Key Skills for Building Community

A topic I keep hearing is what skills prepare the community builder? We are seeing more courses and certifications to prepare today’s community builder. However, current community builders describe stumbling into the profession without even knowing what the field was and how they could prepare their community or organization to become successful.

I’ve had many conversations with hiring managers who are either trying to hire their first staff fully committed to the community program or they are trying to grow their community team. They are wondering what skills they should be looking for when bringing on a new community manager.

The other conversation I’ve been having more frequently is with individuals who are interested in the community space. They want to know what they can do to develop and grow their skills and find a job as a community professional. It’s really a fun and exciting time to be a community professional. We are seeing more jobs and an increase of jobs in more specialized aspects of community. It’s exciting to see passionate, gifted individuals interested in joining the community community. What advice can we give them about developing their skills?

I put together a quick list of what skills I think are necessary for a community builder to be successful.

Being a Super Connector

The core of community is connecting with other people. The most important skill for a community professional is being able to bring people together. There are two elements of community connection at an association.

• Bringing members together. Connecting members with one another so they are empowered to continue to grow the community.

• Connecting with cross-departmental teams and executives to support the community. This is important in finding resources and support from your internal stakeholders so the community will continue to grow.

Empathy

Moderation is a huge part of the community manager job description. Empathy is a huge part of moderation, but it also plays a major role in every element of community building. Empathy means you relate to other perspectives, insights, and worldviews. In my opinion, it may be the single most important element of community building. You can’t bring people together and moderate community discussions without understanding and appreciating perspectives and being able to relate to people with other perspectives.

Engagement

Being able to engage an audience is an art and a skill, but engagement when it comes to associations is more about engaging volunteers who are your servant leaders. Community professionals combine both elements of engagement. They need to be able to engage the audience by driving event attendance, likes, and shares. They also need to engage servant leaders to serve as moderators, panelists, and contribute content. Engagement takes a “people person” who is able to help people feel connected and involved in a community and an organization. These are skills you can’t teach. It takes a special person, but the good news is you will know within the first few minutes if the person is able to engage others.

Content Creation

Content creation is a huge part of community building. Content creates more content and engagement creates more engagement. The great thing about content creation is that community makes it easy to discover what topics are most relevant to your community. Being data and community focused helps you do a better job at creating content that is the most relevant to your community. Being a content creator helps you engage your members better and drive members to the community. It can be considered as more of a marketing skill, but I believe it is an integral part of being a successful community builder.

Desire to Learn New Technology

Technology shouldn’t be a requirement for community building or managing a community platform, but a desire to learn should be! You will need to help members use a community platform. There will be technical questions and you will need to take ownership of them and feel comfortable answering them. Like many things community builders do, you don’t have to be an expert. They just need to be curious and comfortable to be able to find the answer.

In closing

Building community requires a variety of very different skills to be successful. These skills can be developed and grown, but a desire to learn and grown is really at the heart of what makes a community professional successful.

What are your thoughts? Are there any skills I missed? Please share them in the comments.