What is a Community Manager?

As you may know WooThemes hired their first Community Manager when they decided to hire me. Community Manager is a new term around here so what does it all mean?

Adii found this great infograph on GetSatisfaction that in my view of things does a great job of summing it up. Click here to see it full size.

This infograph takes a very broad view of what a Community Manager does, but it still makes good points in how the position applies to the WooCommunity.

Let’s take a look at a few things what they mean for us starting with Pinata, Sponge, and Gardener. My favorite description is under the Pinata, and a big part of what I aim to do with the WooCommunity.

Pinata

After being beaten with sticks, must still give out candy. Or, like a unicorn, has to fart glitter and rainbows.

As the WooThemes Pinata I want to deliver a WOW experience to everyone. Sometimes it may be something simple like being available on the weekends to answer questions,  other times it may be extreme -  as in giving away LIFETIME DEVELOPER SUBSCRIPTIONS!!! So when I receive complaints or communicate with people that are super frustrated, I’ll always try to think like Oprah (which makes me want to do things like give away our products). 😉

Gardener/Sculptor

Our site WooIdeas is a good place where I can be a Gardener/Sculptor. I highlighted WooIdeas in a previous post, and it’s a part of the WooCommunity I take very seriously. This is a place where you tell us what you’d like to see, and being a good Gardener/Sculptor of WooIdeas I’ll water and nurture it. This also falls under being a Mediavore where I’ll be watching the forums as well.

Sponge

To be a Sponge and to Empath I’ve got some ideas that we’ll work on to help us gauge how you guys are feeling about us and our products/services. Just incase we run into a WooCommerce 2.0 situation, I want to have a place where everyone feels welcome venting frustrations and telling us if we did something right or wrong. 🙂

Like I mentioned in a previous post, email is a big part of my day so being Concierge and a Traffic Cop is something I practice everyday. Some customers email us and are lost at what to do next. It’s important that I can give them direction and get them going towards a solution to their problem. So if you want to talk to me about anything just email us and I’ll practice my Concierge skills. 😉

Cheerleader

Finally, I think I was a good cheerleader for WooThemes before even being hired. Our whole team makes one giant cheerleader. We’re very proud of the work we do and are always ready to tell the world about it. We’re also very excited to see what others are doing with our products. One way is through our showcase, where we can show off what you’ve done with our themes.

Spam Warrior

Oh and about the Spam Warrior, I don’t think I’ll be needing to use the ban hammer very much. The WooCommunity is nice to each other and hardly has any trolls running around in it. Which I’ll say thanks in advance, I’d hate to have to be the one breaking out the ban hammer.

So that’s a Community Manager in a nutshell! Sounds like fun doesn’t? Feel free to comment or get in touch with me if you want to talk more about how I fart glitter and rainbows. 😉

About

Mark Forrester

I'm a proud co-founder of WooThemes, based at our headquarters in beautiful Cape Town. I'm also a keen photographer, goofy dad and avid sports fan.

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