Veronica de Souza
BestVendor
Twitter
@HeyVeronica
Website
http://heyveronica.tumblr.com
Who has been an inspiration for you as a community manager?
To be honest, I draw a lot of inspiration from those I’ve met through Twitter chats. Thanks to a Twitter chat calendar given to me by Megan Berry I’ve been able to participate in a bunch of different chats every week. The most helpful ones so far have been: #cmgrchat and #SMmeasure. I highly recommend at least reading through these weekly Twitter chats.
What do you like best about being a community manager?
My favorite part about being a community manager is getting to talk to people all day. I used to work in a dark, windowless, soundproof room (over night!) so being able to interact with all sorts of people all day is an amazing change. I especially like the fact that I’m the go-to person for help. Whether it’s helping a user experiencing issues with the site or helping someone discover a tool that will make their job 10 times easier, I really value those conversations.
What skill should every community manager have?
Every community manager should have people skills, be organized and have the ability to REALLY focus. My main problem when I first started was that I was unfocused. I would get to work just before 10am, start 5 different things and jump around from one project to the other all day. Nothing would ever get done. A simple task manager helped solve this problem for me.
What advice would you give someone wanting to become a community manager?
I think the number one misconception about my job is that I “scroll through twitter all day.” I’d advise anyone considering being a community manager to not underestimate the amount of work they’re going to have. They’re going to have to block out their time and stay organized in order to be successful.
Tell us about a job that helped prepare you to become a community manager and why.
Believe it or not I used to work in radio. I went to school for audio production and broadcast journalism. I worked and interned at several NYC radio stations before I realized that radio just wasn’t for me anymore. I spent most of my time in radio working in promotions. I dealt with listeners first hand, worked events and organized contests. The same way websites want quality traffic, radio stations want quality listeners. There’s so much overlap!
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