[...] of this role it ’s certainly worth reading the 35+ comments to Jeremiah Oywang’s post ‘Job Hazard’s of the community Manager’. Bookmark It Hide Sites [...]

[...] is an interesting entry on Jeremiah’s blog about “Job Hazards of the Community Manager” which is generating a lot of comments from newer, less experienced community managers. What [...]

[...] Job hazards of the community manager (read the comments, too) [...]

As community managers, we are the filter for our company; we simultaneously hear and speak, translating crucial messages back and forth through the fire wall in a manner we know our community will understand and trust. Since this is our function, an interesting question arises: How can we speak as ourselves, but also represent the “voice of the brand?” How can we stay true to the values of the company that were there before we arrived, but also ensure honesty and transparency?

For me, this is not an issue….but it does bring up an interesting paradox…anyone having this issue?

I walk this tightrope every day and don’t know what the answer is. I want to be able to sort out my real friends (no offense, community members) on Facebook, but I don’t want to deny friendship to my community members. Then again, there are benefits…a much larger crowd to hear your content (for example, me promoting my band) and contacts in industries you’re not immediately involved in.

One issue I’ve ran into recently is in regards to availability. I freely offer up my Instant Messenger info and usually respond to community IMs when I get them. However, with one community member this has become an issue…they constantly message me with their latest issue, complaint, or random thought. I’ve spent whole days IMing with this person while trying to do other work. Instead of being the carefree, available Community Manager I want to be, I end up saying I have to go into a meeting. This does not feel good.

I fully support integration of real life and community management…it’s the only real way to do things, in my opinion. You need to have that personal connection or people see you as a punching bag. But the line is a very unclear one.

One solution I have implemented is “Community Office Hours”. While the community is always welcome to contact me, during office hours I am solely dedicated to them. They KNOW they can get me and chat with me, and I am able to point people to these hours when they contact me during another, busy time. It’s been hit or miss so far, but I definitely don’t regret it. I’d love to hear if anyone else has tried something like this!

[...] I always assumed the more personable the better, but after reading Jeremiah Owyang’s post Job Hazards of the Community Manager, the risks seem glaring. There is a very fine line between professional-personal and just [...]

it’s a bi-polar kind of position – super high highs, and super low lows.

i like melanie’s comment:
“not being a community manager all the time makes me a better community manager in general.”

if you’re doing it right you’ll earn your place with both internal and external audiences, based on the hard work, not necessarily the hours logged.

This hasn’t become a big concern for me yet, though I have had members of our community follow me on Twitter (after following my work account), and a handful add me on Facebook and such. Not 100% comfortable with that, but hey, that’s what privacy filters are for, and if it ever bothers me, I’ll remove them and won’t feel bad about it.

Same as I’ve had a few people try to befriend me on various services that I don’t use in a work capacity. I turn those down to a one. I have no problem with refusing to cross the streams if I don’t see a valid reason to do so.

Having worked in tech for some time, I’m used to the idea that work doesn’t always stick to 9 to 5, and that’s fine. There are, however, things that I can and should take care of asap, and things that can wait til Monday morning or whenever. Cliched as it sounds, not being a community manager all the time makes me a better community manager in general. Kinda in the way that parents need a break from the kids sometimes to just be people and grownups and couples.

Interestingly, at this point, there’s as much interaction between our dev community and our devs as between the general community and myself. It’s cool to observe the differences. These guys are often all part of communities already (e.g. Ruby devs), and tend to be familiar with each other’s work, or can get familiar pretty quickly.

While I have a blog and various web presences and they’re all pretty easy to find, researching me, personally, won’t really give you any useful info on the company or what we do, for example, whereas for the devs it would. The style of interaction also tends to be more direct, which is normal and expected among them, but not something I’d use with a new user, for example.

[...] Management Everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon and hire a community manager. Consider the job hazards of the community manager as told by Jeremiah Owyang before diving head [...]

While a good set of community guidelines and contractual requirements can help to mitigate negative behavior, there is always the possibility that a participant severs all connection with the community and complains in public and to the media. Even when a participant shoots themselves in the foot they still tend to blame the scenario on you as the organizer, possibly naming you individually.

Ultimately, you just have to maximize the positive interactions to the point where the comparatively small number of negative ones are essentially below the noise floor. This is a case where openness works in the favor of the community manager and in some ways can be your only real defense.

All that being said, when you get past the tantrums and good things happen by way of participatory engagement of the public in a community based around innovation, it is really a satisfying thing because everybody benefits from it.

