Differences Between Social Media Manager and Community Manager

The social media manager and the community manager are two widely used concepts, but different despite the fact that sometimes the actions of one and the other can be confused.

The social media manager is responsible for planning the strategies that will be carried out on social networks, and the community manager is responsible for executing them. We can say that one is in charge of strategic action and the other of operations in social media.

What actions does each develop?

Before listing the most common actions and tasks by the social media manager and the community manager, it is necessary to comment that these two profiles do not always exist in the company. In other words, when we talk about large companies they can coexist, but in small and medium-sized companies it is usual for all these tasks to fall to the same person.

Even if an entrepreneur manages his own social networks, he may be identified in the management of these actions.

A social media manager is responsible for:

• Develop company strategies in social networks based on having studied the competition, potential customers, products and brand value .

• Define the objectives that are intended to be achieved in social media.

• Analyze the competitors and how they evolve.

• Analyze the metrics and statistics of social networks. The external and internal data that is obtained.

• Maintains a constant relationship with the community manager .

• Prepare a crisis plan that includes possible responses and actions to comments on social networks, for example.

The community manager has among its main competencies:

• Create the publication schedule.

• Monitor the brand .

• Follow the guidelines of the social media manager.

• Respond to comments on social networks.

• Analyze the activity and pass these statistics to the social media manager to assess them.

As you can see, both work together, but the social media manager would be the person in charge of the department if we had to speak in those terms.

These two professionals are relatively new, since they emerged as a result of the boom in social networks, and they have become an essential part of the company. They are the communication channel between users and the business, and the opinions, interactions and responses they collect from their activity can be used to modify strategies and see the most immediate and real-time demands of the audience.

It is essential before starting any activity on social networks to carry out a social media plan that would be the job of the social media manager to publish with meaning, avoiding publishing content that is not very relevant to the brand. You have to learn in social media to test, assess and modify actions to see what works best.

In social networks, nothing is immediate, and everything requires time to work to achieve the desired results. That is why it is important to always have real goals that can be achieved.

Otherwise, you would be making a mistake since it would cause a bad strategy and the achievement of erroneous results if you intend to achieve immediate actions.