The Rise of Community Engineers👷
The transition from being a community manager to a community engineer creates better communities for everyone.
If you’ve been looking for a job in the Web3 space or even in the overall digital space, I am 100% sure that you have encountered job titles such as "community manager," "community moderator," "community marketing specialist," and other lengthy titles for roles concerning community building. But why are those roles and jobs in demand now, and what do those roles do, and what is their importance, especially in the Web3 space?
I have been in the community building and management space for more than 6 years, and I have been involved in building, managing, and scaling different communities in different industries and regions, especially in gaming and Web 3. Learn more about me (here). When most of us hear these kinds of titles like "community management" and "community moderator," most of us associate it with just the mere creation of a Discord server or Facebook group, and the management side is just the common moderation activities such as banning members, approving or deleting posts, making events, and so on, and so most of us do have a low view towards these roles, and especially way back then, not a lot of people would consider it to be a real job or a career that they would consider.
Perhaps because, back then, few companies would consider hiring community managers and moderators because it was mostly considered voluntary work. But that is the shift that I am currently seeing, in which I believe that the Web3 space has a huge influence. Now we could see that more and more companies are now considering hiring community managers and moderators, and it's something that a lot of small projects and startups now consider a "need" as they see the value of a well-built and active community.
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So the question is: why do companies now consider hiring for these roles more than ever before? I believe we could break these down into different questions. First is what do community managers and moderators actually do and should do? And why all of sudden companies are giving importance to communities?
What do community managers and moderators actually do?
Just like with what I’ve mentioned earlier, most of us think that community management and moderation are only about creating Discord servers and creating several channels and roles, or creating Facebook groups and approving and deleting posts, and that’s it. To some degree, that is true because that is the common job description and tasks that employers do give to those roles, but I believe that community management is more than just that. I believe that community management is more than just banning members if they post memes in the general chat or rejecting posts if they don’t have the right hashtags. So what is community management, then?
I believe that community management, building, moderation, or whatever you want to call it has underlying principles, philosophies, and disciplines just like with any other profession. Now you might say, "Zab, what are you talking about? It's just moderating, bro, nothing so deep about it." Yes, sure, but moderating and managing a community means making sure that you are able to make your community members recognize and follow whatever rules or guidelines you implement in your community. Making them follow and strategies for doing so are already getting a little deep, aren't they? Because it includes understanding your community, their behavior, and being able to use that to further strengthen your relationship and rapport with them.
This is where Community Engineering comes in. Now community managers and moderators reading this might have something like this on their minds. "Well, being called a "Community Engineer" is way, way better." But there is a reason behind the title and the word "engineer" at the end. And no, this is not an overuse of the term nor the goal is to have it as a title to be added in your CV/Resume. I believe that engineering a community means being able to design the foundation and develop strategies effectively to make sure that your community is aligned with the values, goals, and mission you or your company have. Now, before we dive deep into Community Engineering, we must first define what these two words mean.
What is Engineering?
According to the Cambridge dictionary, "engineering is the study of using scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other things, including bridges, roads, vehicles, and buildings."
source: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/engineering
If you will check other definitions of the word "engineering," you may see it being defined as "the application of science and math to solve problems and innovate new products." So expanding our earlier definition, Community Engineering is being able to build the identity (purpose), belief system, and infrastructure (management and operation) in order to solve problems within your community. But what is a community in the first place?
I believe community is best defined as a group of people that come together over a shared interest and identity and that also have a means for value exchange. which means that a community is not just a Facebook group or Discord server with people in it. There should be a means for value exchange, sharing, or contribution between members. Why is that?
Let’s travel back time…
Going back to the time of our ancestors, a community was very important because being alone meant certain death as nature posed a lot of dangers like saber-tooth tigers, wild animals, and other uncertainties. The only option to survive was to belong to a community. Being part of a community back then doesn’t mean that you will be sitting around and doing nothing waiting for everyone to hunt food and to serve it in front of your face to eat it. Being part of a community back then meant that you had to contribute and have a task to do.
So while others were hunting you could be the one to cook it once they arrived or be the one to protect the cave while the others were not around, and so there was a means for a value exchange, and that's how communities developed and evolved to what they are today. Without a means for a value exchange, a community is not a community; it's just a group of people being placed in the same place, in the same Facebook group, or on a Discord server.
Now going back to our definition of "Community Engineering," we say that it's all about solving problems within your community. What are those problems anyway?
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The Two Major Problems of Communities
I believe that all communities encounter two major problems: the first is being able to build a strong relationship with community members, and the second is being able to scale and grow the number of community members. Most communities have solved at least one of the two problems I mentioned. Either they figured out how to build strong relationships with their members through events or initiatives, or they figured out how to grow and invite more members into their community. In the early days of the community, we could see it work, but if we are looking for a community that will last long-term and that will scale, we would need to figure out both. The challenge for communities is figuring out how to do both.
Many communities now prioritize either building relationships or increasing their numbers, rarely both. Most community builders might see it as a dilemma, as we know that the bigger the community is, the harder it is to build a strong relationship with them. It’s obviously hard to build a relationship with members of a community with a million members rather than a hundred, and its just important for a community to be able to grow both the relationship and the numbers.
How do you build a strong relationship with your community members while maintaining steady growth in their numbers?
This is something that we will discuss in the next blog and will be your stepping stone in transitioning from being a community manager to a Community Engineer. In our next blog, we will answer this question along with the other questions that we have left unanswered, such as why community management roles are now booming. Why do companies and organizations already see the need for a community surrounding their products and services? And why are communities important to the Web3 space?
If you are interested in learning more about Community Engineering, feel free to subscribe to my substack channel and reach out to me (here) so we can discuss further how we could better build and manage communities. If you are already a community builder and you find this article helpful in some way, feel free to share it with other community managers and builders you know. Thanks a lot, GM!
Images and graphics used is generated through the power of DALL-E https://labs.openai.com/