This person immediately sent requests to my entire network which includes professionals, friends and family (some of whom are underage). It struck me as very aggressive and I told him so, eventually removing him from my list so he did not have access to my contacts.

I rec’d an oddly worded letter from him sometime later that struck me as quite unbalanced.

This is a reverse case of what you’re talking about but it goes along the same lines. I am getting to a point where I will be separating my Facebook and Twitter profiles from any community sites that I manage.

Seamus
Community Manager
mediabistro.com
http://www.twitter.com/mediabistro

Thank you!

I would simply add that a strong customer service background has served me well with addressing issues, soliving disputes, and overall representation of the company I work for.

[...] Job Hazards of the Community Manager [...]

[...] Job Hazards of the Community Manager [...]

Transparency: In regard to creating an alias – what about transparency? How will your personal brand help your company & vice versa? In my most recent position, my brand is important to my employer. They wouldn’t want me working under an alias name. I wouldn’t want to work under one either.

Inherent dangers: I’ve thought of this & am a woman. My husband has expressed his concerns. Again I couldn’t have built my brand without being me. I did read about Kathy Sierra’s challenges & pray that doesn’t happen to myself or anyone else.

Separating work/personal life: what?!! I’m not supposed to work 24/7. I am working on that one. But that’s my own fault/choice. I do recommend that comm mgrs step back & let peer interaction happen on a more regular basis. I think it makes for a healthier community AND comm mgr.

Finally I’m surprised about the suggestion of keeping friending on Facebook & Twitter separated in terms of work/family. Jeremiah, I’ve followed your philosophy of befriending all everywhere & have never regretted that. Granted no one from my ‘work’ lives locally. The only problem I’ve had with FB is the FB chat – some ppl from a certain part of the world try to chat & I unfriend them. Their purpose has nothing to do with my work or presence online & that is apparent. I don’t feel threatened, but I terminate the connection.

But I do have comm mgrs that connect with me express emotions (ranging from joy to venting). Communicating with peers is important. It is a challenging role & I hope that companies realize the value & compensate accordingly.

People are naturally going to be somewhat curious. In order to protect family and friends, I also make a point not to disclose first & last names with things like Flickr photos. I also restrict certain items on Flickr to only friends & family.

I had some moderately scary things happen at PayPal. Since then..not an ounce of trouble at Simply Hired, Mint or Tokbox. I think the type of service comes into play w/ certain customers going crazy (money, for example).

* Management overhead of maintaining multiple identity roles online. Or, conversely, not having set up such a structure dealing with “worlds colliding. (Of course, even in the first case, there will be occasional overlap.)

* The stress of being very much on the front line and not necessarily have the control to just solve the problems. Almost by definition, (mine anyway), anyone doing such a job likely has some empathy for others and wants to try to get the right thing done. This won’t always work out.

* Real risk from the true whack jobs out there.

In the real risk category, there’s at least these types I’ve come across.

* Legitimate Gripes. These folks may be rational or irrational, but either way, have legit issues. Handling these – since they’re legitimate problems – may entail conflicts between needing to offer information and transparency, but having legal obligations as well.

* Trolls and troublemakers. These folks are just loud and poke fun for fun. Eventually they get bored and go away.

* True disturbed individuals or those so very angry they will take real actions in the real world; whatever those may be.

I think the most crap I ever personally took was many years ago when working at Prodigy Services Company. (Remember them?? : ) I’d been product manager for USENET Newsgroups, (Remember them?? : ) All of a sudden, one day we flipped a switch and started putting 50K per month new users on what had formerly been an open system, but nonetheless insular community in terms of attitude. Yeah, those were some fun emails and phone calls. Not to mention dealing with threats from one member to another for topics ranging from online stalking to pornography to OFFline actions of some resulting in police involvement in some cases.

I’ve watched with great interest over the years as the few online services have morphed into what we’re starting to see now. Clay Shirky definitely has the best title for recent ‘net head must reads: Here Comes Everybody.

Not exactly a full fledged community manager, but as someone who does most of my work within social media and web 2.0 spaces, I find (and excuse if this has traces of douche attached to it) that a lot of my personal brand is bleeding into the professional brand that I am developing/evangelizing.

I find it kind of hard to separate myself since my job perfectly fits in with my own personal goals, working in comedy, new media, video, social media. But I’m just kind of scared of sort of “losing” myself and sort of putting all this time into the company brand and neglecting my own pursuits. That’s about it. I would eventually like to sort of be the official community manager around these parts, so it’s good to know of the sort of things to not be surprised that may pop up.

Thanks!

I see some great opportunities for networking and group therapy here.