Career guide
Community Manager: Job Description, Skills and How to Become One
A community manager builds and looks after the group of people who gather around a brand, in comment sections, Discord or Reddit, forums, events and customer groups. They keep conversations healthy, turn members into advocates and bring what the community says back to the rest of the company.
Key takeaways
- A community manager builds and looks after the group of people around a brand, in comments, Discord or Reddit, forums, events and customer groups.
- Community managers differ from social media managers by focusing on conversations between members, not only on posting content.
- A community engagement manager usually runs programs that get members involved, such as events, ambassadors and user-generated content.
- In marketing, a community manager works for a brand; a community association manager runs a homeowners or condo association, which is a different job.
- Evidence that you've built or moderated a community counts for more than a degree when applying for community manager jobs.
What does a community manager do?
A community manager is responsible for the relationship between a brand and the people who talk about it, with it and with each other. Some roles are mostly social (replying to comments and messages); others run an owned space like a Discord server, forum or members’ program; many do both.
A typical week:
- Reading and replying in the brand’s comments, DMs and owned channels, or reviewing replies from a moderation team.
- Moderating: enforcing community rules, removing spam and abuse, escalating anything serious.
- Planning programming: AMAs, challenges, live sessions, meetups, member spotlights.
- Recruiting and supporting superfans, ambassadors or moderators.
- Spotting trending complaints or ideas and passing them to product, support or PR.
- Reporting on community health: active members, response times, sentiment, what members are asking for.
How is a community manager different from a social media manager?
A social media manager is mainly responsible for what the brand publishes; a community manager is mainly responsible for the conversation that follows and the relationships it builds. At small companies one person does both. At larger ones they’re separate jobs that work closely together.
Community roles also come in different flavors:
| Type | Focus | Common at |
|---|---|---|
| Social community manager | Comments, DMs, engagement on public platforms | Consumer brands, media, entertainment |
| Owned community manager | Discord, forums, Slack groups, members’ programs | Gaming, apps, software, creator brands |
| Customer or product community manager | User forums, beta groups, product feedback | Software and tech |
| Developer community manager or advocate | Developers using a platform or API | Developer tools, platforms |
| Events and local community manager | Meetups, chapters, in-person programs | Fitness, retail, membership brands |
This page focuses on the marketing and brand versions. For publishing-side roles see the social media manager job description.
Community manager job description
Copy and adapt. Name the community in the title so candidates know which kind of job it is.
Job title: Community Manager, [Platform or program: e.g. Discord / Social / Members] About [Company] [Two sentences: what the company does, who its customers are, and the community today.] About the role We're hiring a Community Manager to grow and look after our community on [platforms or spaces]. You'll report to [title] and work with social, support, product and [PR / events]. In your first six months you'll [one concrete goal: e.g. launch an ambassador program / cut response time on [channel]]. What you'll do - Run day-to-day engagement and moderation across [platforms], following our community guidelines. - Plan and host programming: [AMAs, challenges, live sessions, events]. - Recruit and support [ambassadors / moderators / superfans]. - Write and maintain community guidelines and an escalation process with [support / PR / legal]. - Share what members are saying with product, marketing and leadership in a regular report. - Track community health using [tools: e.g. Sprout Social, Discord insights, a spreadsheet]. What you'll bring - [X]+ years in community, social or customer-facing roles. - Experience moderating an online community and handling difficult conversations. - Clear, warm writing in a brand voice. - Judgment about when to reply, when to escalate and when to stay quiet. - Comfort reporting results with simple numbers and real member quotes. How we'll measure success - [Metric 1: e.g. active members per month] - [Metric 2: e.g. median response time on [channel]] - [Metric 3: e.g. member-generated content, event attendance, sentiment] Pay and benefits [Salary range], [benefits], [location / hybrid / remote]. [Note any weekend or evening coverage.]
Say plainly if the job includes evenings or weekends. Candidates will ask, and it’s better they know up front.
