What Does a Web3 Community Manager Actually Do?

Everything? Nothing? Shit post? Depending on who you ask you’ll get all of the above answers - but none of them really capture the role.

• Web3 places strong emphasis on hiring community managers

• Community managers engage users and keep them loyal

A Web3 Community Manager (or Community Builder as some prefer) is a role you’ll see tons of job posts (https://web3.career/community-manager-jobs) for. If you’re going to interview for these roles it’s probably a good idea to know what it means and what the general expectations of you are in this role.

Why Community Matters in Web3

Web3 communities are the backbone of a strong ecosystem. Creating loyalty to your product be it a dApp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/decentralized-applications-dapps.asp, NFT collection, or DeFi protocol is one of the best ways to create a ‘moat’. That is - to keep users using your product instead of jumping to competitors.

In Web3 this is more important than ever - every product competes against projects both in their ecosystem and in other ecosystems. So how do you create a moat? In Web3, real stickiness comes from genuine connection between a project and its users.

This is where community managers come in.

The Many Hats of Community Managers

A community manager in Web3 isn’t just a social media manager - they’re an integral part of any strong marketing team. Meme lord, moderator, analyst, crisis manager, marketer - these are just some of the roles a good community manager plays.

The day-to-day can vary wildly depending on the project’s stage, but most CMs will find themselves juggling tasks like these:

• Engagement & Retention - Keep the discord and telegram active with events, quests, activities, and any other meaningful interactions based on the specific community

• Onboarding & Education - Help new users get started and direct them in their onboarding journey towards becoming an active participant

• Sentiment Monitoring - Have a finger on the pulse of the community - understand what they’re enjoying and what they’re frustrated about, feed the product team feature requests and ideas

• Crisis Management - Stop FUD and scammers from affecting your community, manage community backlash / frustration in real time before it gets out of hand

Community managers are often the first to know about shifts in sentiment or friction points that the rest of the product team might not be aware of.

What Makes a Great Web3 Community Manager?

Beyond activity levels and follower counts - there are a few traits that great CMs share:

• Empathy: they understand the frustrations and motivations of the community

• Adaptability: Web3 moves fast - great CMs know how to pivot

• Clarity: They are great communicators even when it comes to complex ideas

• Consistency: They say that 90% of life is just showing up. This is especially true for CMs

Humanizing the Project

The community manager does a bit of everything - but more than anything they humanize the project and make a genuine connection between the project and the community. In a space where attention is fleeting, monetary incentives are boundless, and loyalty is earned daily - community managers are the glue holding the project together.

In Web3, community isn’t a marketing channel - it’s the heartbeat of the project. Community managers are the ones who keep it pumping.