How to Become a Community Manager in 2024: The 4 Steps

Brands, institutions, media, it is essential today tobe present on the internet and social networks. In order toincrease their visibility on the networks, many brands or others call upon a community manager. He is the one who will post content to attract and retain an audience on the web. 👥

From a personal point of view, becoming a community manager represents an opportunity to make a living online. Many brands are looking for community managers to develop their visibility on social networks.

The good news is that it is possible to become a community manager, even without experience. If you want to make a living from the internet, this job is ideal. To help you out, we’re going to give you a step-by-step guide to becoming a community manager from scratch. 💪

What is a community manager?

A community manager in French. This term means a lot and very little at the same time. In reality, the notion of community manager can be applied in many cases, but is mostly used on social networks .

Definition

The community manager, often abbreviated to CM, is in charge of community animation. He will animate a community on the internet and social networks in general on behalf of a company, a brand, a celebrity, an institution, etc. 💻

As such, the community manager is responsible for publishing content on an entity’s social networks in order to generate engagement. Most of the time, a CM will work on behalf of a brand to do communication. But the community manager can also work for a media or an association for example.

Let’s take an example. 📝

You probably know about Netflix, the most famous and used streaming platform in the world. The brand has a French account on Twitter, where they regularly post content. They will announce the release of new series and movies, but also ask questions to their followers to create engagement.

As you can see, a simple tweet related to a series can create a lot of engagement. In this way, it makes users want to go to Netflix to watch or rewatch that series. 👀

And that’s the role of the community manager: to federate a community to find customers in the case of a brand, or to get more visibility in the case of a media for example.

Regarding their status, most community managers are employees. They work for a single company or for a communication agency. In the second case, a CM may have to work on several types of accounts. 👨🏻‍💻

A typical day as a community manager

Many people think that the community manager spends all day on social networks responding to comments or posting content. But in reality, each community manager will have his typical day depending on his status, his missions and others.

To illustrate, we will take the example of a community manager who works for a brand. In this case, you should know that you will have a communication plan to follow, provided by your employer. You will obviously have to adapt yourself according to the target audience of the brand you work for. 🤝

Generally, the morning will be used to prepare the content to be published. You will be able to create relevant content and produce publications to post for the next few days. The goal is obviously toalways be ahead of your editorial calendar . You can plan to publish content in the morning at the times when the audience is strongest.

Part of the day is reserved for theanalysis of the results. Here you will have to do A/B testing and analyze the results of your publications. The goal is to optimize your publications in order toincrease the engagement rate. In the same way, the CM must perform informational and competitive intelligence in order to adapt to trends. 📊

In the afternoon, you can work on tasks that require less concentration. It can be as simple as customer relations, i.e. answering subscribers’ questions, communicating with your current customers or others.

It also takes a few minutes to write a report of your activity on social networks for your clients or your employer. This will help determine if the communication strategy is working well or if it needs to be modified. 🖥️

If you are a freelance community manager, you will also have to devote some of your time to accounting.

Who is the right person to be a community manager?

The job of community manager is a natural fit if you are comfortable with the internet and social networks in general. But it is not necessarily necessary to be present and active on social networks on a personal basis. You can learn to master the codes of the internet and social networks to practice this profession. 🌐

Being a community manager will be easier if you have a good web culture. But again, this can be learned. You will have to keep up with the latest trends on the internet in order to post popular content on social networks.

According to us, several qualities are necessary to be a good community manager. The first one is simplyhaving an easy contact. Customer relationship management is a key skill in community management. So you need to know how to communicate with your audience. 🗣️

The second essential quality is reactivity. As you know, the internet and social networks are always on the move. Therefore, you must be adaptable and able to react quickly to trends. This is even more true if you work on several accounts at once.

Notions in digital marketing and natural referencing are also welcome. Generally speaking, you need to master key web-related skills. 🧑🏻‍💻

Finally, you should know that this job can be done 100% from home. If you like to work from home, community management can clearly be an activity that suits you.

How much does a community manager earn?

The community manager profession is quite new and therefore, it is difficult to determine the average income of this activity. The problem is that there are different statuses, different specialties and so on. Therefore, it is impossible to define the exact salary of a community manager. ❌

However, we can draw an approximation of the income earned by community managers thanks to some studies.

