Who is really responsible for social networks, is it the community manager or the social media marketer? And how are they different from each other?
In this article, I will show you the 3 Differences between Social Media Marketer and Community Manager, and what are the roles and objectives of each of them.
1 | social media marketer focuses on the audience,
community manager focuses on the community.
The first thing we need to explain is the difference between audience and community.
We talk about audience when the conversation is between you and your members.
Like for example when you publish a post on facebook, and the members interact with you.
Or, during a conference, a speaker interacts with his audience to talk about best practices to fight against climate change.
On the other hand, we speak of community when the conversation is between your members.
Members who discuss together to share common interests, experiences & goals.
Example: a group of young people from the same city, who come together to plant trees with the aim of beautifying their city.
2 | social media marketer focuses on the transactional,
community manager focuses on the relational.
Transactions are about giving value for something in return.
For example, we distribute content on social networks in order to generate more traffic, generate leads, or acquire new consumers.
The Community Manager, has a role rather, to build relationships between members, and especially to maintain these relationships as long as possible, thanks to the creation of a healthy environment.
Note that maintaining these relationships could have a great effect on customer loyalty in the long term.
3 | social media marketer focuses on pages,
community manager focuses on groups.
To separate audiences from communities, social platforms such as Facebook & Linkedin have created pages (for audiences) & groups (for communities).
Remember, in our first section, we said that the social media marketer focuses on audiences and that is why his main role is to take care of the different pages that the company has in the different platforms.
Its role is to create the strategy, create and publish content, and do the reporting.
And if the job of the social media marketer is limited to social networks, it should be noted that the task of the community manager is a little more complex.
The role of the community manager is to follow his community wherever it is.
In fact, although in most cases the community participates in different groups in social networks, it should be noted that it can also be found in forums, in events and in fairs.
This may explain that the community manager could work online but also offline.
We can take as an example the Harley Davidson community manager who takes care of their online group, but also plans and organizes community outings on motorcycles.
Conclusion
The Social Media Marketer & the Community Manager are two different professions, and they must work together, it is in their complementarity that the company could acquire new consumers and retain them.
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