What is Community Management?

Community management is the strategic practice of designing, building, and leading communities in a way that creates value for both members and the organization behind the community. At its core, a community manager designs spaces, systems, and experiences where members thrive, and that thriving drives measurable business impact.

That value might look like:

• Stronger retention and loyalty
• Better feedback loops for products and services
• Healthier, safer online spaces
• Increased engagement and advocacy
• Faster learning and knowledge-sharing
• Reduced support load through peer-to-peer help

A community manager doesn't just moderate conversations, they architect the entire ecosystem that makes those conversations meaningful and sustainable.

Despite its growing importance, community management is still widely misunderstood, undervalued, or reduced to tasks like posting on social media or answering support tickets. In reality, community management is a strategic discipline, on the same level as project management, product management, or operations.

Why Community Management Is Strategic (Not Just Tactical)

Community management is often treated as a junior or reactive role. In reality, it requires strategic thinking, systems design, and long-term planning.

A strong community manager:

• Designs community structure (channels, spaces, flows)
• Defines success metrics and tracks impact
• Aligns community goals with business goals
• Achieves results for the business (which highly depend on what those individual goals are)
• Creates scalable programs and rituals
• Anticipates risk, conflict, and burnout
• Builds systems that work without constant intervention

Just like a project manager designs workflows to move work forward, a community manager designs systems that move people forward. This is why community management deserves to be recognized as a strategic profession, not a support role.

What Community Management Is NOT

One of the biggest challenges in the industry is confusion around what community management actually covers. While there is overlap with other roles, community management is not the same thing as:

Social Media Management

Social media focuses on content distribution and reach. Community management focuses on relationships, trust, and long-term engagement. A social media manager grows an audience. A community manager fosters that audience and builds a sense of belonging.

Marketing

Marketing attracts people to a brand. Community management supports people after they arrive, and often turns them into advocates.

Customer Support

Support is reactive and ticket-based. Community management is proactive, relational, and systems-driven. While community managers may collaborate with marketing or support teams, their responsibility is the health of the ecosystem as a whole.

What Can a Community Manager Achieve for a Business?

Because communities are not one size fits all, what a community achieves depends on the type of business behind it, but the outcomes are consistently strategic.

Drive Revenue & Sales

• Engage members and turn them into loyal customers and advocates
• Increase lifetime value through trust and long term relationships
• Support launches through informed, invested audiences

Build Loyalty, Retention & Strengthen Your Brand

• Create emotional connection beyond the product itself
• Reduce churn by giving members a reason to stay
• Strengthen identity and belonging around the brand
• Humanize the business through real relationships
• Establish authority and credibility within a niche
• Create a lasting reputation built on trust, not just marketing

Speed Up Problem Solving

• Enable peer-to-peer support that reduces pressure on support teams
• Surface issues earlier through open feedback loops
• Resolve problems faster through collective knowledge

Product Feedback, User Research & Testing

• Gain direct access to real users who actively use your product or service
• Continuously gather qualitative feedback, not just survey data
• Test new ideas, features, or concepts before full rollout
• Validate decisions with real world insight instead of assumptions
• Catch usability issues, gaps, or frustrations early

Improve Participation Across the Business

• Increase engagement with content, events, products, or learning programs
• Encourage collaboration between users and teams
• Turn passive users into active contributors

The role of a community manager is to intentionally design the systems that make these outcomes possible, based on the business model, audience, and long-term goals.

How does a Community Manager achieve this?

While no two roles are identical, professional community management typically includes:

Community Strategy

• Defining the purpose and value of the community
• Aligning community goals with organizational goals
• Setting success metrics and benchmarks

Community Structure & Systems

• Designing channels, roles, and permissions
• Creating onboarding and offboarding flows
• Building documentation and knowledge systems

Engagement & Programming

• Designing events, rituals, and recurring formats
• Encouraging meaningful participation (not noise)
• Supporting member-led initiatives

Moderation & Safety

• Setting clear community guidelines
• Handling conflict and sensitive situations
• Protecting psychological safety and trust

Feedback & Insights

• Gathering qualitative insights from members
• Identifying patterns, risks, and opportunities
• Translating community insight into action

This work requires judgement, leadership, and strategic decision making, not just execution.

Why Community Management Is Often Undervalued

Community work is invisible when done well. When systems are strong, problems don't escalate. When culture is healthy, conflict is rare. When engagement is intentional, growth feels natural. Because of this, community managers are often judged by surface level metrics, or misunderstood as "just being online all day."

At The Merit, we believe this misunderstanding has held the profession back.

Our Mission at The Merit

The Merit exists to define, elevate, and professionalize community management. We believe community managers are:

• Strategic operators
• Culture builders
• Systems designers
• Leaders, not assistants

Our work focuses on:

• Clarifying what excellent community management actually looks like
• Teaching transferable, strategic skills
• Creating standards the industry can recognize and respect
• Helping community professionals build credible, sustainable careers

Community management is not a stepping stone. It is a profession. As companies increasingly rely on communities, from education platforms to SaaS products to creative ecosystems, skilled community managers are becoming essential. Yet many professionals enter the field without clear frameworks, training, or recognition. That's the gap The Merit is here to close.

Want to Go Deeper?

If you're:

• New to community management
• Already working in community but feeling undervalued
• Transitioning from social, support, or operations
• Trying to understand what "good" really looks like

The Merit provides resources and guidance to help you grow into a strategic, respected community professional. It deserves to be taken seriously.