What kind of community do you manage/facilitate as a Community Manager?
A community for British Expatriates.

Is this community independent (on it’s own) or subsidized by a brand/company/organization?
It was started as an independent community, but is now owned by Internet Brands, a company based in California, that currently owns over 100 communities and websites.

How many members does your community count?
124,000.

What is the ratio between active (the creators) and passive (the lurkers) members?
Ratio of active members to lurkers is around 1:3.

What is the main goal of the community?
I co-founded the community 10 years ago to enable British Expatriates world wide to connect with each other.

When do you consider the community you’re responsible for successful?
It took off very quickly, and was initially started as a hobby. The turning point was when the revenue the community generated (advertising) started to cover our out-of-pocket expenses (server costs/software etc). Whilst we had an active community at that point, it was a relief to know that it was starting to support itself.

How would you describe the culture/atmosphere of the community?
It is a friendly community that has people who have been members for many years. We welcome anyone as a member, but the majority of our members are British and the culture and sense of humor reflects that. People join for different reasons: to find out information about a country they are moving to, or maybe they are new to an area and are looking for tips about places to live/visit, or people are just looking to connect with other Brits. We’ve had a large number of people make friends online which has then translated to them becoming friends offline.

Which techniques do you use to create a ‘feeling of community’ between the members (voting, karma)?
We have a karma system, which members can use to thank each other for good/helpful/funny posts.

I find that if a community has too many bells and whistles it detracts from the communication aspect that is important to a community’s success. So our community concentrates its efforts on encouraging interaction between members.

The community is divided up geographically so that members can find each other by country. Each one of these forums has developed it’s own “feel”. It makes things more intimate and enables members to get to know each other better.

Do you organize off line community meetings?
We do not organize official offline meetings as members arrange get-togethers themselves. In order to encourage this, we have a meet-up calendar, and forums especially for this purpose.

What would you like to see different or improve about your community?
I am currently working on an initiative to make the community more welcoming to new members. As the community has grown it has become more difficult to personally reach out to each new member, and I want to re-focus my attention on that.

To what department does the community belong?
Our community comes under the company’s Travel department.

How are department such as marketing, PR and customer service involved with the community?
As our community is not attached to a brand we are not attached to Marketing or PR.

What does the future of the community look like?
The community has grown organically according to the needs of its members. Social networking is increasingly connecting the different aspects of our lives and I would hope that BritishExpats would continue to grow alongside it. We currently attract approx 2,000 new members each month and it is my hope this will grow as well.

How do you give shape to your role as a Community Manager?
I am guided by the needs of the community and it’s members. Facilitating an environment in which our members can interact with each other is my paramount goal.

Which are your responsibilities as a CM?
A brief rundown of some of my responsibilities:

• Ongoing recruitment, nurturing and support of volunteer moderators. We currently have 26. I try to lead by example, and actively mentor and guide them.
• Establishment of guidelines, recommendations, best practices and procedures related to the community. These change as the site matures and grows. Situations arise all the time that we have not come across before, and the site guidelines are constantly changing and evolving to reflect that.
• I continual monitor user feedback, site usage and effectiveness.
• I serve as the first point of contact for inquiries, customer service issues, user questions, and assist users in utilizing the community features.
• Various site management activities such as sourcing content, and selecting from submitted articles to be featured on the site. Editing of content when needed, and publishing of content and graphics through our content management system.
• Monitoring member activity in the community, including the forum, the blogs, and the wiki.

What do you like the best about being a CM?
Helping people develop relationships with each other.

What is the hardest aspect about being a CM?
Criticism and complaints, (you can’t please all of the people all of the time) and little praise.

Do you have colleagues that help you managing the community?
No.

How do you see the role of CM in the future?
The role of Social Media Manager and Online Community Manager is often confused. As times goes on I see these two roles becoming more clearly defined. Whilst one person may sometimes do both roles, the duties for each are different.

What are your personal ambitions considering the role of CM?
Over the course of the last year I have seen an increasing amount of Community Manager positions being advertised. So my hope is that this role will become more prominent, and recognizable, to those that are not in this field. On a personal note I am hoping to move on to another position at some point, as I feel 10 years with the same community is a long time, and I would like to continue my own development by stretching my wings and helping other communities grow.

Sue John is British and has lived in North Carolina, USA for 12 years. She has been a managing communities for over 10 years, including BritishExpats.com which she co-founded in 2000.