Here's how you can become a community manager for a brand today

Community managers are often the public face of a brand – the online presence there to build communities.

They play a crucial role in shaping how a brand is perceived online by helping to forge, maintain, and grow meaningful communities.

There is a significant focus on fostering communities across social media platforms, while online forums and other digital spaces need oversight, too. Community managers essentially act as the face of their organization.

For example, a sports organization might have a community manager to manage multiple online fan relationships. Public-facing companies might need a community manager to handle and funnel complaints and queries.

By doing this, they help guide community members in creating a healthy and vibrant space. They can also spot small problems within a brand’s community before they become unmanageable.

In this guide, we'll explore where the community manager role sits in an organization, what the job involves, and how to become one.

In this guide:

>> Get expert advice on community management here

Why community management matters

Building meaningful connections online is all down to community – which matters even more in 2025. After all, 5.24 billion people now use social media.

The role of a community manager is to transform casual followers into brand advocates and manage those relationships. This can be achieved with an active, well-managed community that, in time, will influence your marketing strategies and business goals.

The community manager position plays a pivotal role, whether it’s on social media, with in-person groups, or on online forums. They play a key part in maintaining a brand’s community through engaging existing members and attracting more.

Community managers have a lot to contend with, from conflict resolution to content creation, social media oversights, and project management. There’s plenty to manage.

Community manager job description

Typically, a community manager job description looks like this:

  • Managing online communities such as social media platforms, forums, or other digital communities on behalf of a brand.
  • Keeping members or followers engaged with content, posts, discussions, polls, or events.
  • Creating content that resonates with a desired audience such as blog posts, video, or user-generated content.
  • Analyzing audience and community engagement with analytics tools to better understand their behavior and gain valuable insights.
  • Becoming a go-between for the community and a brand’s internal teams. This could be the wider communications team, the complaints team, or even the product team.
  • Effectively managing and resolving conflict diplomatically, whether that be online or in person.

Ultimately, community managers play vital roles in bridging the gap between an organization and its audience. The work they do helps build an engaged audience that remains happy and loyal.

Community manager responsibilities

Delving deeper into the community manager job, here are some of the wider responsibilities.

  • Setting community guidelines to ensure the creation of a respectful and productive online space to engage in.
  • Encouraging community engagement through planning events and activities, both online and in-person.
  • Working collaboratively with other teams to align on wider business goals such as marketing, product design, or public relations.
  • Using data-analytic tools to track community sentiment, participation, and growth metrics.
  • Ensuring that you gather feedback from community insights with internal stakeholders to improve products, services, or communications.

These responsibilities outline how important a community manager is and how an organization can authentically engage people.

A community manager will likely work alongside a social media manager to maintain consistency in brand messaging and work on resolutions together. Large organisations might even have separate teams that overlap on various duties.

>> Learn more about collaborative brand management in our guide

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Key skills for community managers

You will need a specific skill set as a community manager to thrive in the position.

An obvious first is great communication skills. Ultimately, you have to communicate effectively in both written and verbal form, especially when dealing with larger audiences.

You also need interpersonal skills to build strong relationships and help manage conflict. When it comes to conflict resolution, you have to have empathy to keep communities healthy and vibrant.

Then there are organizational skills, which are important when it comes to coordinating multiple platforms and forums, planning community events, and handling social media management tasks that demand a high level of ability. Don’t worry, you can use a social media management tool to help here.

Handling numbers and data is the key to tracking metrics, identifying patterns within a community base, and analyzing user feedback. You’ll need to be good at this and thrive at interpreting data from digital platforms.

Other things like creative thinking and willingness to engage are necessary for designing campaigns that successfully connect an audience. After all, you need fresh ideas to keep communities active, engaged, and growing.

An underrated skill for community managers is being able to respond to criticism and be proactive. You need soft skills such as teamwork, problem-solving, and adaptability in a job that can be fast-paced and demand your full attention – often outside of work hours.

The impact of community management on a brand’s success

A strong community manager has the potential to significantly lift a brand’s online reputation and online presence. This is achieved through a mix of regular social media content and engaging conversations with audiences.

Both efforts require you to be proactive. You need to post what communities like and be ready to respond to their comments and actions.

Here are some results you can expect when a community manager does their job well.

Boosted brand awareness

By successfully managing your brand’s narrative within online communities, it’s possible to grow awareness and positive perception of your products and services.

A brand’s positive online presence also increases the likelihood of audiences and community members sharing updates and engaging with the brand on a deeper level. Proactivity is paramount for achieving this.

It also ties in closely to general online reputation management. Through proactive, consistent messaging, community managers are also able to control the sentiment around brand awareness.

Driving engagement and loyalty

By effectively engaging with an audience, community managers can ensure that members feel heard, valued, and part of the brand. It will boost loyalty and encourage them to talk about the brand more.

Do it right, and audiences can swiftly become brand advocates.

Moreover, online communities can become a reliable source of feedback and a great place to gain user-generated content (UGC).

Informing marketing strategies

A community manager must gather daily insights from real conversations to refine future strategies.

