Questions Regarding a Career in Community Management

[Sir_Bumble_Bee]

I was debating on posting this in Off-Topic but I think this fits this side of the forum slightly more…
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I'm currently in school studying media and communications studies (graduating in one year, thank goodness) and I have the goal of doing PR work. Specifically, I want do something like brand/community management, representing a company online and interacting with consumers.

I've recently opened up to the idea of being a community manager for a game publisher or developer, one that produces online focused titles in particular. I think having the job of surveying a player base, taking notes on what's popular and what's not, and working with developers on how to improve the game sounds extremely cool. Plus, with a lot of games going the GaaS route, I feel like this position has become more important.

However, I'm still very ignorant of the details of how this specific career field operates. Are there openings often? Is turnover at a healthy rate? Where are most of the jobs located (I live in Maryland btw, the only big publisher around here is Zenimax/Bethesda)? Do they pay well enough to the point I don't have to worry about getting a second job? Should I just avoid the gaming industry as a whole and turn my attention to a more tradition PR pathway?

I'm curious to hear some responses.

 

[@TheFriendlyBro]

As a start, perhaps you can join specific game forums or community's? Using Bethesda as an example, I'm sure they have their own on site forums.

So why not join, become a prominent member and in time you can perhaps become a moderator? Something like this can be done in your spare time but that's just one example.

Get involved with community events, follow community managers on Twitter and so on.

Also, keep an eye out for internships and work experience opportunities! If you see nothing online, you can always send an email.

Not sure if this helps but I'm just throwing some thoughts out there.

 

[Moobabe]

Hallo!

So I've worked in PR (non-gaming), and now I work in Brand/Marketing at a 300~ person studio in the UK. I cover a little bit of Community Management since we don't have one right now, so hopefully, I can shed some light...

I don't see a huge amount of openings for CM roles, certainly not compared to dev roles (though the need there is much higher). The turnover rate is average for normal careers -- I see a lot of people with 2/3 years experience in one place before moving on.

I can't help you so much with locations, but studios with GaaS titles are always a good bet for community management positions.

The pay is on the lower end, typically, especially for more junior CM roles. I don't know what your financial situation is like so I couldn't tell whether you need to have a second job or anything, but most junior CMs I know are ok.

As for whether you should avoid the industry... ymmv. Dealing with consumers all day can be tiring; everyone has an opinion, everyone expects it to be heard, some will be really fun to interact with, some won't, but it can also be super rewarding -- and depending on where you end up the opportunities for travel and events will be amazing.

I can also recommend a Brand Management route! You still deal with consumers, but you also end up dealing with partners, affiliates, influencers etc -- though you might spend less time going back forth on features and requests with the game teams.

If you have any even more specific questions please feel free to drop me a DM.

(Also the post above is good advice!)

 

[spam musubi]

A friend of mine was a CM for a variety of gaming sites and developers for years, and he just recently quit gaming this month. He was very tired and worn down by the toxicity of gamers. So beware of that. The people you will likely have to deal with aren't going to be like era posters. It's more like 4chan/gamefaqs/anime avatar twitter.

 

[Sir_Bumble_Bee]

As a start, perhaps you can join specific game forums or community's? Using Bethesda as an example, I'm sure they have their own on site forums.

So why not join, become a prominent member and in time you can perhaps become a moderator? Something like this can be done in your spare time but that's just one example.

Get involved with community events, follow community managers on Twitter and so on.

Also, keep an eye out for internships and work experience opportunities! If you see nothing online, you can always send an email.

Not sure if this helps but I'm just throwing some thoughts out there.

Click to shrink...

Thanks! I think I have an idea on how to get started now.

Hallo!

So I've worked in PR (non-gaming), and now I work in Brand/Marketing at a 300~ person studio in the UK. I cover a little bit of Community Management since we don't have one right now, so hopefully, I can shed some light...

I don't see a huge amount of openings for CM roles, certainly not compared to dev roles (though the need there is much higher). The turnover rate is average for normal careers -- I see a lot of people with 2/3 years experience in one place before moving on.

I can't help you so much with locations, but studios with GaaS titles are always a good bet for community management positions.

The pay is on the lower end, typically, especially for more junior CM roles. I don't know what your financial situation is like so I couldn't tell whether you need to have a second job or anything, but most junior CMs I know are ok.

As for whether you should avoid the industry... ymmv. Dealing with consumers all day can be tiring; everyone has an opinion, everyone expects it to be heard, some will be really fun to interact with, some won't, but it can also be super rewarding -- and depending on where you end up the opportunities for travel and events will be amazing.

I can also recommend a Brand Management route! You still deal with consumers, but you also end up dealing with partners, affiliates, influencers etc -- though you might spend less time going back forth on features and requests with the game teams.

If you have any even more specific questions please feel free to drop me a DM.

(Also the post above is good advice!)

Click to shrink...

yup, I'm bookmarking this post. Thanks!