Skills and tools
The core skill is judgment in public: knowing what to say, to whom, and when not to say anything.
| Skill or tool | What it’s used for | How to show it on a resume |
|---|---|---|
| Writing in a brand voice | Replies, announcements, guidelines | “Wrote community guidelines adopted across [channels]” |
| Moderation | Keeping spaces safe and on-topic | “Moderated a community of [number] members with a team of [number] volunteers” |
| Conflict handling | Complaints, pile-ons, angry customers | One short example with the outcome |
| Programming and events | Giving members a reason to come back | “Launched [weekly series], averaging [number] participants” |
| Feedback loops | Turning community input into product or marketing decisions | “Monthly insights report used by [team] to [decision]” |
| Social and listening tools (Sprout Social, Hootsuite or similar) | Inbox, scheduling, listening | Name the ones you’ve used |
| Community platforms (Discord, Reddit, Circle, Slack, Facebook Groups) | Running owned spaces | Name the platform and the size |
| Basic analytics | Active members, response time, sentiment, retention | One result with a number you can explain |
How to become a community manager
You don’t need a marketing degree for this one. What hiring managers want is evidence you’ve built or looked after a community before, and moderators and support agents often have more of that than marketers do. If you’ve ever run a group chat that people actually enjoyed, you’ve started.
- Volunteer to moderate. Subreddits, Discord servers, fan communities and Facebook Groups need moderators. It’s real experience with rules, escalation and difficult people.
- Build something small. Start a Discord, a newsletter with a reply culture, a local meetup or a group around a hobby. Track members and activity over time.
- Take a customer-facing job. Customer support, retail and hospitality teach the same core skill: calm, kind, quick replies to upset people. Support teams often feed community roles.
- Move sideways inside a company. Social coordinators, support agents and event staff often pick up community work first.
- Write one or two short case studies. The community, what you changed, what happened. Our social media manager portfolio guide covers the format.
- Tailor your resume to the type of community. A Discord-heavy gaming role and a brand’s Instagram comments role want different proof.
Career path
| Before | Community | After |
|---|---|---|
| Customer support, retail, volunteer moderator | Community coordinator or associate | Community manager |
| Social media coordinator | Community manager | Senior community manager, head of community |
| Event coordinator | Community manager | Director of community, social or brand |
| Developer or product specialist | Developer community manager | Head of developer relations |
Community experience also leads into social media management, influencer and creator partnerships, customer marketing and brand roles.
How much does a community manager make?
BLS doesn’t publish a figure for community managers. The nearest government group is “market research analysts and marketing specialists”, shown on our social media manager salary and marketing specialist salary pages. Head-of-community roles sit closer to the marketing manager salary data.
Interview questions to expect
- Tell me about a community you’ve built or looked after. Tests real experience and whether you know what made it work.
- How would you respond to this comment? Often a live exercise with a real or made-up angry post. Tests tone and judgment.
- When do you not reply? Tests whether you know when engagement makes things worse.
- How do you measure a healthy community? Tests whether you go past follower counts to activity, retention and sentiment.
- How do you turn community feedback into something the company acts on? Tests influence inside the business.
- What would you change about our community? Tests research. Spend time in their channels first.
- How do you protect yourself from burnout? Tests sustainability in an always-on job.
For the live reply exercise especially, write the way you’d actually write to a person: warm, human and recognizably you. Community teams are hiring your voice, so use the example answers to see the shape and put the wording in your own words. The full list with example answers is in community manager interview questions.
FAQ
What is a community engagement manager?
A community engagement manager is a community role focused on getting members involved: events, ambassador and advocate programs, member content and feedback sessions. Brands use the title for roles closer to programs and less about moderation. Nonprofits and local government also use it for outreach to residents, which is a different job.
Is a community manager the same as a community association manager?
No. A community association manager runs a homeowners or condominium association: budgets, maintenance, vendors and board meetings, and some states require a license for it. A brand community manager is a marketing role. Check the posting’s duties before you apply, since the two titles appear on the same job boards.
Is community manager an entry-level job?
Sometimes. Coordinator and associate roles are entry level, and some small companies hire first-time community managers if they’ve moderated or built a community on their own.
Do community managers work weekends?
Many do some, through a rota, scheduled coverage or on-call for escalations. Ask how coverage works before you accept an offer.
What’s the difference between community management and customer support?
Support solves individual problems, usually privately. Community management works in public and with groups, aiming to build relationships between members and the brand. The two teams work closely and share an escalation path.
Do you need a degree to be a community manager?
Not usually. Evidence that you’ve built or moderated a community, and that you write well under pressure, counts for more than the degree.