For what it's worth, I started about 7 years ago as a volunteer moderator, then got offered a job when mods and community managers were still making below poverty level wages (CDN$15,000 a year). Eventually I moved on, got asked to consult for a startup, then joined a community for a 1 man game development company and said "hey, if you need help, let me know". I've been working with him for over 2 and a half years now and in the last year it has led to interview offers for several jobs with packages worth 6 figures. For someone trained in International Development and looking at making 20-30K in my field of study, that's pretty good from where I'm sitting. So my advice is to find a company, join the community, act "modly" and promote the site, then approach the company when you think the time is right. Smaller companies are easier to get positions at, even if they are part time volunteer for a year or two it will get you the experience you need to go to a community management company (alchemic dream, mzinga etc) and work your way up there.
Comm and journalism will probably get you in the door faster :) I went moderator - community manager. Lots of people go PR/Marketing - community manager.
For anecdotal evidence, I work for a website that started out at 296 users when I joined (I was #297). In 2.5 years we have grown to 300,000 + with 23,000 daily unique active users. We have a team of volunteer graphics artists who put out a new *professional quality* game board on average every 2 weeks (we're a casual online gaming site) a volunteer tournament team who are currently running approximately 100 tournaments and I manage a team of 20 or so volunteer moderators and coordinators remotely in 4 countries. My position and the volunteer team that it has enabled saves the company in the ball park of $1-$2 million a year if we were to pay for all our graphics design, tournament coordination, and moderation salaries - oh, and I only work 50% time. So if you can convince them to invest $40-80k into you part time to full time, and you save them $1-2 million a year, I'd say it's not a bad deal :) Those are not hard number BTW (thus the massive range) please don't quote me on it :)
Hi all,
I started as web editor, and answering mails from users, we had so
many mails and petitions that the orhnisation decides to start forums
and otehr participation spaces and asked me to facilitate, this was
during the organisatrion Forum barcelona 2004 (www.barcelona2004.org)
around 1998 to 2003. Then I moved to www.infonomia.com to do the same
and now I'm community manager at youth website at teh OXfam
Counterpart in Spain: www.dalelavueltaalmundo.org.
Una inciativa de Intermón Oxfam y el Apoyo de la AECI
---------------------------------------
Check my personal site: http://marruizsolanes.blogspot.com/
I've got a BA in Community Education and worked "offline" for a long time in community development/social policy & research.
I participated as a volunteer in the deviantART community before being offered a paid position, worked for 3 years in various different positions and teams and now I'm in a Director position, leading Community Operations. I was very active in the community before I was a volunteer and I believe that this is one of the most important things which led to me being in the position I am now.
Having a background in communications and journalism is something which I am sure is beneficial to many communities, particularly in terms of providing a high standard of communications, copy and research. Having an awareness of other social media is also a must, imo.
Good luck -- and feel free to ask any specific questions that you may have! Fiona
I graduated from USC with a B.A. in Communications wanting to work in
the music industry or internet. Being a heavy internet user at the
time i did a lot of online promotion, street team/ guerilla marketing
work. Luckily, social networks were on the rise and i got hired at a
small company that was looking for a CM to build out the online arm of
their company. At the company, i did a lot of content managment, SEO,
and UI tasks in order to build the community. Then, i got laid off a
few weeks ago and started to freelance at casual gaming site doing
more user interaction and moderation tasks.
~T
On Oct 16, 12:41 pm, Shanan <shan...@hotmail.com> wrote:
I studied journalism (sometime ago now ;), went into publishing, moved
from mags to online, worked as Content Producer - the job partially
involved moderation. Communities/social media became my main interest
and I pursued that. I approached a start-up and worked for them for a
little while before I applied for a great role with a large media org.
And here I am now. I am working as an Editor & Community Manager so
the split is perfect - and will hopefully work for you too.
As for stats - I would be wary of guaranteeing you can increase
membership until you know what resources you have, and what time you
are allocated for increasing brand awareness, marketing, 'off-product/
site; word of mouth etc.
It is hard to apply metrics to community management, how do you
measure managing relationships? I think Justin makes a great point
(thank you). I manage a volunteer team of 30 and if you do this and
present it in terms of cost-saving for the business, this is a great
way to provide value (in dollar terms) to your role.
Should growth be the main priority? Are there other things you can do
to increase the user experience, increase loyalty and engagement,
increase time on site, or offer more to the members? If there are
obvious improvements you could make - enquire about them - this might
provide insight into how the company operates and just how hard or
easy it is going to be to make improvements. I work with a large
company so the bureaucracy of change can be complicated.
