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I get asked a lot about how I got in to Community Management, and how I ended up where I am now in terms of a career path, so I& #39;m gonna do it. I& #39;m gonna do a Tweet thread. 1/?
Firstly: there& #39;s no secret. My story is basically compassion, empathy, timing & sheer dumb luck. Honestly? It& #39;s a very similar experience for a lot of CMs, too. So when someone asks how to get in to this path, it& #39;s a tough question because "be lucky" is a v unhelpful answer. 2/?
So let& #39;s talk about ways to gain relevant "experience" outside of a professional environment. First up: be present in communities! Spend time in community spaces for things you enjoy. Observe, participate, figure out what does & doesn& #39;t work, what keeps you engaged there. 3/?
This is a great way to see how communities work, the different ways they engage with themselves, and how to handle situations that arise. This applies to all platforms! Discord, Reddit, Forums and even social media. Dive in & find those spaces and get a feel for them. 4/?
See how folks respond to situations and what really resonates with communities. What they enjoy, what gets them excited, what language encourages and engages them. What language they use amongst themselves! It& #39;s all interesting and important context for guiding a community. 5/?
This one comes with so many caveats I almost removed it but... In spaces you& #39;re familiar with, you could volunteer to be a moderator. This is really only suitable to spaces you& #39;re regularly active in. Please don& #39;t bug existing moderators in a space you& #39;re new to! 6/?
I have complicated feelings around volunteer mods, but it can be useful experience. However! It may not always be in line with what the folks running that space want. That& #39;s okay! Doesn& #39;t mean they don& #39;t think you& #39;d be good at it, it& #39;s just not what they want right now. 7/?
Pay attention to social media. In a perfect world, Community Management would be separate from Social Media Management, but a lot of places don& #39;t have budgets or volume that allows for both. So, it& #39;s important to be on top of current and emerging platforms. 8/?
Play around with them, see what& #39;s working for other people and what& #39;s not, try figure out why. You don& #39;t need to be TikTok famous to be a CM, but you should understand how to figure out making that happen for The Brand. 9/?
Finally; play around with the tools of the trade! You don& #39;t need a corporate budget to use a lot of social media scheduling tools (they all have free trials or free account versions), and this knowledge is very handy. 10/?
Discord moderation and bots knowledge is also extremely valuable. Discord is a hugely important platform for communities and knowing how to set one up and operate it? A+! Try to have some anecdotes here so you can comprehensively discuss it. 11/?
This is by no means exhaustive, nor is it the perfect formula. Some places will be looking for things that others aren& #39;t! But these should hopefully be pretty evergreen tips, at least, and I hope you find them useful. The end!
