October 5, 2023
As esports grows, all kinds of job roles establish themselves behind the scenes. Community Managers (CMs) are marketing and PR experts that play a prominent role in gaming and esports brands. In esports’ infancy, it was communities that transformed games into competitive titles and communities that backed up their favorite brands.
Community Management plays a vital part in helping companies achieve their business goals while weaving a tightly connected network of loyal fans. On top of that, it brings value to community members by providing them with spaces and occasions to interact with each other and their favorite brands. If you’re now interested in learning more about this role’s specific responsibilities, I’ve got you covered! I had the opportunity to speak with the incredible CMs Marion Mỹ Anh Baxerres and Victoria Tran about their field.
What does a day in the life of a Community Manager look like?
CMs most commonly handle content planning and execution and ensure that these align with the organization’s marketing strategy, events and goals. In detail, they plan and implement community events, initiatives, and posts on various social media platforms. Depending on the organization, these platforms may vary. However, Discord, Twitter, Reddit, and TikTok are quite common.
But Community Management is not just about posting. Any content type aims to induce engagement, so actively engaging with community members is vital to a CM’s workday. Once the planned content has been executed, it’s also time to measure and monitor its performance through key performance indicators (KPIs). In the work of a CM, there is always more content to be produced, so doing market research and retrieving content ideas is another crucial task. This holds especially true in the ever-changing digital space where gaming and esports CMs operate.
These tasks often happen in close collaboration with other internal or external departments. Each organization has its own procedures in this regard, yet Community Management is a fairly collaborative process involving interdisciplinary work. Thus, you might have to collaborate with your marketing team on creative assets or your brand manager on your tone of communication. Externally, you might cooperate with game developers, publishers, or, of course, your own community. Lastly, CMs regularly handle unexpected problems that arise despite thorough research and planning.
Let me summarize it for you in the words of Victoria: “I’d say 20% of my week is marketing strategy, 20% is social media management, 30% is community management, 15% on analytics, 5% on influencer and press relations, and 5% on miscellaneous tasks.”
How can the work of Community Managers vary?
Although CMs tend to follow a similar formula across different companies, the specifics of their work can vary significantly. CMs may work on all sorts of projects, including games, esports organizations, initiatives, brands, or a combination of these. Different projects involve different responsibilities depending on the projects’ specific characteristics and goals. First, the size and age of the project you cover affects your approach as a CM. With strong brands and already established communities, your focus typically is on retention.
In contrast, new brands require you to create and grow a community from scratch. The communities representing these two cases also have different needs for which CMs must account. For instance, fans of a new game often have questions about its very basics.
Marion highlights another implication of community size and age: “I think having to create a community from scratch would be very difficult for me if I didn’t have previous Community Management experiences. […] It can be complicated to find the right tone, to know in which direction to go to engage players but also be formal enough, so it’s interesting, it’s informative, it’s not just funny all the time.” Marion adds, “and what is funny and works with one game’s community might not work with a different one.”
Furthermore, depending on the size of the community department, you can do work that is more than just Community Management. For example, Victoria has a different experience than CMs working in a big team: “Because we’re a small team, I am usually doing a million different things at once.”
Factors such as a project’s target audience also influence how CMs approach their work. For example, managing the community of a specific game allows CMs to follow planned-out growth strategies. In comparison, some communities are brought together by more niche elements, such as in the case of Marion’s Project AWR – Asian Women Representation. Thus they require a more flexible approach. Marion shares that her switch from a big competitive live game to more independent titles resulted in a more wholesome Community Management experience.
The most important skills for CMs
For the final part of this article, let’s discuss what skills CMs must bring to the table to succeed in their job. Marion considered empathy and communication skills paramount in her role due to their many benefits. According to her, empathetic individuals can easily identify their community members’ needs and wants. In practice, some members might appreciate receiving creative assets for content creation, whereas others want to feel recognized by the company they admire.
In addition, empathy helps when dealing with dissatisfied or even toxic community members. Marion puts it this way: “What I learned is that if they’re upset, then they have a reason to be. So, I always try to give them a chance. [I ask.], ‘hey, what’s your issue? I can see that you’re upset. Is there something I can do? […]’ Either they calm down, or they don’t. If they don’t, I would have tried everything in my power to help, but I can’t spend more time on it. Otherwise, the rest of the community won’t be getting the attention they need from me. And sometimes, they just need to see that someone is listening. Sometimes they just need to remember that they are talking to a person and not just a game account.”
But empathy and communication skills benefit positive fan interactions as much as negative ones. Engaging with the members of your community, aiding them in their projects, and making them feel appreciated forms a stronger bond between your company and its community.
For Victoria, the most important skill is the ability to adapt to changes within your industry and your community. She explains that interacting with community members from a myriad of cultures and backgrounds requires flexibility. The same applies to different incidents at work, such as angry or excited fans. These cases necessitate different communication strategies. Adaptability is especially crucial for CMs in gaming and esports because of the volatile nature of these fields.
Conclusion
Community Managers take on a diverse set of responsibilities, ranging from strategizing to fan engagement. Meanwhile, they communicate and collaborate on multiple fronts. To be successful in their role, they must possess the empathy and agility to navigate a field of nuanced interactions and business needs in an ever-changing digital environment. If you now want to dive deeper into Community Management, keep your eyes peeled for my next month’s article!