FieldJournals

If you are an outdoors business, you need to have Community Manager on your staff  in today’s social web.  Large businesses like Cabela’s or BassPro need to have a person in this position to monitor and react to conversations on the web.  Major brands such as these two companies should have a community manager and not just a full-time marketing person who monitors the social stream once or twice a day.  Quick responses/reactions are key in the real-time web.  Here is a high level view of what a community manger will do for you.

The Community Manager oversees a variety of fan communities – including social networks (Twitter, Facebook, etc), blogs, band websites, and E-teams – for a diverse roster of outdoors brands.  The community manager is responsible for setting, maintaining, and achieving specific and actionable goals, including revenue, traffic, and engagement. You are the eyes and ears of the company in and among the customers: you know how they think, how they act, and more importantly you are able to measure and analyze these patterns. You must have a firm grasp of client motivation, marketing, and the nuances of the outdoor industry in the digital age.  The community manager is an integral part of determining the strategies, tools, goals, and objectives in the success of the company brand.

Responsibilities include:
- Maintain and run companywebsites, blogs, and social networks with updates and e-mail blasts. Will also be involved in the development of artist websites, including wireframing, user experience design, and feature requisition.
- Determine and Achieve specific goals for community including revenue, traffic, and engagement.
- Work closely with the new media department and marketing department to execute marketing and grassroots campaigns
- Update weekly community activity and demographic reports.
- Heavy research of outdoor communities and word-of-mouth analysis (Reading and analyzing message boards, blogs, other outdoor sites, etc.)
- Internet research of new outdoor communities and trends.
- Contribute to the design and creation of outdoors digital assets.
- Read and react to Tweets, blogs, conversations on the social web.
- Become the social identity for the company on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.