Community management is often seen as a blend of social media engagement and customer support, but those who work in the field know it’s so much more than that.
Ask any community manager to describe their role, and you’ll likely hear a mix of relationship-building, content strategy, event coordination, and even data analysis.
It’s a role that requires wearing multiple hats – part marketer, part problem solver, and part cheerleader – all while creating a space where members feel valued, supported, and empowered.
Whether managing an online forum, social media group, or professional network, community managers are at the heart of cultivating meaningful connections and driving engagement that aligns with business goals.
But how do they really see their responsibilities? We asked the following experts:
- Liz Stack, Senior Brand Manager at Yotpo
- Amanda Whitmore, Senior Marketing Manager at Hive Power
- Kevin Newsum, Head of Community at Sequence
- Vivian Toledo Augusto, Head of Customer Value and Success at Construmarket
- Rick Barcellos, Brand and Community Manager at Growth
- Ewa Magiera, Community Manager at YunoJuno
So, let’s dive into what they had to say about their evolving role.
Describing the role of a community manager
Community managers act as the bridge between an organization and its audience, fostering engagement, building relationships, and ensuring that members feel supported and heard.
While the responsibilities may vary, the overarching goal remains the same: to create a thriving, engaged community that provides value to both its members and the business.
Our experienced community managers have shared their insights on how they describe their roles and responsibilities: 👇
"I lead a community of people who are really just trying to figure out, in an increasingly fragmented world, how they can best take advantage of their financial opportunities. I learn a lot every day, and it's never dull."
- Kevin Newsum, Head of Community at Sequence
"My job is mostly to make sure that you feel that you are set up for success, but also that you feel that you have this community of other members who are willing to help you, or that you can ask a question about pretty much anything relating to freelancer life because they are probably in the same situation as you as a freelancer."
- Ewa Magiera, Community Manager at YunoJuno
"My role involves ensuring that all the customers are getting value, in fact, the maximum value from our service, from our products. This includes overseeing customers' onboarding, customer support, engagement of the process that we have in maintaining the ongoing area there, working closely with everybody, all the clients that we have there, and all the other areas that we have in the consumer market."
- Vivian Toledo Augusto, Head of Customer Value and Success at Construmarket
"With community, I've found there's so many different areas of it. There's interacting with customers, being authentic, the social aspect, marketing... There's so many different parts that go into community management.
"How gratifying it is to create a community and actually see human beings that didn’t know each other get together on the internet and actually help each other — that’s probably the thing that I expected the least, to be so fun to do, and it is all fun."
- Rick Barcellos, Brand and Community Manager at Growth
Teresa Garanhel
Aligning personal passion with professional goals
Many community managers find that their work allows them to pursue interests they deeply care about while making a tangible impact within their organizations and communities.
Whether it’s fostering connections, driving inclusivity, or creating spaces for meaningful conversations, their personal values often align seamlessly with their professional responsibilities.
Our community managers have shared how their personal passions and professional goals intersect in their roles: 👇
"Being an expat and living in Italy, it's a huge part. I think it comes kind of naturally to what I do in life, because I also organize a group of women here for book clubs and international picnics and all of these things. I'm kind of seeing this beautiful union between my personal passion for that and what we can do also to bring the energy transition forward with what I do at work."
- Amanda Whitmore, Senior Marketing Manager at Hive Power
"Back in 2018, our marketing team did an ideation competition, like a fun hackathon internally, and this idea came up where one of the female leaders on our team was like, ‘There’s not enough representation of women in E-commerce.’
“So we started a program where each fall, we collect nominations of women in the industry who are doing really incredible things. And then in the spring, around International Women’s Day, we announce a class of women that we’re honoring for their contributions to the industry, for the inspiring people that they are."
- Liz Stack, Senior Brand Manager at Yotpo
"I love how dynamic community management is. I love how much I have to learn in order to make it happen. And I love the way that this type of role interacts with people and companies.
“I think it’s different than in a sales capacity. It's much more authentic and in a much more ‘How can I help you?’ type of way. And so that’s probably what I enjoy. It feels like a more meaningful type of work for me."