As for the dealing with customers part... I've worked in a pharmacy for 2 years here in the states. It doesn't get much worse when it comes to dealing with very disrespectful people

 

[jman0625]

In a similar boat, but am more aiming at the Brand and Product Management side of the video game industry. Any ideas on how to get started?

 

[Moobabe]

In a similar boat, but am more aiming at the Brand and Product Management side of the video game industry. Any ideas on how to get started?

Click to shrink...

Hey jman!

As above, really. I got my experience working in PR at an agency, we did stuff for a bunch of big brands like Samsung, Amazon, BBC etc -- but never games -- but that was enough experience for me to make the transition into the industry.

Feel free to drop me a DM if you want more specific advice or me to look at your CV etc

 

[SmartWaffles]

Hey, it might kinda be my alley. I worked at a pretty big mobile game company on PR and marketing, mostly doing material writing though. I do have a side gig for managing some Starcraft tournament organizers and interacting with teams/players.

In this gig you want to be very proactive and be able to predict potential player reaction/interaction issues and bring it up to your marketing or dev team, it's not entirely necessary at the beginning, but being observant is an incredible skillset that can bring you a lot of extra appreciation.

Secondly, if you want to / was assigned to be very player facing, practice to be very precise with your writing. Misspeaking can be more often than not, grave mistakes that are costly, and you want to constantly communicate internally with your team to make sure you do not. And of course, up your writing game, good writing skill is always highly regarded in this line of work.

Also, I do agree with Moobabe that dealing with customers can be tiring and frustrating, especially on the internet with gamers.

 

[jman0625]

Hey jman!

As above, really. I got my experience working in PR at an agency, we did stuff for a bunch of big brands like Samsung, Amazon, BBC etc -- but never games -- but that was enough experience for me to make the transition into the industry.

Feel free to drop me a DM if you want more specific advice or me to look at your CV etc

Click to shrink...

that would be incredible, thank you so much!

 

[Deleted member 44371]

Hey jman!

As above, really. I got my experience working in PR at an agency, we did stuff for a bunch of big brands like Samsung, Amazon, BBC etc -- but never games -- but that was enough experience for me to make the transition into the industry.

Feel free to drop me a DM if you want more specific advice or me to look at your CV etc

Click to shrink...

Can I send you mine as well? :)

 

[Nome]

For junior/associate/entry level jobs, there doesn't tend to be much of a formal experience requirement, although anything you can scrape together is helpful—anything from social media expertise to doing things like making sweet OTs on Era. The CV phase is mostly a crapshoot, so any sort of connection or recommendation you can get will be a trump card.

If you manage to make it to the interview phase, passion and attitude will be what they're looking for. Intimate knowledge about their product is a must.

The combination of the above is why entry level CMs tend to get hired from the community. It's much more difficult (without prior industry experience or connections) to apply for products you're not genuinely into.

 

[Nome]

Oh.. and the "working with developers" part is kind of a pipe dream. Obviously it depends on the company, but at most places community and marketing have no direct contact with developers, and only interface through producers. Expect it to be more of a crowd control job than anything else.

 

[Moobabe]

Can I send you mine as well? :)

Click to shrink...

Course!

 

[Minthara]

The first step of becoming a community manager is realizing that every company has pretty much a different definition of community manager, along with giant differences in pay. Some companies have Community Manager roles open for minimum wage and others somehow think social media manager and community manager are the same job (they are not!).

My honest recommendation if you want to become a community manager: focus on gaining marketing experience and then focus on acquiring general business experience. Community ties a lot of departments together (and are often their own departments at giant companies) such as Sales, Customer Success, Support and Marketing, but generally from my experience non-independent community teams live within marketing. Volunteer experience helps (my own personal background of doing community management on the side and moderating forums when I was younger got me to where I am now) but the real key thing for you to prove yourself is having the ability to identify a company's community, how to engage with that community and how to grow it.

Also: realize that working in the video game industry will surpress your pay a lot. Where I live, Community Manager can range from 30k a year to 80k a year in pay, with a majority of the higher paying jobs being outside of the video game industry.

I got my position largely because of my experience (my schooling background is business administration, so marketing, project management, finance and business in general) and because my companies community was in shambles. My actual video game industry background was QA tester to Senior Tester to Coordinator (which is where I started my community work). I would have never gotten where I would have without that business background, and getting where I have allowed me to spring off that to a sales, marketing and pro services coordinator job within two years. After attaining that job I was recognized for my community know how and then moved into my current role as a community manager as part of a great marketing team, where I am paid quite a bit more than minimum wage due to experience.

Long story short: don't get too attached to the video game industry, it's full of dead ends and the industry itself preys on the "oh video games are cool!" to make sure everyone's wage stays as low as possible. Business background can give you a lot of the fundamentals of how to be a good community manager, since it touches a lot of the same bases. Marketing experience especially helps.

Edit: also do your research! At my old company "Community Managers" were just forum moderators which has very little to do with actual community management, and they were paid the lowest wage possible because of that.