No, we’re of course not implying that being a community manager is a waste of time. The question is are you wasting valuable time in your day-to-day responsibilities as a community manager? Are you falling further and further behind because your methods and protocols are unwieldy and out of date? Are issues that arise taking twice as much time to resolve as they should? Well then, it’s time to take action. Here are some ideas to consider.

The one-man-show. A lot of folks get into community management by themselves and take on all the responsibilities by themselves and stubbornly go down with the ship by themselves when it turns out they’re completely overwhelmed. Realizing that you need the extra help and raising your hand to get it are two crucial steps that can mean the difference between success and failure in your community management venture. Don’t be too proud to bring in one or two folks to whom you can spread the wealth.

Focus on what you do best. If you’re a talented community manager, then be the best community manager you can be. If you’re terrible when it comes to self-promotion -- including optimizing your website, getting the word out about your property, etc. -- find someone who’s really good at those things and hire them. You don’t have to bring them into your organization -- you can easily find a freelancer who can handle all of those responsibilities for you. It’s well worth the investment.

Trying too many community management software programs. This is not a condemnation of online community management software -- not at all -- merely a warning about jumping in on every free trial that crosses your desktop. There are a lot of programs out there, and they range from the anemic to the robust, the cheap to the prohibitive, the simple to the what-in-God’s-name-is-this? interface. You should absolutely have a program, but do your research before you choose one. It’s incredibly difficult to switch from one to another mid-stream, so in this case, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

As a community manager, where do you find yourself wasting the most time? Feel free to comment!

photo credit: ToniVC via photopin cc