It helps you make data-driven decisions and create marketing campaigns that are targeted to a more niche audience that is relevant to your brand.

You can also use advanced social listening tools to predict future trends and identify new audiences.

Community management in practice

Now let’s look at how community managers actually represent a brand’s interests. There are various areas that a community manager needs to focus on – it’s paramount they have the organizational skills to balance it all.

Social media platforms

For many organizations, social media is the backbone of community engagement. Sites such as Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), and even Pinterest act as gateways for community-led growth.

Usually, a social media manager might oversee this, but a community manager can dive deeper into the conversation, build relationships, and ensure an audience feels valued.

Engaging with these sites effectively involves smart responses to posts, which you can read more of in our guide on how to reply to social media comments.

Online forums and forum software

A dedicated forum or message board is still important for building audiences in certain niches. Brands can use Reddit for community building and as a platform to launch more niche campaigns.

No matter your audience’s interests, online forums are key spaces for building in-depth discussions. Community managers maintain and moderate these spaces to keep them constructive, relevant, and welcoming.

In-person groups

As a community manager, you will often primarily focus on online communities. However, you shouldn't discount the importance of in-person groups.

Live events and meet-ups are really important for strengthening connections and building a brand's loyalty beyond the online world.

Do it right, and you can achieve far greater connections with people who go home and share their experiences on social media. This multi-connection approach is what community managers strive to achieve.

Using community management tools

Social media management and social listening tools such as Brandwatch help make a community manager’s role more efficient.

A tool can help aggregate and analyze brand mentions across social media and identify trends in real time.

Furthermore, you can measure engagement, track conversations, and provide data – all useful insights for improving your marketing strategies and community management practices.

Harnessing the power of these tools enables community managers to make data-driven decisions and refine their community engagement tactics.

It’s the sort of thing that proves invaluable for brands that seek to protect and improve their reputation in the ever-evolving forum that is digital communications.

How to become a community manager

So, you may have decided that being a community manager is the job for you. Let’s discuss a general roadmap of how to become one.

It’s important to know the right qualifications and experience required. Most professionals in this field will hold a bachelor's degree in communications, marketing, or public relations. However, it isn’t always a strict requirement, and often employers will value hands-on experience that demonstrates you have the skills.

You should always look to develop your skills. Build on your communications and analytical abilities wherever you can. Do this through internships, online courses, or volunteer roles. Take a look at creating content – whether it be short videos, writing blog posts, or anything else that is public-facing – to sharpen your creative mindset.

It’s also a good idea to be updated on social media management techniques, as this will likely be part of your day-to-day responsibilities. Look to manage personal accounts or volunteer to moderate a friend’s brand page to gain experience in the area.

Entry-level spaces are a good place to start in the industry. Startup companies, agencies, or small businesses may be able to give you practical, on-the-ground experience. Ensure you’re prepared to engage with community members and not afraid to manage conflict.

Always portfolio your work to demonstrate the journey you’re on. This can include screenshots of your posts, metrics that display increased engagement, or success stories in how you’ve built an engaged community.

Don’t always think you know everything! It’s important to continue learning even as you gain more experience. This will help you stay up-to-date on community management trends. Connect with experts in your field on LinkedIn to follow their updates and discover new opportunities.

Social media management can be an adjacent role alongside community management, so take a look at our post on how to become a social media manager.

Community manager salary and career prospects

According to Comparably, the average salary for a community manager in the United States is $76,168. According to Glassdoor it’s between £27,000 and £43,000 in the UK.

Factors such as location, industry experience, and the size of the company, of course, all come into consideration.

How Brandwatch can help

As a community manager, you often juggle social media marketing, content creation, and ongoing online conversation moderation. Brandwatch Social Media Management provides an integrated platform that helps you do all this in one place by overseeing multiple social media accounts together.

Brandwatch Consumer Research gives you deeper insights into consumer sentiments, which helps you build stronger strategies that better resonate with your audience.

Combined, you have the tools to manage your social media content and connect with communities on a richer level. 

Having these workflows in one space means you don’t have to sift through countless notifications and threads or log into separate channels. Use Brandwatch’s advanced tools that combine data and workflows to flourish as a community manager today.

Next step for aspiring online community managers

It’s important to think about a community manager job as more than simply moderating comments or scheduling posts. You need to understand your audience and why they behave the way they do, so that you can meet their needs.

Only by aligning with your community can a brand cultivate trust and turn online audiences into enthusiastic brand advocates. It’s a key part of any modern marketing strategy and, when it’s done well, it builds a level of loyalty amongst your audience that drives your entire brand.

If you think a community manager job might be right for you, then begin by developing your communication, analytical, and interpersonal skills. Search for job opportunities that align with your passions, and don’t hesitate to showcase your unique voice and creative thinking.

Discover how Brandwatch’s tools can help streamline community management and unlock actionable insights. Request a demo to see how our solutions elevate your daily tasks. Your path to becoming (and thriving as) a community manager starts right here – why not explore the possibilities today?