How to be a community manager

Community Manager role

The role consists of growing and developing community ideas as well as contributing to building and managing the community around your topic.

Interact with local communities and surrounding communities that are involved.

Attend events and interact first hand through social networks, phone and physical contact.

Skype interviews, phone interviews, online discussion forums, events and bloggers.

Locating appropriate communities for appropriate research e.g. student communities may include the National Union of Students, universities, UCAS.

Use both actual physical communities and also online communities e.g. student communities online may include ‘The Student Room’, The Guardian Higher Education’s live forums.

Twitter and Facebook are good resources to use because it allows for close contact between sources that you might not be able to get an interview from in other circumstances. It’s also the easiest way to engage with members of the public.

Websites of pressure groups are also good to use because you can get more detailed information that might not be available from mainstream sources. They can give you ideas for people to interview and events to attend.