RecruitingBlogs.com is a staffing and recruiting social network that boasts almost 12,000 members. In terms of community size, it's not the largest of the disciplines, but the recruiting blogosphere has been active and influential in the last three years, getting an early start as a networking tool for recruiters.
John Sumser has been writing some great posts about what's happening inside this community, and last week's touched on the question of acceptable behaviors in a community. It's not couched in terms that social media specialists would use, but anyone who has run a community can surely sympathize, and it's a great example of what to expect as a community manager.
John set about trying to discuss what it took to make a community work, but the comment section quickly became an example of thread hijacking, moderation, and the difficulty of being understood online. As in all instances, I urge you to read, read, read, to get the full story - and save your comments if you don't have something positive to add, but the question that so often comes up is how much leeway should the community manager give the community members?
And if you're hiring a community manager, do you want one with a firm hand, or one that encourages sugar and spice and everything nice?
Be careful before you answer that. It's a trick question that will affect your traffic, influence, reputation, and it may end with heavy legal bills, a PR disaster, or the biggest, most influential , and profitable community in your industry. The choice of a community manager is not an easy one, and although some great work has been done on researching what it's like, let me offer a few questions to help you in your search.
Community Questions:
1. What is the purpose of the community?
2. How big do you want it go grow?
3. Do you have a major brand behind it to drive traffic?
4. Realistically, how big will it get. Now go out and ask some social media people you trust how big they think it will get. Are those numbers close?
5. How do you plan to monetize it? Ads? Referrals? Product Placement? Branding? Subscriptions?
6. Is the tech ready to go? Is it simple, or complex?
7. What is your marketing plan for the community?
Community Manager Questions:
1. What communities have you run in the past? How much control did you have?
2. What was the purpose of those communities, and did you succeed in the original purpose?
3. What help did you have?
4. Where do you hang out online now?
5. What would a search of your name and community turn up on different search engines and/or forum search engines?
6. Is there a single software that monitors blogs, social networks, forums, and the general web (that answer is no)
7. What is the difference between those types of sites, and how do you monitor each?
8. What tools did you use for online monitoring, and what was their cost?
9. What was your reporting structure like? How did you communicate with management what was happening, and how did you create relevant metrics?
10. Flame wars: How do you/should you stop them?
11. How do you deal with security risks (youth sites)
12. How do you deal with crazy people?
13. Write some responses (forum/e-mail/blogposts) to deal with hostile commenters/users.
14. Who matters online? How do you know when something needs attention beyond your department?
15. What hours does a community manager work?
For more on this topic, check out Connie Bensen's multiple posts on the subject, including her latest salary survey for community managers.
