Social Media Manager vs Community Manager – What Is The Difference?

Introduction

Is there any difference between Community managers and Social media managers?

Who is important when it comes to your presence on social media?

Could it be your followers? The people whom you should be targeting your campaign to? Or the ones who are interacting with your products/services?

Well, the answer is all of them. However, what would be the implication of knowing that those behind the curtains are the one ones who call the shots?

Let’s face it. Social media is currently the most prominent channel when it comes to customer care, brand creation and content development for current businesses. As such you should always focus more attention on your business’ social media accounts. In this regards, social media managers and community managers come in handy in your brand’s social media endeavors.

Some people, nonetheless, mistakenly think the functions of these two office bearers are just synonymous. This is not correct, their roles and responsibilities are entirely different. It is for this reason that here at Traffic Radius we treat each differently. In an effort to clearly distinguish between these two vital roles we sought the advice of our very own community manager and social media manager.

They gladly revealed to us the difference in their roles, responsibilities and even went an extra mile to give a piece of useful information.

The Main Distinction between the Roles

A Social Media Manager serves as the brand on social media. He creates content, drafts copies for posting, replies to the comments, answers to questions along with various other tasks. They usually deal with individuals who already are aware of or even have a relationship with the brand.

The social media manager can therefore be regarded as the person working behind the curtain. If you have ever taken part in any of the chat sessions conducted by brands across social media platforms, then you must have noticed that these accounts continuously post questions and provide answers to the queries.

A community manager, on the other hand, promotes a brand on social media platforms. So, they come up with a social persona of your brand and aggressively delve into the online community in an effort to connect with probable customers and promote the brand accordingly.

A typical community manager targets the people who may (or may not) know what your business is all about and engages them with the intention of creating awareness about your brand.

So,while the two functions may look similar, social media managers basically act as the brand themselves, while community managers present themselves in the place of the brand that they are advocating for.

Social Media Manager’s Job Descriptions

Any person searching for the role of a social media manager should be able to strategically develop and share a brand’s content across a broad range of social networks. Bring out clearly these skills in your resume, application letter as well as Linkedln profile.

Other crucial keywords associated with this role include team, engagement, support, execution, manage, social and opportunities. Some companies might additionally require candidates who can double up as content creators and social media managers.

Daily Workflow

Apart from spending their typical day giving users an above average experience and creating awareness about the brands, what do social media managers essentially do? While considering the fact that no two days are exactly the same for a social media manager, the following will still paint a clearer image.

• 35% – listening and participating in conversations
• 25% – carrying out research and planning
• 20% – developing and curating content
• 10% – team collaboration
• 10% – analytics

Job Description of a Community Manager

Terms like engage and grow are too big for a community manager. This clearly shows that community managers should focus on interacting with new prospects with the view of expanding the present brand community.

They are expected to have solid communication as well as networking skills. Mastering the tone of a business is in most cases quite challenging. The community manager has to pay attention to all the aspects of a customer.

Daily Workflow

40% – interacting with brand marketers and folks in the community

20% – creating credibility and visibility

20% – planning ways to expand brand community and connect with new users

10% – analyzing the efforts that drive traffic most

10% – nurturing relationships with individuals in various teams at office

A community manager essentially serves as an extension of the brand. He or she gets immersed in conversations with existing customers as they continually engage with new prospects from time to time. To be an effective community manager, you must create a brand that promotes a personal connection between the users and the company.

Final Word of Advice

Both roles (of a community manager and a social media manager) are crucial, yet it is easy for companies to overlook it. Differentiating them makes a considerable difference whether you are trying to fill the vacancy of each or you are planning to make a career in any of them.

Guest article written by: Sam Makwana is VP Marketing at Traffic Radius. He is a passionate digital marketer with a creative and analytical mindset. His skill lies in adopting a holistic approach and designing SEO solutions based on the latest marketing trends and web paradigms.