- Rick Barcellos, Brand and Community Manager at Growth
Understanding and meeting community needs
Meeting community needs involves balancing business objectives with genuine support and engagement, creating an environment where members feel valued and heard.
Community managers often develop strategies to encourage participation, foster connections, and provide timely solutions that align with their members' interests and goals.
Here’s how our community managers approach this aspect of their roles: 👇
"Our community is really focused on what our market wants, and our market is executives and managers from the energy and mobility industries.
“So they're looking for connection in person or virtual business card exchanges where they can meet up with other people who are innovating around the same topics, maybe even competitors sometimes, but in the meetings, they're there in cooperation, and we let them do that, both on screen and off."
- Amanda Whitmore, Senior Marketing Manager at Hive Power
"I follow five steps or five built pillars:
- Clear purpose and vision: Everybody there knows where we want to be and how we want to go there.
- Active engagement: We have to get everybody into the project, into the discussion, and the decisions.
- Quality content: We have to provide valuable content, relevant and engage people to be together with us.
- Respect: We always listen to people... and we respect that there is no wrong opinion.
- Feedback: Listen to the clients and take into consideration all the feedback that they bring us... If we don’t do this, we won’t grow or improve."
- Vivian Toledo Augusto, Head of Customer Value and Success at Construmarket
Building human connections and engagement
A thriving community is more than just a collection of members; it is a dynamic ecosystem where relationships are nurtured, conversations are meaningful, and people feel a genuine sense of belonging.
Community managers play a pivotal role in creating an environment where members not only connect with the brand but also with each other.
Here’s how our community managers approach building human connections and driving engagement within their communities: 👇
"You have to kind of quiet all of those [internal distractions] when you're working on your community and be able to respond humanly to a lot of people. And if you're doing things well, it means you're growing every month, and there are more and more humans that you need to reply to in a human way, not just automated ways."
- Amanda Whitmore, Senior Marketing Manager at Hive Power
"A lot of community management, to me, comes down to being able to read a room, and it's an inexact science. It is an art as much as it is a science. But...I really like the analogy of the cocktail party, where you walk in, and you don’t know anybody. How warming is your host? How warming is that environment?
"We had a guy in the Sequence community who, for his birthday, created a solution where people could connect to the Sequence API and do this thing that extended what Sequence is able to do... we celebrated that publicly and also sent him a bundle of cookies as thanks."
- Kevin Newsum, Head of Community at Sequence
"The way that I communicate with those communities is quite different because they’re serving completely different purposes, but it is all people from the E-commerce industry. So it’s really interesting to figure out how you can engage those different groups based on what value they’re looking for."
- Liz Stack, Senior Brand Manager at Yotpo
"We always listen to people or the people that work there, the workers or the clients. They all have the chance to give their opinion, and we respect that there is no wrong opinion or only right or wrong. Everybody has the space to speak."
- Vivian Toledo Augusto, Head of Customer Value and Success at Construmarket
"My job is mostly to make sure that you feel that you are set up for success, but also that you feel that you have this community of other members who are willing to help you, or that you can ask a question about pretty much anything relating to freelancer life, because they are probably in the same situation as you as a freelancer."
- Ewa Magiera, Community Manager at YunoJuno
Challenges in community management and how to overcome them
Managing a thriving community comes with its fair share of challenges.
As communities grow, ensuring that every member feels heard, valued, and connected becomes an ongoing effort.
Our experienced community managers have shared their insights into the common challenges they face and the strategies they employ to overcome them: 👇
"The biggest one is to maintain all the clients and all the people engaged. As the community grows and expands, it becomes harder to ensure that all members have the same space or feel connected, valued, and part of it. Many of them just don’t participate, so it’s really hard.
"To overcome this, we created subgroups, and I added one of my team to be responsible for each subgroup. This person needs to take care of the engagement of their subgroup. We try to put the interests together... and time by time, we change the subgroups.
“Everyone has the chance to share, to talk, and to ask for help."
