Previously this was an interesting post about the difference in responsibilities between a social media manager and a community manager. Although the debate being somewhat dismissed as unnecessary concept definition and it is good to dwell on. Social media does have a strong understanding of deflation: it is appropriately and inappropriately used without actually really understand what it now means. This is not only bad for broader adoption of the discipline, it is again bad for the professionalization of the profession. Involving a job as community manager in the debate may help focus the discussion and bring the content back.

Not one person can generally all the tasks in the presence of a social media company is looking to take on. Also, the tasks are essentially different in many areas. Distinction between tasks that people perform and share work is therefore of great importance. Distinction between a social media manager (external / based) and community manager (internal focus) can thus sometimes be a logical choice. And while there is no question of a hierarchy between them. Both features play on an equal level. And maybe hear the community manager, because the direct contact they have with the target of a company, still just a treetje higher standing.

The community manager: responsibilities and metrics

Jeroen Loeffen hits in his one-time fee may be the nail on the head. The interpretation of social media companies seem increasingly to be an interpretation of the marketing department and / or corporate communications. Networks like Hyves are mostly moderate campaign deployed. Twitter is loaded with the RSS feed of the press releases page, Twitter is mostly service for distributing commercial messages. That while social media originating arose from a need for users to connect and collaborate. The community manager sees and wants to invest in building a lasting relationship with the community members. Albeit through the facilitation of their own platform or a group of enthusiasts on Hyves or Facebook. The origin is a community manager in this way might be better able to connect to a sustainable way with fans via Twitter and Hyves.

The social media manager would thus actually the skills of the community manager should have, but often focuses on marketing (communication) aspects of social media. The main reason probably lies in 'measurement' and 'accountability'. Managers have responsibilities and to show that they fulfilled those responsibilities they measure their performance. And marketing related services are simply easy to measure: visits, traffic, conversions are 10 to 15 years internet exceptional measure. Community manager for the absence of such clear and accepted metrics.

Net Promoter Score: KPI gives authority to the community manager?

Where the community manager yet, and the reason why social media manager will prevail, lacking a clear definition of 'accountability' and 'measurement'. It is for many companies themselves are often still unclear where the community manager (except for building the community) is responsible for and exactly how the results are made clear. Now the community manager often resort to quantitative metrics as members, visitors etc and individual best practices of community members, but it is unclear how these metrics are actually contributing to business objectives.

But if the purpose of the community manager is to create fan loyalty and community members to raise then maybe the Net Promoter Score metric to embrace the community manager. The Net Promoter Score is after all clear what percentage of your audience can be identified as promoters, passives and the part corresponding to the part corresponding to detractors. It would not be surprising if among community members, loyal fans, a high percentage of promoters can be found. In addition, the community manager not only owned a metric that could be shown that promoters can be identified by communities with the skills and tasks of the community manager's contribution lies in increasing NPS also another obvious.

Am very curious about your thoughts on this topic. A definition discussion is not what I'm after anyway, but think about further development and professionalization more natural.