Community Development Specialist

The Community Development Specialist is the bridge between brand or media asset and its desired community or target customer. He/ She acts as the brand ambassador, engaging with potential customers while reinforcing relationships with existing ones. He creates community development and engagement plans, as well as content plans. He gauges sentiment from target customer of the brand or asset using social listening tools to monitor feedback and engagement. He builds customer loyalty by establishing and developing customer engagement using the development of forums, social media and other communication platforms. He also ensures that content is coordinated and aligned across all languages and platforms, communication of new content asset features across all channels and implementation of promotions, including brand activation in order to create buzz. He also manages contentious issues, public relations, media relationships and deals with enquiries across traditional and digital platforms. The work involves interpreting customer insights, planning community messaging and engaging the community. He has to be responsive in taking decisions regarding community engagement. He may be expected to travel as part of larger integrated marketing and community development campaigns. He is an expert at social listening, community building and engagement. He is comfortable in interpreting analytical insights to take decisions. He is expected to be an effective planner and engage with stakeholders in order to influence others with his ideas and plans.

Skills and Competencies

Technical Skills & Competencies

Brand Management
Proficiency Level
"Facilitate co-creation of a positive brand image through stakeholder programmes and interactions and develop ideas for improving brand identity and organisation’s reputation."
4
Business Negotiation
Proficiency Level
"Manage and direct negotiations and refine negotiation policies."
5
Community Development
Proficiency Level
"Moderate online and offline communities to encourage customer engagement while managing the profile of the organisation."
4
Content Marketing and Strategy
Proficiency Level
"Develop plans to deliver targeted brand messaging through content, including content type, styles, modes and frequency of content delivery."
4
Contract and Vendor Management
Proficiency Level
"Manage performance levels against agreed contractual standards, and resolve complex contractual issues through investigation and analysi"
4

Generic Skills & Competencies

Service Orientation
Proficiency Level
Exceed customer needs and expectations and handle service challenges with a positive mindset. Demonstrate an understanding of the organisation’s service vision, mission and values.
Basic
Communication
Proficiency Level
"Articulate and discuss ideas and persuade others to achieve common outcomes "
Intermediate
Problem Solving
Proficiency Level
Anticipate potential problems beyond the current scope and apply higher order problem solving tools and techniques to turn problems into opportunities.
Advanced
Creative Thinking
Proficiency Level
Connect or combine ideas or information from unrelated fields or applications to generate multiple ideas to bring about a specific outcome.
Intermediate
Digital Literacy
Proficiency Level
Use available software features to create and edit documents, customize templates and reports and evaluate online information.
Intermediate

Critical Work Functions and Key Tasks

Develop marketing strategies and plans

• Review customer insights and preferences to develop the community strategies for various brands and media assets
• Recommend the type of platforms, initiatives, content and messaging aligned with the marketing strategy 
• Identify the relevant target customers for the various brands and/or media assets
• Adopt new approaches to community development and engagement to enhance customer experience
• Identify social media benchmarking tools that can be used to track performance of community development operations and specific 
campaigns
• Develop key performance indicators for the community development and engagement initiatives

Use research and insights

• Develop an understanding of reporting metrics to improve and strengthen community management activities and social content development
• Review customer activity within the community forums and benchmark them against competitor forums to understand the industry landscape
• Oversee the qualitative analysis on customer feedback within the community
• Identify the changes that may be required to improve performance of certain community platforms

Manage community development operations

• Advise senior staff on the use of new media
• Review customer insights and preferences to develop detailed community development and engagement plans
• Propose changes and use of innovative approaches and new media to enhance engagement and participation
• Oversee the development of calendar of initiatives and content calendar to implement community strategies
• Grow penetration into key platforms and media segments by collaborating with the marketing team
• Oversee the community development budgets and achievement of key performance indicators (KPIs) as per the plan and strategy 

Develop network and outreach

• Build partnerships with traditional and online players to develop initiatives that enhance community development and engagement
• Channel traffic to the community platforms to enhance community development and engagement
• Understand the principles and variety of online outreach, social media and influencer programs
• Identify innovative programmers to drive higher customer retention, loyalty and experience
• Drive the organization's sponsorship strategy for seminars and conferences on relevant industry topics
• Coordinate with content creation and other agencies to improve outreach initiative design and outcomes

Manage crisis

• Define community guidelines, protocols and escalation matrices for managing crises
• Analyse a crisis situation and identify ways to manage the crisis with the use of new media channels
• Drive crisis management messaging using appropriate channels to minimize any worsening of the organization's brand reputation

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