- Vivian Toledo Augusto, Head of Customer Value and Success at Construmarket
"You want to keep your eye on the ball...we want folks who are just ordinary business people or human beings trying to optimize their financial lives to feel comfortable.
"We are actively working with the community to iterate. For example, the last round of updates we made to the platform was based on what several people had asked for in the community. I created a Typeform and let them rank what we should prioritize. We celebrated the fact that we’re listening and building what they want."
- Kevin Newsum, Head of Community at Sequence
The role of feedback in community growth
Feedback is a crucial component of community growth and development. It provides valuable insights into the needs, preferences, and pain points of community members, helping community managers refine their strategies and improve engagement.
Our community professionals have shared their thoughts on how they integrate feedback into their community management strategies: 👇
"Every quarter, I focus on a slightly different area of community building. For example, I might create feedback forms about someone’s experience with a referral program, or the community’s experience with Slack.
"Sometimes you will start a chat about something completely different, and then you end up with a long list of super helpful feedback that you never expected."
- Ewa Magiera, Community Manager at YunoJuno
"Listen to the clients and take into consideration all the feedback that they bring us. This is important. If we don’t do this, we won’t grow or improve.
- Vivian Toledo Augusto, Head of Customer Value and Success at Construmarket
Technology and tools for effective community management
Community managers rely on a variety of tools and technologies to streamline their processes, engage members, and analyze community health.
The right technology stack can enhance communication, automate repetitive tasks, and provide valuable insights into member behavior and engagement.
Our community professionals shared their experiences and the essential platforms they depend on in their day-to-day roles: 👇
"We use Slack to communicate with our members, and we see the engagement rates—how many people actually care to log in every week and check or answer questions.
“I also use Waves, an add-on to Slack, which helps me track engagement, understand which ideas our members are most likely to share, and even automate workflows to send personalized messages to our 20,000 members."
- Ewa Magiera, Community Manager at YunoJuno
"Our community is a Slack-based community, so Slack is pretty vital to keep things running. But beyond that, we rely on HubSpot for tracking and communication, Canva for content creation, and tools like LinkedIn and Miro for planning and strategizing. Riverside has also been instrumental in creating content for our members."
- Rick Barcellos, Brand and Community Manager at Growth
"It’s not easy to manage all of them, of course, but many of them can be integrated. Slack, for example, integrates with SurveyMonkey, Google Meet, and other tools we use for event management and content creation. This integration facilitates our workflow and makes it easier to engage with our community."
- Vivian Toledo Augusto, Head of Customer Value and Success at Construmarket
"Being able to be human is still very valuable. I think the real answer is: where is AI useful? There’s real utility in things like tapping into the knowledge base to answer repetitive questions and leveraging automation for drip campaigns, but at the end of the day, we must ensure that our tools support, not replace, human connection."
- Kevin Newsum, Head of Community at Sequence
The evolving landscape of community management
Community management has evolved significantly over the years. Today, community managers are expected to navigate a constantly changing landscape, balancing human connection with technological advancements, adapting to new engagement trends, and aligning community efforts with business objectives.
Here’s how our community managers view these changes and the strategies they employ to stay ahead. 👇
"I never saw it as being such a huge part of my marketing efforts until really with High Power, I've seen it be such a success. Community is now a strategic asset that drives engagement and supports our business goals."
- Amanda Whitmore, Senior Marketing Manager at Hive Power
"What I’m working on now is, with a couple of other really brilliant people on my team, looking at the community of D2C marketers as like our new frontier. These are the people we believe we are in a unique position to deliver a lot of value to.
"We just announced a new project. It’s called Is Typing, and it’s a newsletter that will go to D2C marketers each week. Our goal is to keep this group of people really inspired. So we figured, what’s the best way to inspire them? It’s to actually go into the community and each week feature a different marketer."
- Liz Stack, Senior Brand Manager at Yotpo
Curious to learn more about the cold, hard realities of community management? Access insights on tap with the Community-Led Alliance Slack community. (We know, it's pretty meta, right?) There's a boatload of insights in there, you won't regret it.
