What is a Community Manager?

A community manager is the person responsible for keeping an online community thriving. They welcome members, spark conversation, enforce guidelines, and report insights back to the business or creator.

Core Responsibilities

• Engagement: Post prompts, host events, and respond to questions to keep conversations active
• Moderation: Uphold policies, remove spam, and mediate conflicts to protect culture
• Onboarding: Guide new members through orientation, highlight quick wins, and tag relevant resources
• Programming: Plan the community engagement plan, challenges, and recurring rituals
• Insights: Track metrics, surface feedback, and recommend improvements across the community platform

Skills That Matter

• Empathetic communication and conflict resolution
• Copywriting and storytelling aligned with the brand’s voice
• Organized project management to juggle content calendars and events
• Data literacy—monitoring engagement, retention, and sentiment trends
• Familiarity with automation, tagging, and workflows to scale operations

How Community Managers Collaborate

• Partner with marketing to repurpose top discussions into callout posts or case studies
• Work with product/education teams to create resources that answer common questions
• Coordinate with support to escalate issues or prevent churn
• Help sales identify advocates and upsell opportunities across the value ladder

Tips for Growing Into the Role

• Document SOPs for moderation, escalation, and onboarding
• Schedule weekly office hours or AMAs to build trust with members
• Use automation for repetitive tasks (welcome DMs, inactivity reminders) while keeping a human touch
• Host regular retrospectives to assess what’s working and pitch new experiments
• Invest in professional development—community-building playbooks evolve quickly