Community managers are the unsung heroes of the digital world. We are the ones who are constantly behind a screen interacting with audiences, scheduling content, or throwing shade at a competitor’s social feed.
At FSC Interactive, our community managers stay on top of digital trends, identify consumer behaviors, and cultivate meaningful relationships with online audiences.
As a community manager for multiple clients, our responsibilities include responding to questions, comments, and concerns on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Additionally, we must monitor branded hashtags, search geo-tags, find user-generated content (UGC), create content, and engage with your audience. We could go on and on…
So, what exactly does the day-to-day look like for a community manager? Our own community manager, Casey, breaks it all down for you.
A Day in the Life of a Community Manager
7:00 a.m.: My alarm goes off, after I hit the snooze button twice. I am not a morning person before I’ve had my coffee.
7:20 a.m.: Check all my social media channels for any urgent audience requests from the night before. As a community manager, I’m responsible for answering questions or direct messages from our audience.
8:30 a.m.: I arrived to the office and grab a cup of coffee from HiVolt Coffee down the street with my fellow community manager sista, Alex.
8:50 a.m.: I begin my daily duties. I check all my clients Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages for any unanswered questions; respond to comments, direct messages and visitor posts; check tagged photos; and monitor hashtags. I must do all of this before I head into an editorial calendar meeting.
10:00 a.m.: Head to our conference room to strategize upcoming content for our three Sazerac clients with our senior account executive and digital content producers. In our editorial meetings, we brainstorm content ideas and posts that will be relevant to our brand and are in our content buckets. I contribute ideas by showing them different types of content our consumers interact with. For example, Sazerac Rye Whiskey’s audience includes bartenders, mixologists, and cocktail enthusiasts, so as a community manager I look at those types of profiles, and see who they’re following and what type of content they engage with. I bring these findings to our editorial meetings explaining why I think our audience would love that type of content on our feed. I also inform the team which pieces of content performed well and which didn’t to adjust our strategy accordingly.
Hold up — is a community manager the same as a social media manger?
You may be asking yourself doesn’t a community manager and social media manager go hand-in-hand? Sort of, but let me lay it all down for you with some help from our friends at Sprout Social:
Community Manager:
- Advocates for brands on social networks
- Creates their own persona per brand
- Actively seek out conversations
- Connects with potential customers
- Boosts awareness for brand
- Deals with those who may or may not have heard of the business
Social Media Manager:
- Creates/schedules content
- Crafts copy for posts
- Responds to comments
- Answers questions
- Deals with people who already have an established relationship with that brand
Since you know the main differences between a community manager and social media manager, I’d love to tell you the importance of a community manager:
A community manager crafts a brand tone of voice through authentic engagements and uncovers insights and social opportunities through effective social effective social listening.
Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming…
11:30 a.m.: Check on all my clients’ pages one more time, just to make sure I didn’t miss anything or have any updates I need to address.
12:00 p.m.: Lunch time! I heat up my lunch then head to our café where my coworkers and I catch up on last night’s “Broad City” episode while I answer some Twitter mentions, find a retweet through our Twitter lists, and post to Instagram for my clients (my Sprout Social notifications are blowing up).
1:00 p.m.: Stalk Instagram geo-tags and hashtags to find user-generated content (UGC) for social content. I notice that our consumers have been spending a lot of time at Elizabeth’s in the Bywater and want to highlight it in our content next month (I have a feeling that it will perform well). As a community manager, I love to comment on and like pictures from users. It really shows our audience we are here listening to their comments and liking their posts, which makes our clients’ brands unique. It creates a deep and meaningful bond with the user. We strive for a quick response rate on all channels for our clients and audience.
1:45 p.m.: Time for our quick weekly regroup for Mardi Gras World to go over any deadlines, actions items, and client updates. We also listen to updates from our search analyst and digital strategist regarding ads.
2:00 p.m.: My work phone beeps, and I receive a direct message from someone asking to help plan an itinerary and engagement for his girlfriend when they visit New Orleans. I’m doing this all through Facebook Messenger. It’s actually a lot of fun!
2:30 p.m.: Back to business as usual. That is, until our digital content producer, Kelsey, asks me to model for a piece of our agency’s social content. You never know when duty will call! After that, I check back in on my clients’ Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, respond to questions, comments, or inquiries, and monitor tagged photos and branded hashtags.
3:00 p.m.: Now it’s time for me to really crank out my portion of our Audit & Strategy for Bayou Classic, one of FSC’s newest clients. Each time FSC signs on a client, we develop an Audit & Strategy for them, specifically going over what strategy and services we will provide so that we can all be successful. One main thing we strive for at FSC is that we treat our clients like partners, not paychecks. We want to present our clients an Audit & Strategy as a guide. Along with our strategy, we provide them with an audit of their competitors to see what they’re doing right (and what they’re doing ohhhhh-so wrong). As a community manager, my role in our Audit & Strategy process is to audit competitors to see what they’re doing that could be an opportunity for our client. In addition, I must provide that client with a strategy for community management (duh). This means that I provide them and our team with a list of accounts to tag, hashtags to use, insights, and conversations to seek out.
4:00 p.m.: As the work day soon comes to close, I schedule and boost clients’ weekly social content. This process starts with me grabbing our weekly content then scheduling it through Facebook and through Sprout Social for Instagram and Twitter. Then, time to boost our content: we do this to increase brand awareness for clients and drive engagement. After boosting is complete, I tag our account executive for QA (quality assurance) to make sure everything is in order including date, budget, and creative.
5:15 p.m.: My day has come to an end, and it’s time for me to head home—but not before I fill out my timesheet. Then I get to make dinner, go for a bike ride, and watch some Netflix. YAS. ?
8:00 p.m.: My work phone beeps, and it’s time to post to Instagram one last time. I also must monitor that post to respond to any comments or questions.
9:30 p.m.: Now my current mood:
As you can see a community manager’s day can go in many different directions. It’s important that they remain organized and prioritize their day. Another huge thing a community manager needs is time management. Their day can from 0 to 100 in a matter of minutes.
My favorite part about being a community manager is that I get to connect with so many different types of people through so many different brands. I could be a Southern Belle one moment, a chill bartender the next, or a best friend who knows exactly where to go in New Orleans . It definitely keeps me on my toes and is never boring.
Need help with your community management? Chat with our experts at FSC Interactive!