Hope that helps,
Alison
On Oct 17, 6:41 am, Shanan <shan...@hotmail.com> wrote:
Seeing as people seem to becoming more active (which is great!) I'd like to pick the collective brain.
Alison wrote:
"As for stats - I would be wary of guaranteeing you can increase membership until you know what resources you have...If there are obvious improvements you could make - enquire about them - this might provide insight into how the company operates and just how hard or easy it is going to be to make improvements. I work with a large company so the bureaucracy of change can be complicated."
I'm personally on the opposite end of the spectrum - I work for a very very small company who only has one programmer (the owner) and so it's hard to get things pushed through because everything else gets prioritized above the community "stuff"...even though that's what keep the site chugging along and innovative. He understands community and the fact that it needs support, but it's just not as high a priority as some other new feature (took me a year and a half to get the mod tools re-built properly)
So, how have you convinced your boss or project manager to push through something that is potentially really necessary or really beneficial when those who control coding time or funding don't necessarily see the need?
I have been lurking, reading the threads with interest. I shall reply to
some of the earlier questions when I have a moment, but I´m kinda snowed
under at the moment!
Justin´s question is rather relevent to me as well, so I´d also be keen to
hear any of your thoughts and ideas!
On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 4:29 PM, Justin Isaf <justin.i...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Seeing as people seem to becoming more active (which is great!) I'd like
> to pick the collective brain.
> Alison wrote:
> "As for stats - I would be wary of guaranteeing you can increase membership
> until you know what resources you have...If there are obvious improvements
> you could make - enquire about them - this might provide insight into how
> the company operates and just how hard or
> easy it is going to be to make improvements. I work with a large company so
> the bureaucracy of change can be complicated."
> I'm personally on the opposite end of the spectrum - I work for a very
> very small company who only has one programmer (the owner) and so it's
> hard to get things pushed through because everything else gets
> prioritized above the community "stuff"...even though that's what keep
> the site chugging along and innovative. He understands community and the
> fact that it needs support, but it's just not as high a priority as some
> other new feature (took me a year and a half to get the mod tools
> re-built properly)
> So, how have you convinced your boss or project manager to push through
> something that is potentially really necessary or really beneficial when
> those who control coding time or funding don't necessarily see the need?
It's not always about increasing membership, it's about retaining membership -- which is something we forget about at times. Maybe you need to come from a different angle with your boss and detail the need for things to prevent the community dying rather than a requirement for the community to grow?
I have regular meetings with our IT team at the beginning of each week and we discuss the bugs/feature requests which have came through other department heads with a view to allocating realistic priorities. Revenue generating areas will always take priority but it's important that you make a case for your community needs in such a way too -- cleary no community means no revenue.
> Seeing as people seem to becoming more active (which is great!) I'd like > to pick the collective brain.
> Alison wrote:
> "As for stats - I would be wary of guaranteeing you can increase membership > until you know what resources you have...If there are obvious improvements > you could make - enquire about them - this might provide insight into how > the company operates and just how hard or > easy it is going to be to make improvements. I work with a large company so > the bureaucracy of change can be complicated."
> I'm personally on the opposite end of the spectrum - I work for a very > very small company who only has one programmer (the owner) and so it's > hard to get things pushed through because everything else gets > prioritized above the community "stuff"...even though that's what keep > the site chugging along and innovative. He understands community and the > fact that it needs support, but it's just not as high a priority as some > other new feature (took me a year and a half to get the mod tools > re-built properly)
> So, how have you convinced your boss or project manager to push through > something that is potentially really necessary or really beneficial when > those who control coding time or funding don't necessarily see the need?
Justin your post made me laugh, we're fighting the same battle from
opposite ends of the spectrum. I have to be very forthright (and
confident) about my "demands" which seems like an unnecessary way of
getting things done, and I'm trying to change this.
As we a part of a diversified (yet incorporating traditional) media
company I have to remind them that visible dissesion about issues/bugs
etc is damaging our brand and increasing my workload. This usually
concerns them as it may translate to a loss in revenue, or at least
remind them they are not utilising their resources (=me) to their full
potential and this will impact on other work they expect from me.
I totally support Fiona's theory about member retention. *waves at
Fiona - nice to meet you* We currently have a big lead on competitors
in terms of membership so I'm putting forth that we need to use this
'headstart' to get better not bigger.
When things do take an unacceptable amount of time to be fixed/changed
I remind them that this has impacted my ability to perform/acheive
what I had hoped for that month/quarter.
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