🛠 The Essential Guide to Community Management Tools
By Andrew Claremont
When we think about community tools and platforms, we usually think of things that facilitate group conversations: chat, forums, social media. But when we look at the actual day-to-day work that community professionals — especially folks in Community Operations teams — do, there’s a lot more going on:
- Creating and managing the community’s public-facing website(s) and content, including things like blog posts, wikis, knowledge bases, and other repos of community-generated information.
- Facilitating both asynchronous and synchronous conversations and discussions.
- Hosting and managing in-person, virtual, or hybrid events, ranging from impromptu video calls to large festivals or conferences.
- Creating and scheduling email communications and social media posts.
- Sourcing and delivering gifts and swag, e.g., for thanking event presenters or recognizing member contributions.
- Gathering data and creating reports.
Does that seem like a lot? It sure feels like a lot to me. But that’s the reality. ‘Community’ is a broad term, and what’s expected from community professionals varies from one organization to another.
That’s exactly why Community Managers need to create a stack of tools that work together to create a custom solution for their community and go beyond the community platform. Here’s a comprehensive guide to the tools I recommend. 👇
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