According to the website hellowork.com a beginning community manager earns between 1700 and 2000€ gross per month. 👨‍💻

Thanks to a study conducted by the Blog du Modérateur(BDM), we can have a more precise idea of the salary according to certain criteria.

According to BDM, the median salary for community managers is €28,000 per year. 💰

But the salary evolves with experience. A community manager earns on average :

• 25.000€ per year if he has less than 5 years of experience
• 31.500€ per year if he has between 5 and 9 years of experience
• 33.000€ per year if he has more than 10 years of experience

The salary will also vary depending on the size of the company 🏢 :

• 23.000€ per year for Very Small Enterprises(VSE)
• 27.500€ per year for Small and Medium Enterprises(SME)
• 32.000€ per year for Intermediate Size Companies (ETI)
• 40.000€ per year for Large Enterprises(LE)

Salary may also differ based on location📍:

• 36.000€ per year for a position in Paris
• 26.000€ per year for a position in the provinces

With these statistics, you can see more clearly how much you can earn with community management. Obviously, this can vary depending on your experience, skills and more. 📈

The 4 steps to becoming a community manager

At this point in the guide, you need to know if this job is for you. If so, we’ll show you all the steps to become a community manager from scratch.

Step 1: Learn the community manager’s job

To become a community manager, some people will tell you that you absolutely have to have a degree. Many community managers do indeed have a diploma, but in our opinion it is not mandatory. You can make a good living from community management by training on the internet. 💻

There are several ways to train as a community manager. We will show you the most effective methods to get you started in this activity as soon as possible.

The first method is simply to read books. There are a lot of books that will allow you to learn community management for only a few dollars. You can find books in English and French to learn the key skills of this trade. 📚

Many of the books are of very good quality. We personally recommend Nicolas de Beaulieu’s book “Community Manager: Storytelling, luxury and viral video“.

For about ten euros, you will learn what you need to know to manage an online community. This book also teaches you how to use storytelling toincrease your engagement rate, but also to build loyalty among your audience. As a bonus, you’ll also see how to create viral content to gain visibility quickly. With this book alone, you’ll have a good foundation and real skills to offer. 💪

The second method of training is completely free. It is about watching videos on YouTube. On this platform, you will be able to find a multitude of videos to present you the different skills of this profession.

But you can also find videos that show a typical day in the life of a community manager, the tools to use and more. This is a good way to see if this job is for you or not. Generally, you will also be able to access free training via some YouTube channels. 👁️

Watching videos on YouTube is a free way to discover and progress in community management. But we think this is a rather limited method. It’s going to be hard to find videos that tell you from A to Z how to become a community manager.

The last method is to train with a premium course. There are now many online training courses that will train you step by step in the profession of community manager. You will discover in this type of training how to create a communication plan, how to make a watch in order to be aware of the latest trends and others. 📊

This type of training aims to make you an operational community manager, ready to work for a brand.

In some cases, you can obtain an official certification, recognized by the state. You can also use your Compte Personnel De Formation(CPF) to fund a community management course. 💰

Step 2 : Mastering the codes of the Internet / Conducting an information watch

If you go through a premium training, you will inevitably learn to master the codes of the internet. This will allow you to know what content to offer, how to adapt to trends and more. If you’re self-training, you’ll need to learn how to conduct a watch so you’re always on top of the latest trends. 📊

This is a very important step, because if you don’ t master the codes of social networks and the internet in general, you won’t be able to federate a community.

If you are young and have a personal presence on the networks, you are bound to be aware of the latest trends. While this may help, it is not enough to publish relevant content that fits the codes of the social network you are working on.

In order to follow the trends on a particular social network, you will have to carry out what is called a watch “. In other words, you’re going to find out what the latest trends are, what kind of content is most popular and so on. Monitoring is also about analyzing what your competitors are doing. 🧐

To be aware of the latest trends, you can use Google Trends, a free tool. This site allows you to get the news in real time everywhere in the world as well as in France. You can also discover the most searched topics on the web.

If you are present on Twitter, you can for example use TweetHunter . This software will give you ideas of tweets to publish according to the trends. This type of tool also exists for YouTube ( TubeBuddy ) for example. In general, many community manager tools can help you monitor trends and perform your information/competitive intelligence.

