somethings who also use social news bookmarking sites and the like tend to be very anti "censorship," but I wonder if the average person in that demographic is contributing as much as an older professional who maybe doesn't seem like the HuffPo demographic yet is reading anyway? I don't like it when sites seem to community manage for the majority now, not for a vision of the future.
jelenawoehrKenMueller to that point Jelena I think most people are clueless when they think of what any media outlet's demographic is. I bet many folks think Huff Post is only Liberal and Fox conservative (though i saw Fox is moving back towards the center now per Roger Ailles). People hear about Fox News because of the Huff Post and Jon Stewart. And they think how can so many people watch that channel (just like Fox viewers say the same about MSNBC viewers) well cable news when totaled up combined (Fox, CNN, HLN, MSNC) is only 2% of the US population! Network News is watched by so many more but no one ever brings up boring and uncontroversial right?
I think this also reduces participation. When Fox started Fox Nation on Facebook in the early days I went just to be a thorn in their side. They were able to block me from commenting. Then I would Unlike...then Like and be able to comment again. Then they stopped allowing comments. How many blogs are just love fests with no willingness for an opposing point of view? Kind of hurts the potential of these forums.
HowieSPM that's when a good community manager goes to the commenting plug-in peeps (cough, livefyre ) and asks them to limit word count for certain users.!! There are some really good passive aggressive, back-end tactics manipulative community managers can take. LOL!
Guilty! This remains an interesting topic to me and not extremely certain I'm tracking with my role as a blogger AND community manager. Is this innate, instinctual...or do we set out to become a community manager? I've been "accused" of being one, I think, and I also think it's good. But, I don't act as moderator for arguments as, luckily there are none...yet.
Is this a role that goes hand in hand with blogging? As in, you can't have one without the other?
Let me break these down to individual questions...
"Is this innate, instinctual...or do we set out to become a community manager?"
For some people, I think it's instinctual. For others, I think it's learned--whether consciously or not. Some bloggers do envision a community when starting out; others realize later that they have been thrust into that role.
I wouldn't say a community moderator is quite the same as a community manager. A moderator is mostly there pushing a broom to get rid of spam and moderate if there are problems; a manager takes an active role in guidance toward positive growth.
"Is this a role that goes hand in hand with blogging? As in, you can't have one without the other?"
No. I think many bloggers are more like traditional journalists: There's an absolute division between them and their audiences. They don't reply to comments. Some don't even enable comments! There are also bloggers (like Gini) whose audiences get so big that they hire someone as a community manager to take over those functions.
jelenawoehrSoulati | B2B Social Media Marketing I was going to say what Jelena said. I didn't know I needed a community manager until a grad student presented me with the opportunity. Now Lisa serves that role, along with the content role. It's kind of fun because I get to do what I'm really good at (egging you guys on) and she gets to make sure we have the content so I CAN do that.
Nothing against you, Jelena, at all; but, this topic I'm on the fence about. It seems, now that Gini has so nicely given a solid example of lisagerber ginidietrich jelenawoehr I'm now wondering about blog size -- if your community becomes too unruly (aka Spin Sucks), or shall we say unmanageable for one blogger, then a community manager is par.
Perhaps I'm sitting on the fence b/c it's something I don't need to worry about in my blogging youth. Sometimes I feel like there are people in my community who I turn to for that support subconsciously who help corral comments or "egg peeps on," as The Gin Blossom said.
Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing You really need to consider your goals. For us, we wanted to get two blog posts a day and 100,000 visitors in order to have a large enough audience that, when Spin Sucks Pro launches, a one percent conversion rate is a good little business.
If you were to ask me, offline, if you needed a community manager, I'd likely said no. But, knowing what I know about your 2012 goals, I think you'll want to consider hiring someone to help you (part-time) at first to build audience, increase back-links, and help with search.
Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketinglisagerberginidietrich Maybe you don't need to worry--maybe you're one of the people who does community management so naturally that it seems unnatural to worry and focus on it! However, based on Gini's comment, it seems like your goals do dictate potential growth justifying professional community management including written community goals.
Uh-huh ginidietrich
Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing Interesting you say "accused" - is "community manager" a dirty word (sic)?
OK, so maybe "accused" isn't the best word choice, although it's in quotes. Told, suggested, described...? Some peeps have said it's a natural ability; didn't know that. jennwhinnem
Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing gotcha. thanks!
Do you categorize general disinterest in a blog's contribution to the online realm as part of a failure in community management? I'm trying to think of how these suggestions would apply to blogs that are just getting in the game. I think for blogs that are in the start-up stage - like my company's is - tapping into the community is the first step before management can take place. Or do you advocate creating your own community?
EmmaofCEM I think both are important. For me, I work primarily locally, but I also speak to other SM people, so I have both communities. It takes time and you have to grow it.
EmmaofCEM I'm not sure I'm on one side or the other of that question, actually. It would really depend on the blog. In areas where a robust online community already exists, certainly a new blog's failure might relate to the blogger's failure to tap the existing community and find ways to give them what they want, both in terms of content and in terms of community opportunities to discuss that content. If it's a niche where there isn't as much online already, I think content has to come first, then networking with other bloggers, and the ultimate product is a new community built online.
It's tempting to blame blog failures that are in the "disinterest" category on any number of factors, but most often I think it's reasonable to blame instead poor content, infrequent updates, or lack of a cohesive reason for the blog to exist. The blogs that become communities often accomplish their most rapid growth before the blogger ever realizes she or he is a community manager.
jelenawoehrEmmaofCEM I'm with Jelena on this - there isn't one way to do things. And you also have to think about certain goals. For Spin Sucks, a highly engaged community is a goal. But for a couple of clients, they don't care if anyone leaves a comment as long as traffic and subscribers continue to increase.
Hmmm, you said earlier what I just concluded above. I'm in your camp on this one, Emma. EmmaofCEM
Conversation from Twitter
dannybrown jelenwoehr Great article. I think it all stems from whether the blogger adopts CM attributes consciously or subconsciously.
sbkelsick Shannon, hopefully see you out at a Calgary tweetup when I'm out in Cowtown Oct 24-27
seanmoffitt Shall I go ahead and plan the tweetup for Oct 24th? ( jimbutton )
sbkelsick let me enrol some other folks and see when my flight is landing
jennwhinnem What, bloggers? Or community managers? I thought c.m. got its scornful twist from anti-Obama republicans?
mathieuhaloua thanks for the RT!
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