Not long ago,  I changed jobs from being a Community Manager of a niche social networking site to being part of a team establishing the in-house press office of an existing organisation.

Are working in PR and Community Management actually that different?

There are 3 core practices that I think are integral to both:

1. Setting goals and measuring them

Whilst setting up a press office it has been vital to set ourselves realistic yet challenging goals. They’ve helped us to keep focussed in working towards realising the visions and values of the organisation. Setting targets like how many press hits we want to achieve and the different kinds of publications we want to achieve them in has motivated us to constantly strive to do more, to meet and exceed those targets.

A Community Manager also needs to set achievable goals. Looking at the number of interactions, return visits, and content added on a monthly basis will help you to understand which of the tactics you use to engage the community actually work. Being able to take a step back and objectively view how you are achieving your goals is vital for staying on target, and understanding how the work you are doing contributes to the work of the organisation as a whole.

2. Tailoring your message

Working in PR absolutely requires you to tailor the message you are sending out, dependent on what you are trying to communicate and who the audience is. Often that audience will be a journalist, who you want to write about your story – often understanding what would interest them specifically and why they would be interested in your story is the key to seeing your story end up in print.

When engaging an online community, it is often important to the members that they feel their experience with the community is a personalised one. Some communities will have the technology to personalise a member’s homepage so they see data relevant to them, but all will require the community manager to understand what the members are finding interesting and of use, and to continue tailoring what they add to the site to meet those adapting needs.

3. Building relationships

Perhaps the most important thing we have done in our first 6 months setting up a press office has been building relationships. Putting in the groundwork and spending time listening to and understanding a wide variety of stakeholders, including other teams and members of the organisation, press departments at other organisations and relationships with key trade media, has helped us in reaching our goals. I would absolutely call it one of the main priorities of a press officer.

A Community Manager’s bread and butter is building relationships. Whether that be between themselves and individuals or groups in the community, or supporting the growth in relationships between members themselves, this will be the main focus of the community manager when trying to reach their goals, because in online communities it is often those relationships which actually keep people coming back for more.