NPR is looking for a Community Manager for their Culver City location. This is an excellent opportunity for the right person!

Being a community manager is TOUGH work and while it’s very much an exciting new frontier for career choices, it is still largely a misunderstood and often thankless routine. (See Piñata below.)

Part of me can’t help but wonder if NPR got it right with their title, or their description. We’ve discussed before the qualities of a Community Manager versus say, a Social Media Manager or a Digital Marketing Strategist. At this point, I think we might need to call for more clarification. I’m piqued by the job description and wonder if a more suitable title might draw bigger talent – or if they are hoping to ‘discover’ young inexpensive unicorn type talent. If anyone can, it’s NPR, that’s for sure!

The position reports to the Director of Audience Engagement and New Ventures in the Marketing department. That sounds legit and as if there might be some built in support! Is it you? Is this your job?

If community management is but one (super tedious) aspect of a well rounded digital strategy, the infographic below is a nice breakdown of the complex pieces that need to come together for effective leadership of an online community!  Maybe one day, we’ll map out the phrenological look into the mind(s) of those that understand all of this and respond to it all eloquently, and then also toss in digital marketing innovation, creative content production and design, technical DIY savvy, and hey – while we’re at it, we’ll toss in classic marketing/sales messaging, brand building and SEO expertise! What an exciting time for this growing career path!

Good luck to NPR’s Community Manager! It will be a fun and exciting challenge.