As you have seen, there are some tools and tips to learn about web culture and analyze trends on social networks. But again, if you train with a paid course, you will learn to master the codes of the internet. It is a paying solution, but it is the best way to learn about social networks. 💪

Step 3: Learn to master community management tools

There are a lot of tools that are not necessarily mandatory, but that will greatly facilitate your life. By learning to master community management tools, you can also be more effective and increase your audience. We will briefly introduce you to the tools that can be useful to you. 🛠️

To get started, you’ll need design software. In some cases, you will have a graphic designer available to create the visuals you need. But if you work in a team with a limited budget, you may have to create thumbnails, visuals for social networks and other things.

But don’t worry, there are simple to use software programs that make it easy to create quality visuals. One of them is Canva, a free tool with many templates. With this software alone, you can already design beautiful visuals. 🎨

Then, you can use tools of “ social network management “. These programs have several features. For example, you will be able to post your publications on several social networks at once(Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.), but also schedule them. 📅

This type of software, such as Hootsuite for example, also allows you toobtain detailed statistics about your activity on social networks. It’s also a way to learn about trends in order to use the right keywords on a social network for example.

There are other tools that can help you find influencers to collaborate with on Instagram, LinkedIn, or others. This type of software allows you to check the quality of an audience and thus determine if it can get a good engagement rate. 👀

Finally, you may need to use software such as chatbot “. In other words, you can create a bot that answers questions from your audience on social networks. The goal is to simplify the customer relationship and lighten your workload.

We recommend that you learn to master the most essential tools. This way, you will be able to work with the majority of employers in the community management field. 💪

In some cases, your employer or clients may require you to master a specific software program. But in this case, it will be up to him to introduce you and train you to use this tool. So you don’t need to learn how to use thousands of different software programs!

Step 4: Find a job / find clients

Once you’ve mastered the key skills or trained yourself to be a community manager, it’s time to find a job or find clients if you want to freelance. 🤝

To find a job as a community manager, you can go to job boards like Indeed, Glassdoor or Pôle-emploi. It is on this type of site that you will be able to find the most job offers for a community manager position.

You can find job advertisements for different sectors of activity, but also offers that require more or less experience. There are many offers that provide telecommuting. If you want to work from home, we encourage you to look into whether the company accepts remote work before applying . 💻

Also, brands regularly post community manager jobs directly from their Twitter/Facebook account or other.

Although it is rarer, it is possible to work as afreelance community manager. There are also several methods that will allow you to find clients. We’re going to show you some tips on how to land your first assignments. 💼

The first method is simply to register on freelancing platforms. These platforms will connect freelancers with individuals/professionals. You will be able to find clients and offer your services.

Let’s take an example with Upwork, one of the most well-known freelancing platforms. 👀

As you can see, some freelance community managers will be specialized. For example, professionals will offer their service only on the theme of cryptocurrencies, luxury, new technologies and others.

If your profile is well referenced, many potential customers will visit it every day. Therefore, you can quickly find your first clients through this type of platform. But generally, the missions are of short duration. 🗓️

The missions will be for example to create a visual for the social networks, to create a communication plan or others. But you can also find long-term assignments, where you will have to manage social networks and publish content.

The second method you can use to find customers is very simple. In fact, you’ll simply canvass brands that have an account on social networks. Here you will offer to manage their social networks and/or create content on their behalf. 👨‍💻

Be careful, the goal is not to canvass random accounts with copy and paste messages. You need to identify the brand accounts that may need a community manager. Knowing that you won’t be the only one canvassing these accounts, try to bring value when you contact them. For example, you can suggest improvements, content ideas or other.

The network will also play an important role in your ability to get assignments , especially long-term ones. If you have good contacts, you can easily get referrals and find new clients more easily. 🗣️

If you go through a premium training, you will have access to private support groups where job offers will be posted regularly. The trainers can also in some cases give you access to their network in order to find your first clients.

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Now you know all the steps to follow to become a community manager and make a decent living from this job. We really invite you to follow the advice we have given you in this guide. You will be able to serenely launch yourself into the world of community management and find your first clients or your first job by following them. 💪

If you intend to make a living from this activity, we invite you to read our comparison of the best tools for community managers. Many software programs can help you and make your life easier in your daily work. 🛠️